Mercury 2

By Inception · released 2026-02-20 (6 months) · snapshot 2026-09-09

Off the frontierNot on frontier at launch dayproprietary
Intelligence index
11.50
Cost to run the AA index
$153
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)
$0.25 / $0.75
End-to-end time
4.57s
Better than…

Is Mercury 2 on the Pareto frontier, and what beats it?

Off the frontier

No. MiMo-V2.5-Pro is at least as smart for the same money or less.

Next step up: GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh), smarter but dearer.

Mercury 2 vs MiMo-V2.5-ProMercury 2 vs GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh)
#ModelCreatorIntelligenceTotal costE2E totalOpenReleasedFrontier
1Mercury 2Inception11.50$1534.57s2026-02-20
2MiMo-V2.5-ProXiaomi26.40$13872.6s2026-04-22Frontier
3GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh)OpenAI34.80$17960.5s2026-07-09Frontier

Open in the picker Daily check URL: 200 on the frontier, 409 once beaten

At a glance

Mercury 2 today

Time to first answer4.03s
Output speed925 tok/s
Input modalitiesNot reported
0102030405060$20$50$100$200$500$1k$2k$5k$10k$20kCost to run the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (USD, log scale)Intelligence IndexCeleris-1 (Celeris): intelligence 6.30, $60.0Claude 4.5 Haiku (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 17.60, $524Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) (Anthropic): intelligence 21.20, $1501Claude Fable 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Opus 4.8 Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.70, $11161Claude Fable 5.1 (Adaptive Reasoning, High Effort, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 51.20, $5242Claude Fable 5.1 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 47.00, $3158Claude Fable 5.1 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.10, $3983Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 42.00, $6874Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, High Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 48.20, $4332Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 39.80, $1561Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 50.70, $7275Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 45.10, $2732Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Xhigh Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 49.70, $5868Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 30.50, $4925Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 24.70, $653Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 38.40, $6998Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) (Anthropic): intelligence 28.40, $1218DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) (DeepSeek): intelligence 11.40, $461DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) (DeepSeek): intelligence 8.50, $25.4DeepSeek V3 0324 (DeepSeek): intelligence 9.70, $87.2DeepSeek V4 Flash (Reasoning, High Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.80, $210DeepSeek V4 Flash (Reasoning, Max Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 24.60, $191DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Reasoning, Max Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 34.50, $474DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Reasoning, Max Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 35.00, $445DeepSeek V4 Pro (Reasoning, Max Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 30.90, $277DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 (Reasoning, Max Effort) (DeepSeek): intelligence 36.30, $1122Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google): intelligence 16.70, $707Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 16.00, $119Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (Google): intelligence 30.40, $1310Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) (Google): intelligence 33.00, $2172Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (Google): intelligence 22.70, $267Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) (Google): intelligence 34.30, $1037Gemini 3.7 Flash (high) (Google): intelligence 39.40, $1084Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) (Google): intelligence 41.20, $1623Gemini 3.8 Flash (medium) (Google): intelligence 40.00, $1100GLM-5.3 (max) (Z AI): intelligence 44.90, $2503GPT-5 mini (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 17.40, $189GPT-5.4 mini (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 24.60, $1438GPT-5.4 nano (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 21.20, $331GPT-5.5 (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.30, $3411GPT-5.5 (medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.20, $2095GPT-5.5 (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.60, $5294GPT-5.5 Instant (June 2026) (OpenAI): intelligence 26.80, $1184GPT-5.6 Luna (max) (OpenAI): intelligence 37.50, $320GPT-5.6 Sol (low) (OpenAI): intelligence 33.80, $637GPT-5.6 Sol (max) (OpenAI): intelligence 47.10, $3465GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 39.50, $997GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 44.10, $2082GPT-5.6 Terra (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.50, $768GPT-5.6 Terra (max) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.30, $2501GPT-5.6 Terra (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 38.20, $1187GPT-6 Astra (Non-reasoning) (OpenAI): intelligence 45.20, $2441gpt-oss-120b (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 12.30, $122gpt-oss-20b (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 9.00, $29.4Grok 4.3 (high) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 25.40, $332Grok 4.3 (Non-reasoning) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 14.50, $203Grok 4.5 (high) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 39.10, $1404Grok 4.6 (high) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.40, $2352Grok 4.6 (low) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 35.40, $761Grok 4.6 (medium) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 43.00, $1937Grok 4.6 (xhigh) (SpaceXAI): intelligence 44.30, $2830Hy3 (Tencent): intelligence 25.80, $149Inkling (xhigh) (Thinking Machines): intelligence 25.50, $1026Inkling Small (Thinking Machines): intelligence 26.10, $241Kimi K2.7 Code (Kimi): intelligence 26.30, $993Kimi K3 (max) (Kimi): intelligence 43.80, $3658Llama 4 Maverick (Meta): intelligence 9.30, $45.5Llama 4 Scout (Meta): intelligence 6.50, $77.6LongCat 2.0 (LongCat): intelligence 19.70, $545MiniMax-M2.7 (MiniMax): intelligence 23.20, $236MiniMax-M3 (MiniMax): intelligence 29.60, $538Ministral 3 14B (Mistral): intelligence 6.00, $250Ministral 3 3B (Mistral): intelligence 4.80, $61.3Ministral 3 8B (Mistral): intelligence 5.50, $169Mistral Large 3 (Mistral): intelligence 9.70, $130Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral): intelligence 14.90, $1160Mistral Small 3.1 (Mistral): intelligence 7.40, $35.8Mistral Small 3.2 (Mistral): intelligence 7.00, $163Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) (Mistral): intelligence 11.50, $78.7Muse Glimmer (high) (Meta): intelligence 18.10, $152Muse Spark 1.1 (xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 34.30, $1737Muse Spark 1.2 (xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 39.80, $1385Muse Spark 1.3 (xhigh) (Meta): intelligence 45.20, $1655Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 13.60, $859Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 23.40, $801Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (NVIDIA): intelligence 13.60, $105NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (Reasoning) (NVIDIA): intelligence 8.90, $63.7Quasar 438B (max, based on GLM-5.2) (Multiverse Computing): intelligence 27.10, $2504Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 12.70, $235Qwen3 30B A3B 2507 (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 9.80, $188Qwen3 Coder Next (Alibaba): intelligence 10.10, $476Qwen3.5 122B A10B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 16.20, $661Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 19.10, $941Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) (Alibaba): intelligence 21.90, $1145Qwen3.7 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 29.90, $2277Qwen3.7 Plus (Alibaba): intelligence 25.80, $568Qwen3.8 2.4T A95B (Alibaba): intelligence 40.00, $2632Qwen3.8 27B (xhigh) (Alibaba): intelligence 33.90, $1170Qwen3.8 Max (Alibaba): intelligence 40.30, $3172Ring-2.6-1T (InclusionAI): intelligence 17.30, $576Solar Pro 3 (Upstage): intelligence 7.80, $159Trinity Large Thinking (Arcee AI): intelligence 10.90, $518Granite 4.2 3B (IBM): intelligence 9.10, $14.9MiMo-V2.5 (Xiaomi): intelligence 22.30, $42.6MiMo-V2.5-Pro (Xiaomi): intelligence 26.40, $138GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 34.80, $179GLM-5.3-Flash (Z AI): intelligence 41.90, $280GPT-5.6 Sol (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 42.50, $1487GPT-6 Astra (low) (OpenAI): intelligence 46.00, $1537Muse Spark 1.3 (max) (Meta): intelligence 48.20, $2000GPT-6 Astra (medium) (OpenAI): intelligence 49.70, $2434GPT-6 Astra (high) (OpenAI): intelligence 51.00, $2917GPT-6 Astra (xhigh) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.50, $3803GPT-6 Astra (max) (OpenAI): intelligence 52.80, $5324Claude Fable 5.1 (Adaptive Reasoning, Xhigh Effort, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.20, $9063Claude Fable 5.1 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) (Anthropic): intelligence 53.40, $13129Mercury 2 (Inception): intelligence 11.50, $153Mercury 2Granite 4.2 3BMiMo-V2.5-ProGPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh)Claude Fable 5.1 (max)
Mercury 2Same release, other effort levelsToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Up and left is better. Dotted line: today's Pareto frontier. Hover a point for its numbers, click it for its page.

