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Devstral Small 1.1 vs Mercury 3

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 8.6. Devstral Small 1.1 is 1.1x cheaper per token.

Mistral AI · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 8.6, ranking #98 overall.

On price, Devstral Small 1.1 is roughly 1.1x 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 Devstral Small 1.1

  • cost matters — it's about 1.1x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Mercury 3

  • overall performance matters — it scores 36.1 and ranks #98 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • 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.

Devstral Small 1.1
Mistral AI
Mercury 3
Inception
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
8.6
#295
36.1
#98
Reasoning
8.6
#293
34.8
#103
Coding
0.2
#264
21.5
#105
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$0.30 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
128,000
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

1 reported for Devstral Small 1.1 · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Devstral Small 1.1 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

Devstral Small 1.1 costs less

For input processing, Devstral Small 1.1 ($0.10/1M tokens) costs the same as Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Devstral Small 1.1 ($0.30/1M tokens) is 1.2x cheaper than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Mercury 3 is more expensive than Devstral Small 1.1.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com
Mistral AI
Devstral Small 1.1
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.30
Best providerMistral
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 Devstral Small 1.1's 128,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Devstral Small 1.1 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Mistral AI
Devstral Small 1.1
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Devstral Small 1.1 is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Mercury 3 uses a proprietary license.

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

Devstral Small 1.1

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Devstral Small 1.1 was released on 2025-07-11, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 16 months newer than Devstral Small 1.1.

Devstral Small 1.1

Jul 11, 2025

1.3 years ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

3 days ago

1.3yr 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

Devstral Small 1.1 is available from Mistral AI. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Devstral Small 1.1

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.30/1M

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 Devstral Small 1.1 and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Devstral Small 1.1
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Devstral Small 1.1 vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Devstral Small 1.1 or Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 8.6. Devstral Small 1.1 is made by Mistral AI 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 Devstral Small 1.1 compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

Devstral Small 1.1 scores SWE-Bench Verified: 53.6%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is Devstral Small 1.1 cheaper than Mercury 3?

Both models cost $0.10 per million input tokens.

What are the context window sizes for Devstral Small 1.1 and Mercury 3?

Devstral Small 1.1 supports 128K 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 Devstral Small 1.1 and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (8.6 vs 36.1), context window (128K vs 1.0M), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Devstral Small 1.1 and Mercury 3?

Devstral Small 1.1 is developed by Mistral AI and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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