Mercury 2.5 vs Mistral Large 3
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Mistral Large 3 by Mistral? 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
Mercury 2.5 scores 3.0 points higher (12.3 vs 9.3) but costs 4.7× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $46.4; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Mistral Large 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 9.3 | −24.4% Mistral Large 3 is 24.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $46.41 | −78.7% Mistral Large 3 is 78.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.32s | 7.17s | +66.0% Mistral Large 3 is 66.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.50 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 3 vs Mercury 2.5: 24.4% less intelligence, 78.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.0% 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.
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Mercury 2.5Mistral Large 3Today'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/mistral-large-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/mistral-large-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill