Mercury 2.5 vs Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) scores 32.8 points higher (45.1 vs 12.3) but costs 7.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1655 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 45.1 | +266.7% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 3.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $1,655.27 | +658.9% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 7.6× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.39s | 29.94s | +582.0% Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) is 582.0% 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 (Xhigh) vs Mercury 2.5: 266.7% more intelligence, 658.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 582.0% 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.
- Muse Spark 1.3 (Xhigh) 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 (Xhigh)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-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/muse-spark-1-3-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill