Grok 4.3 (High) vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.3 (High) by SpaceXAI or Mercury 2 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.3 (High) scores 14.1 points higher (24.9 vs 10.8) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $105; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.3 (High) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.3 (High) | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.9 | 10.8 | −56.6% Mercury 2 is 56.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $363.24 | $104.94 | −71.1% Mercury 2 is 71.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.88s | 8.08s | −67.5% Mercury 2 is 67.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $2.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Grok 4.3 (High): 56.6% less intelligence, 71.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 67.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.3 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Grok 4.3 (High)Mercury 2Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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