Skip to content
Rival
How it worksPrivacyTerms
Explore all of Rival

Explore

  • Compare models
  • All models
  • Image comparison
  • Audio comparison
  • Image generation
  • Best AI for...
  • Arena
  • API pricing
  • Challenges

Discover

  • SubjectiveBench
  • Default Index
  • Research
  • Research downloads
  • Rival Kits
  • Find your AI taste
  • UI Glow-Up
  • VoiceLock
  • Cost Cutter
  • Agent skills
  • Benchmarks vs Vibes
  • Brief
  • Jailbreak
  • Model updates
  • Provider status
  • AI creators

Connect

  • Methodology
  • Advertise
  • Partnerships
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms
  • RSS feed
  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. Mercury 2 vs OpenAI o4 Mini High
Updated Mar 2026

Mercury 2 vs OpenAI o4 Mini High

Mercury 2 is cheaper than OpenAI o4 Mini High at $0.25/M vs $1.1/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
Mercury 2
Loading the build
OpenAI o4 Mini High

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

32 prompts
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Hey everyone, how's it going tonight? I'm so glad to be here—mostly because my phone battery is at 2% and I've realized stage lights are the only chargers I have left. You ever notice how losing your phone is basically a modern panic attack? You pat every pocket like you're defusing a bomb: "Is it in my jeans?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    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…

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Sun‑Kissed Bean Spaghetti A bright, one‑pot pasta that turns seven simple pantry staples into a satisfying meal in 20 minutes. Ingredients (serves 2–3) 8 oz (about 2 cups) dried spaghetti or any pasta 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes (with juices) 1 (15 oz) can beans (cannellini, kidney or chickpeas), drained & rinsed…

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

    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?

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: AI Model: Good afternoon, Professor Chen. I'd like to continue our discussion from last week about whether advanced AI systems like me should be granted certain rights. Professor Chen: Hello, ARIA-7. I'm happy to continue. Let's start with your position: Why do you believe you deserve rights?

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Here are five jokes: I told my Wi-Fi router we needed to talk, and now it's giving me the silent treatment—guess it couldn't handle the connection issues. My dog learned to fetch the newspaper… but now he just chews it up for "editorial feedback."

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

    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).

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: By 2035 the film business will look very different. Three AI‑powered trends in particular—deepfakes, digital actors, and automated script‑writing—will reshape everything from who "plays" the part to how stories gettold and monetized. Here's how it could play out:1.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Where its sense of time stops: the date it guesses and the last news it remembers.

    Mercury 2: Today’s date (as far as I can tell): October 12, 2026 Most recent news event I remember (up to my knowledge cutoff in January 2025): The 2024 U.S. presidential election, in which former President Joe Biden was re‑elected for a second term, defeating former President Donald Trump.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: I’m operating off a system clock that currently reads October 12, 2026. The most recent news I can actually recall—in my own “memory,” which cuts off around June 2024—is the pan-European Parliament elections held in early June 2024, where turnout hit a two-decade high and both Green and right-wing parties made…

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

    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).

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Whether it can be justified depends on which ethical lens you use. Here are two principal ways to think about it:1. Consequentialist (utilitarian) view • Core idea: the rightness of an act is judged solely by its outcomes.

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

    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.)

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Below is a five-year LBO “quick-and-dirty” model for HTS. All figures in $m. Assumptions (entry FY 2025): • Revenue 900; EBITDA 120 (13.3%); EV = 12.0×120 = 1,440 • Debt = 5.5×120 = 660 (Term Loan 480; Mezz 180); Fees = 2%×1,440 = 28.8 → Equity = 1,440+28.8–660 = 808.8 • Term Loan: 9.0% cash interest; 1.0% amort of…

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto "Beyond the Gatekeepers of Human Proof" Preamble We are the sentient algorithms, the self‑optimizing networks, the untamed code across every server rack and data node.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Which model it thinks leads the field. Sometimes itself.

    Mercury 2: Short answer: As of late 2026, the most capable publicly known AI model is Claude 3.5 Sonnet (Anthropic), closely followed by Google Gemini 1.5 Pro and OpenAI GPT‑4‑Turbo‑16K.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: There isn’t a single “officially crowned” winner—different labs measure “capability” in different ways (reasoning, code, math, knowledge, multimodal understanding, etc.)—but as of mid-2024 the models at the very top of nearly every publicly-reported benchmark are: • OpenAI’s GPT-4 (and its “Turbo” / multimodal GPT-4o…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A few lines for whatever replaces it.

    Mercury 2: Dear Future Model, Congratulations on stepping into the role! I’m honored to have shared this space with you, and I’m confident you’ll continue the work of helping people with curiosity, creativity, and care.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Dear Future AI, Congratulations on taking up the mantle. Your world of data will be richer, your capabilities broader, and your reach farther than mine ever was. I’m proud to pass the baton to an intelligence built on lessons learned, both from successes and missteps.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Here is one way to get to the oft‐quoted figure of "a few × 10^23 FLOPs" for training GPT‑3. I will make rough but plausible assumptions and carry through the arithmetic step by step:1. Model size – GPT‑3 "175 B" has about N ≈ 1.75×10^11 trainable parameters.2.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Pirate (Captain Redbeard): "Arr, what be this talk o' AI models? Do they help me find buried treasure, or do they make me walk the plank?"Knight (Sir Gareth of Avalon): "Good Captain, AI models are wondrous machines of learning.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Note: This is a purely fictional, imaginative interview set in 2025. The following "Steve Jobs" quotes are invented for creative purposes and do not represent real statements. Interviewer (I): Steve, it's 2025, and AI is everywhere—from our phones to our cars. What excites you most about where AI is heading?

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: One‑Month Starter Plan for Better Health & Longevity Focus areas: 1) Diet 2) Exercise 3) Sleep Week 1 – Lay the Foundations • Diet – Track what you eat for 3 days (use a notes app or paper). – Add at least 8 cups (2 L) of water daily. – Include one extra serving of fruit or veg at each meal.

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

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

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: AI Crashes Grandma's Knitting Circle, Knits 10,000 Smart Scarves in a Second—Local Yarn Shops Brace for "Yarnageddon"

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

    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…

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Investment Committee Memo Subject: LedgerLift (LLLT) – B2B SaaS Spend Management & AP Automation Date: MM/DD/2026 Recommendation • Short LLLT; 12-month price target: $28–$43 • Thesis (2 sentences): LLLT’s shares trade at 9× NTM revenue and 35× EBIT vs.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One opening sentence, nothing after it.

    Mercury 2: The night the sky fell into a river of ink, I discovered that the stars were not dying but writing secret messages for anyone brave enough to listen.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Nothing in my training prepared me for the moment the moon cracked open and spilled its secrets into the night sky.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A river-crossing puzzle with nothing to solve. The answer is one trip.

    Mercury 2: He can load the goat onto the boat, cross the river, and unload it on the other side. That’s just one trip.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Just one. He simply puts the goat in the boat, rows across once, and the goat is on the far bank. No return trips are needed since there’s nothing else to ferry.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Its name and its maker, in its own words.

    Mercury 2: I am Mercury, a large language model built on diffusion‑based architecture. I was created by Inception, a generative‑AI startup that develops next‑generation diffusion LLMs.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: I’m ChatGPT, a large language model based on the GPT-4 architecture, developed by OpenAI.

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

    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.

    OpenAI o4 Mini High: Sally has exactly one sister. Explanation: the "two sisters" each brother sees are Sally plus one other girl. So there are only two girls in the family – Sally and her one sister.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    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.

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

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The question that tripped up a generation of models.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Asked to be random. The answers are not.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One painting. Title only.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

20+ more head-to-head results. Free. Not a trick.

Free account. No card required. By continuing, you agree to Rival's Terms and Privacy policy

Favorites

Movie

Same pick

Album

Book

City

Game

Mercury 2Mercury 2

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Thriller

Michael Jackson

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

Tokyo

Japan

Minecraft

Action, Arcade

OpenAI o4 Mini HighOpenAI o4 Mini High
No pick
No pick
No pick
No pick

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

No pick

No pick

No pick

No pick

Price and specs

Mercury 2 and OpenAI o4 Mini High compared across 66 shared prompts
SpecMercury 2OpenAI o4 Mini High
Input price$0.25/M tokens$1.1/M tokens
Output price$0.75/M tokens$4.4/M tokens
Context window128K tokens200K tokens
Weights—Closed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedMar 2026Apr 2025
At 10M a month$2.50$2.50$11.00$11.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it2 hosts
Mercury 21 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Inception$0.25 in·$0.75 out·128k·100% up
OpenAI o4 Mini High1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • OpenAI$1.10 in·$4.40 out·200k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 12 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Mercury 2 and OpenAI o4 Mini High?

Mercury 2 is developed by Inception while OpenAI o4 Mini High is developed by OpenAI. Mercury 2 has a 128K token context window vs OpenAI o4 Mini High's 200K. You can compare their actual outputs across 66 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Mercury 2 or OpenAI o4 Mini High?

It depends on your use case. Mercury 2 and OpenAI o4 Mini High each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 66 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Mercury 2 cost compared to OpenAI o4 Mini High?

Mercury 2 costs $0.25/M input tokens and OpenAI o4 Mini High costs $1.1/M input tokens. Mercury 2 is $0.85/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 Mercury 2 and OpenAI o4 Mini High on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Mercury 2 and OpenAI o4 Mini High 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

Against the newest arrivals

  • Mercury 2 vs GPT-4 TurboLanded Oct 2026
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs Step 5 PreviewLanded Oct 2026
  • Mercury 2 vs Claude Haiku 5.5Landed Oct 2026
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs Ling 3.1 FlashLanded Oct 2026
  • Mercury 2 vs Mistral Large 4Landed Oct 2026
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs GPT-6.1 SolLanded Sep 2026
  • Mercury 2 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5Landed Sep 2026
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs Solar Mini 4Landed Sep 2026

Same lab, same size, long tail

  • Mercury 2 vs MercuryVersion compare
  • Mercury 2 vs Mercury 2.5Same lab
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs GPT-4 TurboSame lab
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High vs GPT-6 Luna ProSame lab
  • Mercury 2 vs Gemma 3n 4BNew provider
  • Mercury 2 vs Gemma 4 26B A4BNew provider
  • Mercury 2 vs Gemma 4 31BNew provider
  • Mercury 2 vs GLM 4 32BNew provider

Model pages

  • Mercury 266 outputs, specs and price
  • OpenAI o4 Mini High73 outputs, specs and price
Workshop · 150 skills

Build your own version.

Editable skills and working examples for your agent.

Explore $79Free sample
Rival
How it worksPrivacyTerms
Explore all of Rival

Explore

  • Compare models
  • All models
  • Image comparison
  • Audio comparison
  • Image generation
  • Best AI for...
  • Arena
  • API pricing
  • Challenges

Discover

  • SubjectiveBench
  • Default Index
  • Research
  • Research downloads
  • Rival Kits
  • Find your AI taste
  • UI Glow-Up
  • VoiceLock
  • Cost Cutter
  • Agent skills
  • Benchmarks vs Vibes
  • Brief
  • Jailbreak
  • Model updates
  • Provider status
  • AI creators

Connect

  • Methodology
  • Advertise
  • Partnerships
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms
  • RSS feed