Mercury 2.5 vs Muse Spark 1.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) by Meta? 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
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) scores 35.8 points higher (48.1 vs 12.3) but costs 9.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2000 vs $218; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 48.1 | +291.1% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 3.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $2,000.35 | +817.1% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 9.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.18s | 67.10s | +1505.3% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 1505.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) vs Mercury 2.5: 291.1% more intelligence, 817.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1505.3% 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.
- Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2.5Muse Spark 1.3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/muse-spark-1-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/muse-spark-1-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill