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Mercury 3 vs Mistral Large 2

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 6.9. Mercury 3 is 18.5x cheaper per token.

Inception · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 6.9, ranking #98 overall.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 18.5x 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

  • 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 18.5x 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 Mistral Large 2

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Mistral Large 2
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
6.9
#314
Reasoning
34.8
#103
6.9
#307
Coding
21.5
#105
12.9
#160
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.10 / M
$2.00 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$6.00 / M
Context window
1,000,000
128,000

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 5 for Mistral Large 2

No common benchmarks found

Mercury 3 and Mistral Large 2don'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, Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens) is 20.0x cheaper than Mistral Large 2 ($2.00/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 17.1x cheaper than Mistral Large 2 ($6.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Mistral Large 2 is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 3
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.35
Best providerInception
Mistral AI
Mistral Large 2
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$6.00
Best providerGoogle
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Mistral Large 2's 128,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Mistral Large 2 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Large 2
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Large 2 uses Mistral Research License.

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

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Mistral Large 2 was released on 2024-07-24.

Mercury 3 is 27 months newer than Mistral Large 2.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

1 days ago

2.2yr newer
Mistral Large 2

Jul 24, 2024

2.2 years 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 3 is available from Inception. Mistral Large 2 is available from Google, Mistral AI.

Mercury 3

inception logo
Inception
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.35/1M

Mistral Large 2

google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M
mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Mistral Large 2 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Mistral Large 2
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Mistral Large 2.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Mistral Large 2?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 6.9. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Mistral Large 2 is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Mistral Large 2 in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Mistral Large 2 scores GSM8k: 93.0%, HumanEval: 92.0%, MT-Bench: 86.3%, MMLU: 84.0%, MMLU French: 82.8%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Mistral Large 2?

Mercury 3 is 20.0x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Mistral Large 2 costs $2.00/M input and $6.00/M output via google.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Mistral Large 2?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Mistral Large 2 supports 128K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Mercury 3 and Mistral Large 2?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs 6.9), context window (1.0M vs 128K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $2.00/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Mistral Research License). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Mistral Large 2?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Mistral Large 2 is developed by Mistral AI.

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