Intelligence: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Cost: total cost to run that benchmark, so reasoning tokens count. API id: mercury-2.

Matchup

Compare head to head

Suggested: what beats it, its effort levels, and frontier models near its price.

Compare Mercury 2 with measured models

Release

What the Mercury 2 release did to the frontier on 2026-02-20

None of its 1 effort levels reached the frontier at launch.

Closest miss: Mercury 2, 0.8 points below gpt-oss-120b (high) at 1.2× the cost.

Release page: launch-day frontier and every effort level

Deciding

Should you use Mercury 2?

Should you use Mercury 2?

Only when it fits your setup: MiMo-V2.5-Pro is at least as smart for the same money or less, so Mercury 2 is off the value frontier today.

What is better and cheaper than Mercury 2?

MiMo-V2.5-Pro — at least as smart for the same money or less.

How much does Mercury 2 cost?

$0.25/$0.75 in/out per 1M tokens, and $153 to run the full Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the honest all-in number for reasoning models.

Is Mercury 2 on the Pareto frontier?

No: MiMo-V2.5-Pro beats it on intelligence, cost, or both.

Frontier membership by axis pair

Other axis pairs where Mercury 2 is Pareto-optimal.

Y axisX axisOn the frontier
AA intelligence indexAA total cost to run (USD)
AA intelligence indexEnd-to-end total seconds
AA intelligence indexOutput speed tokens/sec
Agents: Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/models/mercury-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/models/mercury-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill