Inkling Small vs Mercury 2
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines 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
Inkling Small scores 14.9 points higher (25.7 vs 10.8) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick Inkling Small when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Mercury 2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 10.8 | −58.0% Mercury 2 is 58.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $104.94 | −56.4% Mercury 2 is 56.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.67s | 8.08s | −36.2% Mercury 2 is 36.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text |
Mercury 2 vs Inkling Small: 58.0% less intelligence, 56.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 36.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
Inkling SmallMercury 2Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill