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Grok 4.3 vs Mercury 3

Grok 4.3 and Mercury 3 are closely matched at 22.0 and 36.1 on the LLM Stats Score. Mercury 3 is 9.6x cheaper per token.

xAI · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok 4.3 and Mercury 3 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 22.0 and 36.1.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 9.6x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok 4.3

  • you want predictable pricing at $1.25/M input and $2.50/M output

Choose Mercury 3

  • cost matters — it's about 9.6x cheaper per token
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok 4.3
xAI
Mercury 3
Inception
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
22.0
#202
36.1
#98
Reasoning
22.5
#193
34.8
#103
Agents
10.1
#141
19.4
#84
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$1.25 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$2.50 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
1,000,000
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

1 reported for Grok 4.3 · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Grok 4.3 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 4.3 ($1.25/1M tokens) is 12.5x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Grok 4.3 ($2.50/1M tokens) is 7.1x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Grok 4.3 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 4.3
Input tokens$1.25
Output tokens$2.50
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

Both models have the same input context window of 1,000,000 tokens. Only Mercury 3 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Fri Oct 23 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 4.3

Proprietary

Closed source

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.3 was released on 2026-05-06, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 6 months newer than Grok 4.3.

Grok 4.3

May 6, 2026

5 months ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

0 days ago

5mo 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 4.3 is available from xAI. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Grok 4.3

xai logo
xAI
Input Price:Input: $1.25/1MOutput Price:Output: $2.50/1M

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 4.3 and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.3
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.3 vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Grok 4.3 or Mercury 3?

Grok 4.3 and Mercury 3 are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 22.0 and 36.1. Grok 4.3 is made by xAI 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 Grok 4.3 compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

Grok 4.3 scores Finance Agent v2: 37.7%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is Grok 4.3 cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 12.5x cheaper for input tokens. Grok 4.3 costs $1.25/M input and $2.50/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 4.3 and Mercury 3?

Grok 4.3 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 Grok 4.3 and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (22.0 vs 36.1), input pricing ($1.25 vs $0.10/M). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.3 and Mercury 3?

Grok 4.3 is developed by xAI and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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