Mercury 2 vs Muse Spark Open (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) by Meta? 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
Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) scores 28.1 points higher (38.9 vs 10.8) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($1185 vs $105; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 38.9 | +260.2% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 3.6× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $1,184.90 | +1029.1% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 11× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.65s | 17.34s | +160.8% Muse Spark Open (Xhig… is 160.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Muse Spark Open (Xhigh) vs Mercury 2: 260.2% more intelligence, 1029.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 160.8% 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 Open (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mercury 2Muse Spark Open (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
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