Mercury 2.5 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) scores 6.1 points higher (18.4 vs 12.3) but costs 4.3× as much to run the benchmark ($941 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 18.4 | +49.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 49.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $940.97 | +331.4% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 4.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.20s | 65.15s | +1451.2% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 1451.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Mercury 2.5: 49.6% more intelligence, 331.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1451.2% 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.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Mercury 2.5Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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