Mercury 2 vs Mistral Large 4 Preview
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Mistral Large 4 Preview 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
Mistral Large 4 Preview scores 27.6 points higher (38.4 vs 10.8) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($1608 vs $105; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Large 4 Preview when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Mistral Large 4 Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 38.4 | +255.6% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 3.6× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $1,607.86 | +1432.2% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 15× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.65s | 25.73s | +286.9% Mistral Large 4 Previ… is 286.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.36 / $4.18 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 Preview vs Mercury 2: 255.6% more intelligence, 1432.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 286.9% 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.
- Mistral Large 4 Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2Mistral Large 4 PreviewToday'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/mistral-large-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mercury-2/mistral-large-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill