Model Comparison

Mercury 2 vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Mercury 2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is 1.2x cheaper per token.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

2 benchmarks

Mercury 2 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA), while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Mercury 2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Mercury 2 ($0.25/1M tokens) is 1.3x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ($0.20/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 2 ($0.75/1M tokens) is 1.1x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ($0.70/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Mercury 2 is more expensive than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 2
Input tokens$0.25
Output tokens$0.75
Best providerInception
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
Input tokens$0.20
Output tokens$0.70
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct accepts 131,072 input tokens compared to Mercury 2's 128,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 32,768 tokens, while Mercury 2 is limited to 8,192 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 2
Input128,000 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 2 does not.

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mercury 2

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 2 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct 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 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 2 was released on 2026-02-24, while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Mercury 2 is 5 months newer than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct.

Mercury 2

Feb 24, 2026

1 months ago

5mo newer
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

6 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 VL 30B A3B Instruct is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

Mercury 2

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

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.70/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.29/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.99/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Inception
Higher AIME 2025 score (91.1% vs 69.3%)
Higher GPQA score (74.0% vs 70.4%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Larger context window (131,072 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Less expensive input tokens
Less expensive output tokens
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Inception
Mercury 2
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 2 vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct

Mercury 2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Mercury 2 is made by Inception and Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct 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 VL 30B A3B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 95.0%, ScreenSpot: 94.7%, OCRBench: 90.3%, MMLU-Redux: 88.4%, MMBench-V1.1: 87.0%.
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is 1.3x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 2 costs $0.25/M input and $0.75/M output via inception. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.20/M input and $0.70/M output via novita.
Mercury 2 supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct supports 131K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (128K vs 131K), input pricing ($0.25 vs $0.20/M), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
Mercury 2 is developed by Inception and Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.