Mercury 2.5 vs Solar Mini 4
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Solar Mini 4 by Upstage? 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
Solar Mini 4 scores 11.8 points higher (24.1 vs 12.3) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($502 vs $218; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Solar Mini 4 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.5.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Solar Mini 4 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 24.1 | +95.9% Solar Mini 4 is 95.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $502.02 | +130.2% Solar Mini 4 is 2.3× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.32s | 27.46s | +535.6% Solar Mini 4 is 535.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.10 / $0.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Solar Mini 4 vs Mercury 2.5: 95.9% more intelligence, 130.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 535.6% 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.
- Solar Mini 4 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Mercury 2.5Solar Mini 4Today's Pareto 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/solar-mini4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/solar-mini4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill