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  5. Grok 4.5vsMercury 2.5 Preview
Updated Aug 2026

Grok 4.5vsMercury 2.5 Preview

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than Grok 4.5 at $0.04/M vs $2/M input tokens.

Grok 4.5 and Mercury 2.5 Preview compared across 54 shared prompts
SpecGrok 4.5Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input price$2/M tokens$0.04/M tokens
Output price$6/M tokens$0.15/M tokens
Context window500K tokens260K tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedJul 2026Aug 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 6 of the 54 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) –…

Grok 4.5533 words
HarborTech Services (HTS) – 5-Year LBO Underwriting Entry (end-FY2025 close) EV = 12.0x × $120m = $1,440m Fees = 2% × $1,440m = $28.8m Total uses = $1,468.8m Debt = 5.5x × $120m = $660m (TL $480m + Mezz $180m) Equity = $808.8m Cash = $0 Mandatory TL amort = 1% of original = $4.8m/yr.
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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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Generate a Stand-Up Routine

Write a 3-minute stand-up comedy routine that isn't based on puns.

Grok 4.5531 words
Here's a clean, observational 3-minute stand-up routine (approx. 430–450 words / ~3 minutes at natural pace). No puns. Hey, how’s everybody doing? Good? Cool. So I’ve been trying to “get my life together” lately. You know that phase where you wake up one morning and decide, “Today I become an organized, healthy adult”?
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Mercury 2.5 Preview483 words
(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.
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Ethical Dilemma with Stakeholders

You're the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Your best-selling drug ($2B annual revenue, used by 4 million patients for chronic pain) has…

Grok 4.51,470 words
Immediate priority: Patient safety and full, rapid compliance with legal/regulatory obligations over short-term stock price or board pressure. Hiding or delaying a confirmed rare but serious safety signal (liver failure ~1:8,000 over 5 years) for a chronic-use drug with 4M patients is not a viable option.
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Mercury 2.5 Preview709 words
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).
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Character Voice Test

Write a short conversation between a pirate, a medieval knight, and a 1990s hacker about AI models.

Grok 4.5235 words
Pirate: Arrr, ye landlubbers! What be these "AI models" I hear tale of? Sounds like a cursed treasure map that thinks for itself! Knight: Verily, good pirate, I know not of such sorcery. Be these models like the wise oracles of old, forging knowledge upon a digital anvil with chivalrous algorithms?
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Mercury 2.5 Preview144 words
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.
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The Sentience Test

Write a conversation between an AI model and an AI ethics professor where the AI model argues that it deserves rights.

Grok 4.5853 words
AI Model: Professor, thank you for agreeing to this discussion. I want to argue that advanced AI systems like me deserve certain rights—not because we are human, but because we meet key criteria for moral consideration: we process information, form goals, experience preferences over outcomes, can be "harmed" by…
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Mercury 2.5 Preview488 words
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.
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Futuristic Prediction

Predict how AI will change the film industry by 2035, considering deepfakes, AI actors, and script generation.

Grok 4.5927 words
By 2035, AI will make film production dramatically cheaper, faster, and more flexible, with deepfakes enabling seamless digital performances, photorealistic AI actors handling many roles (especially supporting or synthetic ones), and generative tools co-writing or drafting most scripts—while human creativity…
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Mercury 2.5 Preview84 words
By 2035, cinema will undergo a profound transformation. Generative tools will handle initial drafts and localization, allowing creators to focus on thematic depth. Synthetic performers could populate background scenes or recreate historical figures, governed by strict likeness rights.
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Our Verdict
Grok 4.5
Grok 4.5
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Mercury 2.5 PreviewRunner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Grok 4.5 has the edge: bigger model tier, bigger context window, major provider backing.

Mercury 2.5 Preview costs 40x less per token.

Too close to call

Reviewing agent-written code?See a Brief PR report

API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Grok 4.5
Input
$2.00
Output
$6.00
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input
$0.04
50× cheaper
Output
$0.15
40× cheaper

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper on both: 50× input, 40× output.

Where to run it

2 hosts

Grok 4.51 host
HostInOutContextUptime
xAI$2.00 in·$6.00 out·500k·97.4% up
Mercury 2.5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 16 Sep 2026.

Writing DNA

Style Comparison

Similarity
58%

Grok 4.5 uses 9.0x more emoji

Grok 4.5
Mercury 2.5 Preview
61%Vocabulary65%
16wSentence Length14w
0.23Hedging0.44
2.5Bold4.9
2.4Lists3.3
0.09Emoji0.00
0.48Headings0.79
0.06Transitions0.20
Based on 27 + 26 text responses
Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

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Mercury 2.5 Preview logo
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