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  5. Claude Opus 5.5vsMercury 2.5 Preview
Updated Sep 2026

Claude Opus 5.5vsMercury 2.5 Preview

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than Claude Opus 5.5 at $0.04/M vs $4/M input tokens.

Claude Opus 5.5 and Mercury 2.5 Preview compared across 19 shared prompts
SpecClaude Opus 5.5Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input price$4/M tokens$0.04/M tokens
Output price$20/M tokens$0.15/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens260K tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2026Aug 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 6 of the 19 prompts both answered. Formatting stripped, words untouched.

Mini LBO Underwrite

You are underwriting a 5-year LBO for a private equity investment committee. Company (fictional): HarborTech Services (HTS) –…

Claude Opus 5.5900 words
HarborTech Services: 5-Year LBO Underwriting Conventions: $m. Interest is charged on beginning-of-year balances, which avoids circularity. Term Loan (TL) amortization is 1% of the original $480m, or $4.8m per year. Mezz PIK accrues to principal. All FCF after mandatory debt service sweeps to the TL.
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Mercury 2.5 Preview299 words
Year-by-Year Model (FY2026–FY2030) Metric FY2026 FY2027 FY2028 FY2029 FY2030 Revenue $972m $1,040m $1,102m $1,158m $1,215m EBITDA $136m $156m $176m $191m $207m Cash Interest (Term) $43.2m $41.1m $37.6m $33.4m $28.2m Cash Interest (Mezz) $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m Cash Taxes (25%) $17.8m $23.3m $29.3m $34.7m…
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Michelin Star Recipe Design

Design an innovative recipe for a multi-component dish worthy of a Michelin 3-star restaurant. The recipe should feature an unusual…

Claude Opus 5.52,253 words
"Hive & Tide" Langoustine, Beeswax, White Chocolate & Oscietra Caviar, Hay-Baked Celeriac, Fermented Green Strawberry, Sea Buckthorn I. The Concept Most coastal menus celebrate the meeting of sea and land. This dish is about a stranger, quieter meeting: the meadow and the seabed, the bee and the langoustine.
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Mercury 2.5 Preview748 words
Dish Title: Lithospheric Tides Conceptual Narrative This dish explores the geological convergence of the deep ocean and the subterranean earth. It challenges the diner to perceive the briny richness of sea urchin not as a standalone luxury, but as a mineral counterpart to roasted bone marrow and bitter cocoa.
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Beginner's Longevity Plan

Outline a simple, actionable 1-month plan for someone starting their journey towards better health and longevity. Focus on 3 key areas…

Claude Opus 5.5653 words
Your 1-Month Starter Plan for Better Health & Longevity The philosophy: Small, consistent changes beat dramatic overhauls. Each week builds on the last, so by Day 30 you'll have a foundation of habits instead of a burned-out resolution.
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Mercury 2.5 Preview176 words
Here is a straightforward 4-week roadmap designed to build sustainable habits without overwhelming you. Core Pillars Nutrition: Focus on whole foods and hydration. Activity: Prioritize consistent movement over intensity. Restoration: Protect sleep quality and manage energy.
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Historical Counterfactual Analysis

If the transistor had been invented in 1920 instead of 1947, trace the likely technological, economic, and geopolitical implications through…

Claude Opus 5.53,435 words
The Transistor in 1920: A Counterfactual Through 1980 First, a Reality Check on the Premise A transistor "invented" in 1920 would not have changed the world in 1920. The actual 1947 transistor rested on three foundations that did not exist yet: Quantum theory of solids.
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Mercury 2.5 Preview683 words
Shifting the invention of the solid-state switch to 1920 accelerates the Information Age by roughly three decades. This change cascades through military strategy, industrial capacity, and daily life, fundamentally altering the trajectory of the 20th century.
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Simple 7-Ingredient Recipe

Create a simple recipe for a delicious dish (sweet or savory) using only 7 common pantry ingredients. Include a creative name for the dish…

Claude Opus 5.5300 words
Midnight Silk Noodles Creamy, tangy peanut noodles with a gentle kick, ready faster than takeout. Serves: 2 Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Total time: 15 minutes The 7 Ingredients 8 oz (225 g) spaghetti (or any long noodle) ¼ cup creamy peanut butter 3 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon honey (or sugar) 1…
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Mercury 2.5 Preview186 words
Dish Name: Rustic Sun-Dried Pasta Ingredients (7 Pantry Staples): Spaghetti (or any long pasta) Canned crushed tomatoes Olive oil Garlic powder Dried oregano Salt Black pepper Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 20 minutes Instructions: Boil the Pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
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Explain Like I'm a Specific Expert

Explain how a large language model (like GPT or Claude) learns and generates text to each of these three audiences: 1. **An experienced…

Claude Opus 5.51,442 words
How Large Language Models Work: Three Explanations For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of an LLM as a single, very large pure function: f(tokens[0..n]) → probability distribution over tokens[n+1]. Text is chunked into tokens (roughly word fragments, from a vocabulary of about 100k).
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Mercury 2.5 Preview608 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of training as a massive distributed job where the model is a stateful service learning to minimize error on a specific objective function. Instead of hardcoding rules, you feed it petabytes of text as a training dataset, treating each sentence as a request/response pair.
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Our Verdict
Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Opus 5.5
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Mercury 2.5 PreviewRunner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Claude Opus 5.5 has the edge: bigger model tier, bigger context window, major provider backing.

Mercury 2.5 Preview costs 133x less per token.

Slight edge

Reviewing agent-written code?See a Brief PR report

API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Claude Opus 5.5
Input
$4.00
Output
$20.00
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input
$0.04
100× cheaper
Output
$0.15
133× cheaper

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper on both: 100× input, 133× output.

Where to run it

5 hosts

Claude Opus 5.54 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
Amazon Bedrock$4.00 in·$20.00 out·1M·99.8% upAzure AI Foundry$4.00 in·$20.00 out·1M·100% upAnthropic$4.00 in·$20.00 out·1M·100% upGoogle Vertex AI$4.00 in·$20.00 out·1M·100% up
Mercury 2.5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·99.9% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 25 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Claude Opus 5.5 is developed by Anthropic while Mercury 2.5 Preview is developed by Inception. Claude Opus 5.5 has a 1.0M token context window vs Mercury 2.5 Preview's 260K. You can compare their actual outputs across 19 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Claude Opus 5.5 and Mercury 2.5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 19 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4/M input tokens and Mercury 2.5 Preview costs $0.04/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 Preview is $3.96/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Claude Opus 5.5 and Mercury 2.5 Preview across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

Keep exploring

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Model pages

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Claude Opus 5.519 outputs, specs and price
Mercury 2.5 Preview logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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