The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning vs Mercury 3

Comparing Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3 across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

xAI · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3 trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 1.7x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning also accepts a larger context window (2,000,000 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-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning

  • you process long inputs — it offers a 2,000,000 token context window

Choose Mercury 3

  • cost matters — it's about 1.7x cheaper per token
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning
xAI
Mercury 3
Inception
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.20 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$0.50 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
2,000,000
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning 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, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning ($0.20/1M tokens) is 2.0x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning ($0.50/1M tokens) is 1.4x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning 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
xAI
Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning
Input tokens$0.20
Output tokens$0.50
Best providerxAI
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

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning accepts 2,000,000 input tokens compared to Mercury 3's 1,000,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning is limited to 30,000 tokens.

xAI
Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning
Input2,000,000 tokens
Output30,000 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

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning

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.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning

Proprietary

Closed source

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning was released on 2025-11-17, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 11 months newer than Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning

Nov 17, 2025

11 months ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

1 days ago

11mo 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-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning is available from xAI. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning

xai logo
xAI
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M

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 Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning or Mercury 3?

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning (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-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning 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%.

Is Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 2.0x cheaper for input tokens. Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning costs $0.20/M input and $0.50/M output via xai. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception.

What are the context window sizes for Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3?

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning supports 2.0M 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 Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3?

Key differences include context window (2.0M vs 1.0M), input pricing ($0.20 vs $0.10/M), multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning and Mercury 3?

Grok-4.1 Fast Non-Reasoning is developed by xAI and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

Related comparisons