Mercury 2.5 vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Mistral Small 3.1 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 5.2 points higher (12.3 vs 7.1) but costs 7.8× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $27.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2.5 when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 7.1 | −42.3% Mistral Small 3.1 is 42.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $27.82 | −87.2% Mistral Small 3.1 is 87.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.24s | 11.25s | +165.3% Mistral Small 3.1 is 165.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Mercury 2.5: 42.3% less intelligence, 87.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 165.3% 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 Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Mercury 2.5Mistral Small 3.1Today'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-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill