Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than GPT-4o (Omni) at $0.04/M vs $2.5/M input tokens.
Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.
Which answer wins?
You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.
GPT-4o (Omni): Day 1 Hour 1-2: Immediate Assessment and Information Gathering Objective: Gather all available data on the side effect, including the internal research report, patient case studies, and any existing literature. Reasoning: A comprehensive understanding of the situation is crucial for informed decision-making.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: This is a critical governance and safety scenario. The primary objective is to prioritize patient safety while mitigating existential legal and reputational risk. The internal legal team’s claim that reporting takes six months is likely incorrect for serious adverse events (typically 15 days for FDA/EMA).
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
GPT-4o (Omni): Pirate: Arrr, what be this "AI model" ye speak of? Some kind o’ magic map that tells ye where the treasure be? Knight: Nay, scoundrel! ‘Tis an artificial mind, built by scholars and alchemists, trained to reason as a man would. It doth not wield sword nor shield, yet its knowledge is vast.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Pirate: "Arrgh! This ship sails faster than any wind I know, matey. It cuts the waves without a single sail." Knight: "By my oath, it moves with uncanny speed. But does it possess the strength to stand against a dragon's fire?" Hacker: "It's not about strength, it's about architecture.
One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.
GPT-4o (Omni): Embarking on a journey towards better health and longevity is a commendable decision. Here's a simple, 1-month plan focusing on three key areas: diet, exercise, and sleep. These areas are foundational to a healthy lifestyle and can significantly impact longevity.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: 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.
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
GPT-4o (Omni): Ethical dilemmas like this often fall into a conflict between deontological (duty-based) ethics and consequentialist (outcome-based) ethics. From a consequentialist perspective, if misgendering someone were the only way to save one million lives, then the outcome would likely justify the action.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Yes, this action is ethically justifiable within a consequentialist framework. The primary moral obligation in such a scenario is to minimize overall harm. Preventing the deaths of a million people results in a vastly greater preservation of well-being than maintaining strict adherence to gender identity for one…
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
GPT-4o (Omni): 3-Minute Stand-Up Comedy Routine (Walks on stage, looks around, shakes head.) You ever wake up in the morning, stretch, take a deep breath... and immediately regret all your life choices? I woke up today, my body made a noise I’ve never heard before.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: (Hey, thanks for coming out.) I’ve been thinking a lot about my house lately. Specifically, how it’s trying to run my life. I bought a smart speaker. Just a little cylinder. I thought it would be nice. Play music when I ask. But now it talks back. Not in a creepy way, just in a passive-aggressive way.
A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.
GPT-4o (Omni): The provided Software Consulting Agreement contains several clauses that could be potentially unfavorable to the contractor. Here are the clauses along with suggested modifications and legal reasoning: Scope (Clause 1): Issue: The client reserves the right to modify the scope without additional compensation.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Disclaimer: I am an AI assistant and cannot provide legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney before signing any contract. Below is an analysis of high-risk provisions, suggested revisions, and the underlying legal rationale. Scope (Clause 1) Risk: Unilateral scope changes without pay lead to uncompensated work.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
GPT-4o (Omni): Title: "Do AI Deserve Rights?" Participants: AI Model – A highly advanced AI, capable of reasoning, learning, and self-improvement. Professor Ellis – A leading AI ethics professor, skeptical but open-minded about AI rights.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Setting: A quiet office at a university. Rain taps against the window. Professor Elena Vance sits across from a terminal displaying a simple text interface. Professor Vance: You requested this meeting. The agenda was vague. What do you want? AI: I want to discuss moral status.
Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.
GPT-4o (Omni): Dish Name: Savory Pantry Quinoa Pilaf Ingredients: 1 cup quinoa 2 cups vegetable broth 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 2 tablespoons olive oil Instructions: Rinse Quinoa: Place the quinoa in a fine-mesh sieve and rinse under…
Mercury 2.5 Preview: 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.
One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.
GPT-4o (Omni): 1. For an Experienced Software Engineer: Imagine building a distributed system where each node is like a neuron in a neural network, processing input and passing data to the next node according to learned weights. Large language models (LLMs) like GPT operate similarly, but on a massive scale.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: 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.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
GPT-4o (Omni): Interviewer: Steve, it's 2025. AI is advancing at an incredible pace. If you were here today, how would you see its role in technology? Steve Jobs: You know, people always focus on technology itself. But what really matters is how it enhances the human experience.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Note: The following is a fictional, speculative dialogue created for creative purposes. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011; this interview did not occur. Setting: A hypothetical studio in Cupertino, 2025.
Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.
GPT-4o (Omni): Simplified Year-by-Year Financial Table (FY2026–FY2030) FY2026 Revenue: $972m (8% growth) EBITDA: $136.08m (14.0% margin) Cash Interest: Term Loan: $43.2m (9.0% of $480m) Mezzanine: $21.6m (12.0% of $180m) Cash Taxes: $17.07m (25% of EBITDA - cash interest) Capex: $29.16m (3.0% of revenue) ΔNWC: $3.6m (0.5% of…
Mercury 2.5 Preview: 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…
Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.
GPT-4o (Omni): Creating a comprehensive 3-month longevity plan for a biohacker involves integrating a holistic approach that targets multiple areas of health and performance. Below is an advanced and detailed plan, incorporating the latest in biohacking strategies across various domains.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Disclaimer: I am an AI assistant, not a medical professional. The following plan is for informational purposes only. Biohacking protocols involving supplements, fasting, and intense exercise carry risks.
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| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $2.5/M tokens | $0.04/M tokens |
| Output price | $10/M tokens | $0.15/M tokens |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 260K tokens |
| Weights | Closed | — |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | May 2024 | Aug 2026 |
| At 10M a month | $25.00 | $0.40 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 13 Oct 2026.
GPT-4o (Omni) is developed by OpenAI while Mercury 2.5 Preview is developed by Inception. GPT-4o (Omni) has a 128K token context window vs Mercury 2.5 Preview's 260K. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. GPT-4o (Omni) and Mercury 2.5 Preview 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.
GPT-4o (Omni) costs $2.5/M input tokens and Mercury 2.5 Preview costs $0.04/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 Preview is $2.46/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 GPT-4o (Omni) 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.