Mercury 2 vs Fugu Max
| Signal | Mercury 2 | Delta | Fugu Max |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 67 | -33 | |
Benchmarks | 60 | +60 | |
Pricing | 99 | +5 | |
Context window size | 81 | -14 | |
Recency | 96 | -4 | |
Output Capacity | 75 | -6 | |
| Overall Result | 2 wins | of 6 | 4 wins |
Score History
60.9
current score
Mercury 2
right now
40
current score
Mercury 2
Inception
Fugu Max
sakana
Mercury 2 saves you $437.50/month
That's $5250.00/year compared to Fugu Max at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
| Metric | Mercury 2 | Fugu Max | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 61 | 40 | Mercury 2 |
| Rank | #212 | #246 | Mercury 2 |
| Quality Rank | #212 | #246 | Mercury 2 |
| Adoption Rank | #212 | #246 | Mercury 2 |
| Parameters | -- | -- | -- |
| Context Window | 128K | 1000K | Fugu Max |
| Pricing | $0.25/$0.75/M | $2.00/$6.00/M | -- |
| Signal Scores | |||
| Capabilities | 67 | 100 | Fugu Max |
| Benchmarks | 60 | -- | Mercury 2 |
| Pricing | 99 | 94 | Mercury 2 |
| Context window size | 81 | 95 | Fugu Max |
| Recency | 96 | 100 | Fugu Max |
| Output Capacity | 75 | 82 | Fugu Max |
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.
Scores 61/100 (rank #212), placing it in the top 27% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 40/100 (rank #246), placing it in the top 16% of all 290 models tracked.
Mercury 2 has a 21-point advantage, which typically translates to noticeably stronger performance on complex reasoning, code generation, and multi-step tasks.
Choose Mercury 2 when you need:
- High-volume production workloads where API costs must be minimized
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
Choose Fugu Max when you need:
- Processing long documents or large codebases (1000K token context)
- Multimodal workflows that require image understanding
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
Mercury 2 offers 88% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $15.00/month with Mercury 2 vs $120.00/month with Fugu Max - a $105.00 monthly difference.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. Mercury 2 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (1000K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($0.75/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (61/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Image understanding & OCR
Supports vision input - can analyze screenshots, diagrams, photos, and scanned documents directly
Mercury 2 clearly outperforms Fugu Max with a significant 20.9-point lead. For most general use cases, Mercury 2 is the stronger choice. However, Fugu Max may still excel in niche scenarios.
By Use Case
Best for Quality
Mercury 2
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
Mercury 2
88% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
Mercury 2
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
Mercury 2
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
Mercury 2
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by Inception
- Choose for Quality - Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
- Choose for Cost - 88% lower pricing; better value at scale
- Choose for Reliability - Higher uptime and faster response speeds
- Choose for Prototyping - Stronger community support and better developer experience
- Choose for Production - Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
| Capability | Mercury 2 | Fugu Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input)differs | ||
| Function Calling | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Mode | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Web Searchdiffers | ||
| Image Output |
Mercury 2
Inception
Fugu Max
sakana
Mercury 2 saves you $9.45/month
That's 88% cheaper than Fugu Max at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | Mercury 2 | Fugu Max |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 128K | 1M |
| Max Output Tokens | 50,000 | 128,000 |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Created | Mar 4, 2026 | Sep 11, 2026 |