Grok 4.3 (High) vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.3 (High) by SpaceXAI or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.3 (High) scores 12.6 points higher (24.9 vs 12.3) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $218; both mid-range class). Pick Grok 4.3 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.5.
| Metric | Grok 4.3 (High) | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.9 | 12.3 | −50.6% Mercury 2.5 is 50.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $363.24 | $218.11 | −40.0% Mercury 2.5 is 40.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 27.84s | 4.33s | −84.4% Mercury 2.5 is 84.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $2.50 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Grok 4.3 (High): 50.6% less intelligence, 40.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.4% 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 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Grok 4.3 (High)Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-3/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-3/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill