Mercury 2.5 vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 Max scores 27.9 points higher (40.2 vs 12.3) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $218; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 12.3, and Mercury 2.5 when 12.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 40.2 | +226.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 3.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $3,172.37 | +1354.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 15× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.24s | 64.17s | +1413.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 1413.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Mercury 2.5: 226.8% more intelligence, 1354.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1413.4% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Mercury 2.5Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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