Mercury 2.5 vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Mistral Small 3.2 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 5.3 points higher (12.3 vs 7.0) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $122; both mid-range class). Pick Mercury 2.5 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 3.2.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 7.0 | −43.1% Mistral Small 3.2 is 43.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $121.78 | −44.2% Mistral Small 3.2 is 44.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.18s | 10.52s | +151.7% Mistral Small 3.2 is 151.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Mercury 2.5: 43.1% less intelligence, 44.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 151.7% 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 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Mercury 2.5Mistral Small 3.2Today'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-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill