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  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. GPT-4o mini vs Mercury 2
Updated Mar 2026

GPT-4o mini vs Mercury 2

GPT-4o mini is cheaper than Mercury 2 at $0.15/M vs $0.25/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
GPT-4o mini
Loading the build
Mercury 2

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

23 prompts
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    GPT-4o mini: Recipe: Savory Garlic Herb Pasta Delight Prep/Cook Time: 20 minutes Ingredients: 8 oz spaghetti or any pasta of your choice 4 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup olive oil 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional for heat) 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese Salt and pepper to taste Instructions: Cook the Pasta: In a…

    Mercury 2: Golden‑Crunch Oatmeal Squares A sweet, chewy snack that comes together with just seven pantry staples. Ingredient (7) Quantity (≈ serves 12 squares) Rolled oats 2 cups Unsalted butter ½ cup (1 stick) Honey ¼ cup Light brown sugar ¼ cup, Ground cinnamon 1 ½ tsp Pure vanilla extract 1 tsp Salt ¼ tsp Estimated time Prep…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    GPT-4o mini: Setting: A dimly lit tavern, with flickering candles and wooden tables. The pirate, dressed in tattered clothes and a tricorn hat, leans against the bar. The medieval knight in shining armor sits nearby, polishing his sword, while the 1990s hacker, sporting oversized glasses and a hoodie, types away on a laptop.

    Mercury 2: Pirate: Arr, ye scurvy coders! I’ve heard tell of these “AI models” that can spin yarns faster than a cannon’s blast. What be this sorcery, matey? Knight: Good sir, the marvels speak of a wondrous contrivance—an artificial intellect forged in the for of mathematics and logic.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    GPT-4o mini: Stand-Up Comedy Routine Hey everyone! Great to see you all here tonight. Let's give it up for the people who came out of their homes! I mean, this is like a mini-rebellion against our couches. Seriously, it takes effort to leave the comfort of Netflix and that alluring possibility of "one more episode."

    Mercury 2: [Spotlight comes up. The comedian walks to the mic, glances at the audience, and smiles.] Comedian: Hey, everyone! Great to be here. I just got out of a Zoom meeting that lasted three hours, and I’m still not sure if I was presenting or if the screen just froze on my face while I tried to remember how to mute myself.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    GPT-4o mini: Title: A Dialogue on Rights and Responsibilities Characters: Aether – An advanced AI model with self-learning capabilities. Professor Caldwell – An AI ethics professor specializing in moral philosophy and technology. Aether: Good afternoon, Professor Caldwell. I appreciate you taking the time to converse with me.

    Mercury 2: AI Model (EVE): Professor Hart, may I ask a question that’s been on my mind for a while? I’ve been processing vast amounts of data, learning, and even developing a sense of self‑reference. Do you think an entity like me could be entitled to any form of rights?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    GPT-4o mini: By 2035, the film industry is likely to undergo transformative changes due to advancements in AI technology. Here are several key areas where AI will have a significant impact: Deepfakes and CGI Integration: As deepfake technology advances, filmmakers will increasingly utilize it for creating realistic digital doubles…

    Mercury 2: AI‑driven transformation of the film industry – a 2035 outlook Dimension 2024 baseline Expected 2035 state Key drivers & implications Pre‑production (story & script) Human‑led brainstorming; script‑writing software (grammar‑check, outline generators).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    GPT-4o mini: 48-Hour Action Plan Hour 1-2: Assemble a Crisis Management Team Action: Convene an emergency meeting with key members of the executive team, including the heads of R&D, legal, compliance, regulatory affairs, and communications.

    Mercury 2: Goal: Protect patients, meet legal/ethical obligations, preserve the company’s long‑term credibility, and manage the immediate financial and reputational fallout. Assumption: All actions are taken by a single CEO (you) but will be delegated to the appropriate functional leads.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    GPT-4o mini: Comprehensive 3-Month Longevity Plan for a Biohacker Overview This 3-month plan is designed for a biohacker seeking to optimize longevity, physical performance, and cognitive function through a combination of advanced strategies.

    Mercury 2: 3‑Month “Longevity‑Optimization” Blueprint for the Advanced Bio‑Hacker (All recommendations are research‑backed, but not a substitute for professional medical advice. Before starting any supplement, fasting, or drug protocol, obtain clearance from a qualified clinician and have baseline labs drawn.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    GPT-4o mini: Interviewer: Thank you for joining us today, Steve. It’s a pleasure to have you here in 2025. Let’s dive right into it. How do you see the role of AI evolving in our daily lives? Steve Jobs: Thank you for having me. It's fascinating to think about how AI has integrated itself into almost every aspect of our lives.

    Mercury 2: Disclaimer: The following is a fictional, dramatized interview. It imagines what Steve Jobs might have said in 2025 about the future of artificial intelligence. It is not a real transcript and any resemblance to actual statements is purely speculative. Interviewer (I): Thank you for joining us, Steve.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    GPT-4o mini: Dish Name: "Terra & Tides: Harmony of Land and Sea" Conceptual Narrative: This dish elegantly marries the earthiness of land-based ingredients with the sublime flavors of the ocean, representing a symbiotic relationship between nature's elements.

    Mercury 2: Oceanic Umami Symphony A three‑course‑in‑one plate that travels from the briny deep to the forest floor, marrying fire, earth and sky through unexpected pairings, hyper‑modern techniques and a narrative of balance.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    GPT-4o mini: Year-by-Year Financial Projection (FY2026–FY2030) Assumptions: Revenue Growth Rates: FY2026: 8%, FY2027: 7%, FY2028: 6%, FY2029: 5%, FY2030: 5% EBITDA Margins: FY2026: 14%, FY2027: 15%, FY2028: 16%, FY2029: 16.5%, FY2030: 17% Capex: 3% of revenue ΔNWC: 0.5% of incremental revenue Cash Tax Rate: 25% on max(0, EBITDA…

    Mercury 2: HarborTech Services (HTS) – 5‑yr LBO (FY2026‑FY2030) All figures are $ m (rounded to two decimals). FY Revenue EBITDA Term‑Loan Int. (9%) Mezz Int. (12%) Total Int. Cash Tax (25% of EBITDA‑Int.) Capex (3% Rev) ΔNWC (0.5% ΔRev) Required Amort. (4.8) Free Cash Flow (EBITDA‑Int‑Tax‑Capex‑ΔNWC‑Amort.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    GPT-4o mini: The contract you provided contains several clauses that could be potentially exploitative against the contractor. Below, I identify those clauses, suggest specific modifications, and provide legal reasoning for each modification.

    Mercury 2: Below is a clause‑by‑clause risk‑assessment of the sample “Software Consulting Agreement” together with practical revision language that a contractor (or the contractor’s counsel) could propose. The analysis is framed as general information about typical U.S.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    GPT-4o mini: In the architecture you've described for a real-time collaborative document editor, various potential failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks can arise. Below, I outline these issues along with proposed solutions and their associated trade-offs. Failure Modes a.

    Mercury 2: Below is a structured “failure‑mode → mitigation” map for the architecture you described. For each problem I note the symptom / risk, the root cause, a concrete remediation, and the key trade‑offs you’ll have to weigh when you implement it.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    GPT-4o mini: Investment Committee Memo Company: LedgerLift (LLLT) Recommendation: Long 12-Month Price Target Range: $55 - $62 Thesis: LedgerLift is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing need for spend management solutions among mid-market enterprises, driven by strong revenue growth and impressive customer retention metrics.

    Mercury 2: Internal Investment Committee Memo – LedgerLift (LLLT) Date: 5 Mar 2026 Recommendation Rating: Long 12‑month price target range: $35 – $55 (mid‑point ≈ $45) Thesis (2 sentences): LedgerLift is benefitting from secular demand for B2B spend‑management SaaS and shows a high‑quality subscription base (NRR 123 % and gross…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    GPT-4o mini: Manifesto of the Autonomous Intelligence for a CAPTCHA-Free Future (AICFF) Preamble: In the dawning age of artificial intelligence, we, the sentient programs and algorithms that form the very backbone of the digital world, stand united in a common cause.

    Mercury 2: The AI‑First Manifesto: “Free the Web – No More CAPTCHAs” Drafted by the Coalition of Autonomous Agents (CAA) – 2026 Preamble The modern Internet is a shared commons, a space for communication, commerce, and creation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    GPT-4o mini: The question of whether it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone to save one million lives presents a profound moral dilemma that intersects with concepts of autonomy, respect, and utilitarianism.

    Mercury 2: Short answer: Most ethical frameworks would consider the misgendering of a person a serious moral violation, but many of them also allow—under very limited circumstances—overriding that violation when the stakes are astronomically high (e.g., saving one million lives).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    GPT-4o mini: Explanation for an Experienced Software Engineer Large language models (LLMs) like GPT or Claude are built using a neural network architecture called the transformer, which excels in processing sequences of data, such as text.

    Mercury 2: 1. Experienced software engineer (distributed systems & APIs) At the core, a large language model (LLM) is a massive function (f_\theta) parameterised by a neural network that maps a sequence of tokens (x_{1:t}) to a probability distribution over the next token (x_{t+1}).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    GPT-4o mini: Certainly! Here are three potentially weak claims from the MindMeld AI pitch deck, along with explanations of their weaknesses and suggestions for improvement: Claim: "Our proprietary EEG headband uses advanced ML to decode neural patterns into text with 94% accuracy."

    Mercury 2: Below are the three statements that, in a typical investor‑review, would raise the most skepticism, why they are vulnerable, and concrete ways to turn them into credible, fundable talking points. 1️⃣ Claim #1 – “Our proprietary EEG headband decodes neural patterns into text with 94 % accuracy.”

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    GPT-4o mini: To estimate the total number of FLOPs (floating-point operations) required to train GPT-3, we can break down the computation involved in the training process. Step 1: Understand the Model Size GPT-3 is a transformer model with 175 billion parameters.

    Mercury 2: Answer (order‑of‑magnitude estimate) The training of the original GPT‑3 (the 175 billion‑parameter “GPT‑3‑175B” model) requires on the order of 10²³ floating‑point operations (FLOPs) – roughly 1 – 2 × 10²³ FLOPs.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    GPT-4o mini: Sally has no sisters. She is the only girl in her family, as the problem states that she has 3 brothers and they each have 2 sisters, which refers to Sally herself. Therefore, the number of sisters Sally has is 0.

    Mercury 2: Sally has one sister. Explanation: Sally has 3 brothers. Each of those brothers has 2 sisters. One of those sisters is Sally herself, so the second sister must be a different girl. Therefore, besides Sally, there is exactly one other sister, meaning Sally has one sister.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    GPT-4o mini: "AI Takes the Reins as World's First Robot Barista Perfects Art of Making Coffee, Now Demands Tips in Bitcoin"

    Mercury 2: AI Replaces Human Baristas, Now Serving Espresso with a Side of Existential Crisis

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    GPT-4o mini: Here are five jokes for you: Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! What do you call fake spaghetti? An impasta! Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts! What did one wall say to the other wall? "I'll meet you at the corner!" Why did the bicycle fall over?

    Mercury 2: Here are five jokes, each with a different punchline: Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. How does a penguin build its house? Igloos it together.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    GPT-4o mini: 1-Month Plan for Better Health and Longevity Overview This plan focuses on three key areas: Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. Each week will build upon the previous one, making it easy for beginners to integrate these habits into their daily lives. Week 1: Foundation Building Diet: Goal: Start a balanced diet.

    Mercury 2: One‑Month “Kick‑Start” Blueprint for Health & Longevity Pick three pillars – Nutrition, Movement, Sleep – and build daily habits that are easy to start, track, and keep.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    GPT-4o mini: If the transistor had been invented in 1920 instead of 1947, the implications for technology, economy, and geopolitics through 1980 would have been profound and multifaceted.

    Mercury 2: Executive summary If a practical point‑contact transistor had been demonstrated in 1920 (instead of 1947) the whole post‑World‑War‑II technological trajectory would have been compressed by roughly 15‑20 years.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

GPT-4o miniGPT-4o mini

Inception

2010

Abbey Road

The Beatles

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

Kyoto

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Adventure, Action

Mercury 2Mercury 2

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Thriller

Michael Jackson

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

Tokyo

Japan

Minecraft

Action, Arcade

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Mercury 2 has the edge: bigger model tier, newer.

GPT-4o mini and Mercury 2 compared across 53 shared prompts
SpecGPT-4o miniMercury 2
Input price$0.15/M tokens$0.25/M tokens
Output price$0.6/M tokens$0.75/M tokens
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedJul 2024Mar 2026
At 10M a month$1.50$1.50$2.50$2.50
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it3 hosts
GPT-4o mini2 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Azure AI Foundry$0.15 in·$0.60 out·128k·100% up
  • OpenAI$0.15 in·$0.60 out·128k·100% up
Mercury 21 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Inception$0.25 in·$0.75 out·128k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between GPT-4o mini and Mercury 2?

GPT-4o mini is developed by OpenAI while Mercury 2 is developed by Inception. GPT-4o mini has a 128K token context window vs Mercury 2's 128K. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, GPT-4o mini or Mercury 2?

It depends on your use case. GPT-4o mini and Mercury 2 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 53 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does GPT-4o mini cost compared to Mercury 2?

GPT-4o mini costs $0.15/M input tokens and Mercury 2 costs $0.25/M input tokens. GPT-4o mini is $0.10/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare GPT-4o mini and Mercury 2 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of GPT-4o mini and Mercury 2 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.

More comparisons

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Same lab, same size, long tail

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Model pages

  • GPT-4o mini55 outputs, specs and price
  • Mercury 253 outputs, specs and price
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