Mercury 2 vs Mercury 2.5
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Mercury 2.5 by Inception? 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 1.5 points higher (12.3 vs 10.8) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($218 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick Mercury 2.5 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Mercury 2.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 12.3 | +13.9% Mercury 2.5 is 13.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $218.11 | +107.8% Mercury 2.5 is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.65s | 4.33s | −34.9% Mercury 2.5 is 34.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.25 / $0.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Mercury 2.5 vs Mercury 2: 13.9% more intelligence, 107.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mercury 2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) scores 37.80 for $94.1.
- Mercury 2.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mercury 2Mercury 2.5Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2/mercury-2-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2/mercury-2-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill