Mercury 2 vs MiniMax-M3.1-Flash
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or MiniMax-M3.1-Flash by MiniMax? 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
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash scores 31.9 points higher (42.7 vs 10.8) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($283 vs $105; both mid-range class). Pick MiniMax-M3.1-Flash when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mercury 2.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | MiniMax-M3.1-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 42.7 | +295.4% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 4.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $283.18 | +169.8% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 2.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.65s | 23.83s | +258.3% MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is 258.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
MiniMax-M3.1-Flash vs Mercury 2: 295.4% more intelligence, 169.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 258.3% slower 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.
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mercury 2MiniMax-M3.1-FlashToday'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/minimax-m3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2/minimax-m3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill