Mercury 2 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Mistral Medium 3.5 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 Medium 3.5 scores 3.4 points higher (14.2 vs 10.8) but costs 12× as much to run the benchmark ($1264 vs $105; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 14.2 | +31.5% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 31.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $1,263.80 | +1104.3% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 12× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.58s | 17.90s | +172.0% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 172.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mercury 2: 31.5% more intelligence, 1104.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 172.0% 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 Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2Mistral Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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