Mercury 2.5 vs Beam 1.0
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Beam 1.0 by Reflection? 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
Beam 1.0 scores 18.0 points higher (30.3 vs 12.3) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($319 vs $218; both mid-range class). Pick Beam 1.0 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.5.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Beam 1.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 30.3 | +146.3% Beam 1.0 is 2.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $318.73 | +46.1% Beam 1.0 is 46.1% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.32s | 7.79s | +80.3% Beam 1.0 is 80.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.40 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Beam 1.0 vs Mercury 2.5: 146.3% more intelligence, 46.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 80.3% 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.
- Beam 1.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mercury 2.5Beam 1.0Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/reflection-beam · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/reflection-beam?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill