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DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale vs Mercury 3

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3 are closely matched at 33.5 and 36.1 on the LLM Stats Score. Mercury 3 is 1.9x cheaper per token.

DeepSeek · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 33.5 and 36.1.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 1.9x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Mercury 3 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Mercury 3

  • cost matters — it's about 1.9x cheaper per token
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale
DeepSeek
Mercury 3
Inception
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
33.5
#117
36.1
#98
Reasoning
32.1
#125
34.8
#103
Coding
18.5
#131
21.5
#105
Agents
10.8
#136
19.4
#84
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.28 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$0.42 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
131,072
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

8 reported for DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3don't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Mercury 3 costs less

For input processing, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale ($0.28/1M tokens) is 2.8x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale ($0.42/1M tokens) is 1.2x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com
DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale
Input tokens$0.28
Output tokens$0.42
Best providerDeepSeek
Inception
Mercury 3
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.35
Best providerInception
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale's 131,072 tokens. Both models can generate responses up to 131,072 tokens.

DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale is licensed under MIT, while Mercury 3 uses a proprietary license.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale

MIT

Open weights

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale was released on 2025-12-01, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 11 months newer than DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale.

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale

Dec 1, 2025

10 months ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

3 days ago

10mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale is available from DeepSeek. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale

deepseek logo
DeepSeek
Input Price:Input: $0.28/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.42/1M

Mercury 3

inception logo
Inception
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.35/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale or Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3 are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 33.5 and 36.1. DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale is made by DeepSeek and Mercury 3 is made by Inception. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale scores HMMT 2025: 99.2%, AIME 2025: 96.0%, CodeForces: 90.0%, t2-bench: 80.3%, SWE-Bench Verified: 73.1%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 2.8x cheaper for input tokens. DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale costs $0.28/M input and $0.42/M output via deepseek. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception.

What are the context window sizes for DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale supports 131K tokens and Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (33.5 vs 36.1), context window (131K vs 1.0M), input pricing ($0.28 vs $0.10/M), licensing (MIT vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale and Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale is developed by DeepSeek and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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