Model Comparison

Mercury 2 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Mercury 2 is 1.3x cheaper per token.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

Mercury 2 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (AIME 2025), while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, Tau2 Airline).

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Fri Apr 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Mercury 2 costs less

For input processing, Mercury 2 ($0.25/1M tokens) is 1.7x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($0.15/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 2 ($0.75/1M tokens) is 2.0x cheaper than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($1.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is more expensive than Mercury 2.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Fri Apr 17 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 2
Input tokens$0.25
Output tokens$0.75
Best providerInception
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input tokens$0.15
Output tokens$1.50
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 2 accepts 128,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's 65,536 tokens. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking can generate longer responses up to 65,536 tokens, while Mercury 2 is limited to 8,192 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 2
Input128,000 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Fri Apr 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 2 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking uses Apache 2.0.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Mercury 2

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 2 was released on 2026-02-24, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.

Mercury 2 is 6 months newer than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

Mercury 2

Feb 24, 2026

1 months ago

5mo newer
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Sep 10, 2025

7 months ago

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

Mercury 2 is available from Inception. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is available from Novita.

Mercury 2

inception logo
Inception
Input Price:Input: $0.25/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.75/1M

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.50/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Inception
Larger context window (128,000 tokens)
Less expensive output tokens
Higher AIME 2025 score (91.1% vs 87.8%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Less expensive input tokens
Has open weights
Higher GPQA score (77.2% vs 74.0%)
Higher Tau2 Airline score (60.5% vs 53.0%)

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Inception
Mercury 2
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 2 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Mercury 2 is made by Inception and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.
Mercury 2 scores AIME 2025: 91.1%, GPQA: 74.0%, IFBench: 71.0%, LiveCodeBench: 67.0%, Tau2 Airline: 53.0%. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking scores MMLU-Redux: 92.5%, IFEval: 88.9%, AIME 2025: 87.8%, WritingBench: 84.6%, MMLU-Pro: 82.7%.
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 1.7x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 2 costs $0.25/M input and $0.75/M output via inception. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking costs $0.15/M input and $1.50/M output via novita.
Mercury 2 supports 128K tokens and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking supports 66K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (128K vs 66K), input pricing ($0.25 vs $0.15/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
Mercury 2 is developed by Inception and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.