Mercury 2 vs Muse Spark 1.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) scores 37.3 points higher (48.1 vs 10.8) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($2000 vs $105; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 48.1 | +345.4% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 4.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $2,000.35 | +1806.2% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 19× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.08s | 84.79s | +949.4% Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is 949.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) vs Mercury 2: 345.4% more intelligence, 1806.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 949.4% 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.
- Muse Spark 1.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2Muse Spark 1.3 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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