Mercury 2.5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Mistral Medium 3.5 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
Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 1.9 points higher (14.2 vs 12.3) but costs 5.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1264 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 14.2 | +15.4% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 15.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $1,263.80 | +479.4% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 5.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.24s | 17.85s | +321.0% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 321.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mercury 2.5: 15.4% more intelligence, 479.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 321.0% 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 Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2.5Mistral Medium 3.5Today'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-medium-3-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/mistral-medium-3-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill