# Mercury 2.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

> Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mercury-2-5-vs-qwen3-5-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 1

## Summary

- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Mercury 2.5 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 2 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 49.6 to 23.3.
- Mercury 2.5 is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 260K.

## Snapshot

| | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Inception | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 33.5 | 42.9 |
| Rank | 242 | 106 |
| Context | 260K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.04 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $2.40 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| ALE-Bench | 301.65 | 621.92 |
| SciCode | 38.5% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mercury 2.5: —
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 0.54 |

## Reasoning

- Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.8 (#74)

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 22% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 17% |
| DTBench | — | 80.5% |
| LMCA | — | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.78 |

## Math

- Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 49.6 (#61)

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 86.7% |
| ProofBench | 3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 2.1% |

## Knowledge

- Mercury 2.5: —
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#83)

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 25.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.7% |

## Long Context

- Mercury 2.5: —
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 43.0 (#113)

| Benchmark | Mercury 2.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |

## FAQ

### Is Mercury 2.5 better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mercury 2.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 260K.

### How many benchmarks do Mercury 2.5 and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Mercury 2.5 has 4 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.