Mercury 2.5 vs Muse Spark Open (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) 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 Open (Xhigh) scores 26.6 points higher (38.9 vs 12.3) but costs 5.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1185 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 38.9 | +216.3% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 3.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $1,184.90 | +443.3% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 5.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.33s | 17.34s | +300.5% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 300.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) vs Mercury 2.5: 216.3% more intelligence, 443.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 300.5% 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 Open (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 Open (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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