Mercury 2 vs GPT-5.6 Sol
Side-by-side API pricing and Artificial Analysis performance for Mercury 2 (Inception) and GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI). Green cells mark the better value in each row.
Prices updated Jul 22, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC · refreshed hourly
| Mercury 2 Inception | GPT-5.6 Sol OpenAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Input $/1M | $0.25 | $5.00 |
| Output $/1M | $0.75 | $30.00 |
| Blended $/1M (3:1) | $0.375 | $11.25 |
| RAG example (30K in / 2K out) | $0.009 | $0.21 |
| Quality & speed | ||
| Intelligence Index | 21.4 | 58.9 |
| Coding Index | 31.1 | 77.4 |
| Agentic Index | 9.6 | 54 |
| Output speed (tok/s) | 1045 | 70 |
| Time to first token | 3.40s | 112.90s |
| Specs | ||
| Context window | 128K | 1.05M |
| Input modalities | text | file, image, text |
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Mercury 2 has the lower blended API price at $0.375 per 1M tokens (3:1 input:output mix), versus $11.25 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 $0.21. Also compare context windows: Mercury 2 offers 128K and GPT-5.6 Sol offers 1.05M.
Which scores higher on Artificial Analysis benchmarks?
GPT-5.6 Sol leads on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (58.9 vs 21.4). Check coding and agentic indices on this page for workload-specific tradeoffs.