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Hermes 3 405B vs Mercury 3

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 3.9. Mercury 3 is 6.2x cheaper per token.

Nous Research · Inception · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 3.9, ranking #98 overall.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 6.2x 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 Hermes 3 405B

  • 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 — it leads those capability indexes
  • cost matters — it's about 6.2x cheaper per token
  • 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.

Hermes 3 405B
Nous Research
Mercury 3
Inception
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
3.9
#327
36.1
#98
Reasoning
3.3
#324
34.8
#103
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$1.00 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$1.00 / M
$0.35 / M
Context window
131,072
1,000,000

Individual benchmarks

13 reported for Hermes 3 405B · 12 for Mercury 3

No common benchmarks found

Hermes 3 405B 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, Hermes 3 405B ($1.00/1M tokens) is 10.0x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Hermes 3 405B ($1.00/1M tokens) is 2.9x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Hermes 3 405B is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Sun Oct 25 2026 • llm-stats.com
Nous Research
Hermes 3 405B
Input tokens$1.00
Output tokens$1.00
Best providerDeepinfra
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 Hermes 3 405B's 131,072 tokens. Both models can generate responses up to 131,072 tokens.

Nous Research
Hermes 3 405B
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Sun Oct 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Hermes 3 405B 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.

Hermes 3 405B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Hermes 3 405B was released on 2024-10-09, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.

Mercury 3 is 25 months newer than Hermes 3 405B.

Hermes 3 405B

Oct 9, 2024

2.0 years ago

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

6 days ago

2.0yr 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

Hermes 3 405B is available from DeepInfra. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.

Hermes 3 405B

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $1.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.00/1M

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 Hermes 3 405B and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Hermes 3 405B
✓ Preferred
Mercury 3
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Hermes 3 405B vs Mercury 3.

Which is better, Hermes 3 405B or Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 3.9. Hermes 3 405B is made by Nous Research 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 Hermes 3 405B compare to Mercury 3 in benchmarks?

Hermes 3 405B scores HellaSwag: 90.2%, MT-Bench: 89.3%, BoolQ: 88.9%, Winogrande: 86.3%, ARC-E: 86.2%. Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is Hermes 3 405B cheaper than Mercury 3?

Mercury 3 is 10.0x cheaper for input tokens. Hermes 3 405B costs $1.00/M input and $1.00/M output via deepinfra. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception.

What are the context window sizes for Hermes 3 405B and Mercury 3?

Hermes 3 405B 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 Hermes 3 405B and Mercury 3?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (3.9 vs 36.1), context window (131K vs 1.0M), input pricing ($1.00 vs $0.10/M), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Hermes 3 405B and Mercury 3?

Hermes 3 405B is developed by Nous Research and Mercury 3 is developed by Inception.

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