Grok 4.6 (High) vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (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 4.6 (High) scores 32.0 points higher (44.3 vs 12.3) but costs 9.0× as much to run the benchmark ($1963 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (High) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (High) | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.3 | 12.3 | −72.2% Mercury 2.5 is 72.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,962.90 | $218.11 | −88.9% Mercury 2.5 is 88.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 34.63s | 4.33s | −87.5% Mercury 2.5 is 87.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Grok 4.6 (High): 72.2% less intelligence, 88.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 87.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Grok 4.6 (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-4-6/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill