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Gemini 4 Argon vs Mercury 3

Gemini 4 Argon leads the LLM Stats Score 55.1 to 36.1. Mercury 3 is 24.6x cheaper per token.

Google · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Gemini 4 Argon leads the overall LLM Stats Score 55.1 to 36.1, ranking #4 overall.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 24.6x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Gemini 4 Argon 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 Gemini 4 Argon

  • overall performance matters — it scores 55.1 and ranks #4 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and 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 24.6x cheaper per token
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Gemini 4 Argon
Google
Mercury 3
Inception
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
55.1
#4
36.1
#98
Reasoning
53.2
#6
34.8
#103
Coding
42.5
#7
21.5
#105
Agents
41.2
#4
19.4
#84
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$10.00 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
1,048,576
1,000,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Gemini 4 Argon
Mercury 3
Long context
30.6#3
23.0#18
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

19 reported for Gemini 4 Argon · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Gemini 4 Argon 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, Gemini 4 Argon ($2.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Gemini 4 Argon ($10.00/1M tokens) is 28.6x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Gemini 4 Argon is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Google
Gemini 4 Argon
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$10.00
Best providerGoogle
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

Gemini 4 Argon accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Mercury 3's 1,000,000 tokens. Gemini 4 Argon can generate longer responses up to 1,048,576 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.

Google
Gemini 4 Argon
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output1,048,576 tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Gemini 4 Argon supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

Gemini 4 Argon can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Gemini 4 Argon

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mercury 3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Gemini 4 Argon

Proprietary

Closed source

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Gemini 4 Argon was released on 2026-09-30, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 1 month newer than Gemini 4 Argon.

Gemini 4 Argon

Sep 30, 2026

2 weeks ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

0 days ago

2w 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

Gemini 4 Argon is available from Google. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Gemini 4 Argon

google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $10.00/1M

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 Gemini 4 Argon and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Gemini 4 Argon
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Gemini 4 Argon vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Gemini 4 Argon or Mercury 3?

Gemini 4 Argon leads the LLM Stats Score 55.1 to 36.1. Gemini 4 Argon is made by Google 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 Gemini 4 Argon compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

Gemini 4 Argon scores Graphwalks BFS <128k: 99.7%, Vibe Code Bench: 91.9%, LVBench: 91.7%, LABBench2: 88.8%, Graphwalks BFS >128k: 84.2%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is Gemini 4 Argon cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 20.0x cheaper for input tokens. Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00/M input and $10.00/M output via google. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception.

What are the context window sizes for Gemini 4 Argon and Mercury 3?

Gemini 4 Argon 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 Gemini 4 Argon and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (55.1 vs 36.1), context window (1.0M vs 1.0M), input pricing ($2.00 vs $0.10/M), multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Gemini 4 Argon and Mercury 3?

Gemini 4 Argon is developed by Google and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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