Mercury 3 vs MiniMax M3
Mercury 3 and MiniMax M3 are closely matched at 36.1 and 40.9 on the LLM Stats Score. Mercury 3 is 3.0x cheaper per token.
Inception · MiniMax · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 and MiniMax M3 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 36.1 and 40.9.
On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 3.0x 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 Mercury 3
- cost matters — it's about 3.0x 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
Choose MiniMax M3
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
12 reported for Mercury 3 · 35 for MiniMax M3
Mercury 3 and MiniMax M3don'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
For input processing, Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens) is 2.8x cheaper than MiniMax M3 ($0.28/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 3.1x cheaper than MiniMax M3 ($1.10/1M tokens).
In conclusion, MiniMax M3 is more expensive than Mercury 3.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to MiniMax M3's 524,288 tokens. MiniMax M3 can generate longer responses up to 524,288 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
MiniMax M3 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
MiniMax M3 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mercury 3
MiniMax M3
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while MiniMax M3 uses MIT.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
MIT
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while MiniMax M3 was released on 2026-06-01.
Mercury 3 is 5 months newer than MiniMax M3.
Oct 19, 2026
3 days ago
4mo newerJun 1, 2026
4 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Mercury 3 is available from Inception. MiniMax M3 is available from DeepInfra, Fireworks, MiniMax, Novita, Together.
Mercury 3
MiniMax M3
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and MiniMax M3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs MiniMax M3.