The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp vs Mercury 3

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp leads the LLM Stats Score 44.2 to 36.1. Mercury 3 is 2.0x cheaper per token.

DeepSeek · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp leads the overall LLM Stats Score 44.2 to 36.1, ranking #52 overall.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 2.0x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp also accepts a larger context window (1,048,576 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp

  • overall performance matters — it scores 44.2 and ranks #52 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes agents — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,048,576 token context window

Choose Mercury 3

  • cost matters — it's about 2.0x cheaper per token
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Core performance indexes
44.2
#52
36.1
#98
40.8
#65
34.8
#103
33.0
#44
21.5
#105
30.4
#44
19.4
#84
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.22 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$0.66 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
1,048,576
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

7 reported for DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp ($0.22/1M tokens) is 2.2x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp ($0.66/1M tokens) is 1.9x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp
Input tokens$0.22
Output tokens$0.66
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

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Mercury 3's 1,000,000 tokens. DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp can generate longer responses up to 393,216 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.

DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output393,216 tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mercury 3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp was released on 2026-08-21, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 2 months newer than DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp

Aug 21, 2026

1 months ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

0 days ago

1mo 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp is available from DeepSeek, DeepInfra. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp

deepseek logo
DeepSeek
Input Price:Input: $0.22/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.66/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.44/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.32/1M

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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp or Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp leads the LLM Stats Score 44.2 to 36.1. DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp scores Terminal-Bench 2.1: 83.9%, DSBench-Hard: 63.6%, DeepSWE: 59.3%, NL2Repo: 57.7%, ZEROBench: 35.0%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 2.2x cheaper for input tokens. DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp costs $0.22/M input and $0.66/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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp and Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp supports 1.0M 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-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (44.2 vs 36.1), context window (1.0M vs 1.0M), input pricing ($0.22 vs $0.10/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Unknown vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp and Mercury 3?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp is developed by DeepSeek and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.