Mercury 2.5 vs Solar Pro 3
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2.5 by Inception or Solar Pro 3 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
Mercury 2.5 scores 4.5 points higher (12.3 vs 7.8) but costs 1.4× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $159; both mid-range class). Pick Mercury 2.5 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Solar Pro 3.
| Metric | Mercury 2.5 | Solar Pro 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.3 | 7.8 | −36.6% Solar Pro 3 is 36.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $218.11 | $159.22 | −27.0% Solar Pro 3 is 27.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.32s | 18.89s | +337.3% Solar Pro 3 is 337.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Solar Pro 3 vs Mercury 2.5: 36.6% less intelligence, 27.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 337.3% 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.
- Solar Pro 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Mercury 2.5Solar Pro 3Today'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-pro-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2-5/solar-pro-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill