Mercury 2.5 vs MiniMax-M3
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or MiniMax-M3 by MiniMax? 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
MiniMax-M3 scores 16.9 points higher (29.2 vs 12.3) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($538 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick MiniMax-M3 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.5.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | MiniMax-M3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 29.2 | +137.4% MiniMax-M3 is 2.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $537.98 | +146.7% MiniMax-M3 is 2.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.33s | 25.47s | +488.2% MiniMax-M3 is 488.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
MiniMax-M3 vs Mercury 2.5: 137.4% more intelligence, 146.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 488.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- MiniMax-M3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Mercury 2.5MiniMax-M3Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/minimax-m3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/minimax-m3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill