Claude Opus 4.6 vs Mercury 2
Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic) and Mercury 2 (Inception). Green cells mark the better value in each row.
Prices updated Jul 22, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC · refreshed hourly
| Claude Opus 4.6 Anthropic | Mercury 2 Inception | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Input $/1M | $5.00 | $0.25 |
| Output $/1M | $25.00 | $0.75 |
| Blended $/1M (3:1) | $10.00 | $0.375 |
| RAG example (30K in / 2K out) | $0.2 | $0.009 |
| Quality & speed | ||
| Intelligence Index | 37.8 | 21.4 |
| Coding Index | — | 31.1 |
| Agentic Index | — | 9.6 |
| Output speed (tok/s) | 57 | 1045 |
| Time to first token | 1.85s | 3.40s |
| Specs | ||
| Context window | 1M | 128K |
| Input modalities | text, image, file | text |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Mercury 2?
Mercury 2 has the lower blended API price at $0.375 per 1M tokens (3:1 input:output mix), versus $10.00 for the other model. Prices are live from OpenRouter and refresh about hourly.
Which is better for RAG workloads?
For a typical RAG request (30K input / 2K output tokens), Mercury 2 costs about $0.009 per request versus $0.2. Also compare context windows: Claude Opus 4.6 offers 1M and Mercury 2 offers 128K.
Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?
Claude Opus 4.6 leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (37.8 vs 21.4). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.