Mercury 2.5 vs Ministral 3 14B
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Ministral 3 14B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mercury 2.5 scores 6.3 points higher (12.3 vs 6.0) but costs 5.8× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $37.6; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 6.0, and Ministral 3 14B when 6.0 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Ministral 3 14B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 6.0 | −51.2% Ministral 3 14B is 51.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $37.56 | −82.8% Ministral 3 14B is 82.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.20s | 8.02s | +91.0% Ministral 3 14B is 91.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.20 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 14B vs Mercury 2.5: 51.2% less intelligence, 82.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.0% 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.
- Ministral 3 14B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Mercury 2.5Ministral 3 14BToday'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/ministral-3-14b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/ministral-3-14b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill