Llama 4 Maverick vs Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 14.2. Mercury 3 is 1.7x cheaper per token.
Meta · Inception · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 14.2, ranking #98 overall.
In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
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.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick
- 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 and coding — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
- 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.
Individual benchmarks
13 reported for Llama 4 Maverick · 12 for Mercury 3
Llama 4 Maverick outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Mercury 3 is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).
Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Llama 4 Maverick ($0.17/1M tokens) is 1.7x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, Llama 4 Maverick ($0.60/1M tokens) is 1.7x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Llama 4 Maverick is more expensive than Mercury 3.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Both models have the same input context window of 1,000,000 tokens. Llama 4 Maverick can generate longer responses up to 1,000,000 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Llama 4 Maverick supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
Llama 4 Maverick can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Llama 4 Maverick
Mercury 3
License
Usage and distribution terms
Llama 4 Maverick is licensed under Llama 4 Community License Agreement, while Mercury 3 uses a proprietary license.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Llama 4 Community License Agreement
Open weights
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Llama 4 Maverick was released on 2025-04-05, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.
Mercury 3 is 19 months newer than Llama 4 Maverick.
Apr 5, 2025
1.5 years ago
Oct 19, 2026
0 days ago
1.5yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Llama 4 Maverick is available from DeepInfra, Novita, Lambda, Groq, Fireworks, Together, Sambanova. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.
Llama 4 Maverick
Mercury 3
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Llama 4 Maverick and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Llama 4 Maverick vs Mercury 3.