Mercury 2 vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mercury 2 scores 5.3 points higher (10.8 vs 5.5) but costs 3.8× as much to run the benchmark ($105 vs $27.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mercury 2 when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 5.5 | −49.1% Ministral 3 8B is 49.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $27.47 | −73.8% Ministral 3 8B is 73.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.52s | 4.94s | −24.2% Ministral 3 8B is 24.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Mercury 2: 49.1% less intelligence, 73.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 24.2% 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 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Mercury 2Ministral 3 8BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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