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Grok-2 Image 1212 vs Mercury 3

Comparing Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3 across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

xAI · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3 trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

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 Grok-2 Image 1212

  • you are already invested in the xAI ecosystem

Choose Mercury 3

  • 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.

Grok-2 Image 1212
xAI
Mercury 3
Inception
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
131,072
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Grok-2 Image 1212 · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Grok-2 Image 1212 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

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Grok-2 Image 1212's 131,072 tokens. Only Mercury 3 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

xAI
Grok-2 Image 1212
Input131,072 tokens
Output- tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Grok-2 Image 1212

Proprietary

Closed source

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok-2 Image 1212 was released on 2024-12-12, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 23 months newer than Grok-2 Image 1212.

Grok-2 Image 1212

Dec 12, 2024

1.9 years ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

3 days ago

1.9yr 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

Grok-2 Image 1212 is available from xAI. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Grok-2 Image 1212

xai logo
xAI

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 Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok-2 Image 1212
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok-2 Image 1212 vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Grok-2 Image 1212 or Mercury 3?

Grok-2 Image 1212 (xAI) and Mercury 3 (Inception) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Grok-2 Image 1212 compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

What are the context window sizes for Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3?

Grok-2 Image 1212 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 Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3?

Key differences include context window (131K vs 1.0M). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok-2 Image 1212 and Mercury 3?

Grok-2 Image 1212 is developed by xAI and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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