Mercury 2 vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Mercury 2 by Inception or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 34.6 points higher (45.4 vs 10.8) but costs 47× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $105; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 10.8, and Mercury 2 when 10.8 is enough.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 10.8 | 45.4 | +320.4% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $104.94 | $4,934.79 | +4602.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 47× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.65s | 65.39s | +883.3% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 883.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.75 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Mercury 2: 320.4% more intelligence, 4602.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 883.3% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Mercury 2Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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