Mercury 2 vs Ministral 3 3B
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Ministral 3 3B by Mistral? 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 scores 6.0 points higher (10.8 vs 4.8) but costs 8.6× as much to run the benchmark ($105 vs $12.2; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2 when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Ministral 3 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 4.8 | −55.6% Ministral 3 3B is 55.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $12.23 | −88.3% Ministral 3 3B is 88.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.58s | 3.01s | −54.3% Ministral 3 3B is 54.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.10 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 3B vs Mercury 2: 55.6% less intelligence, 88.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 54.3% 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.
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Mercury 2Ministral 3 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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