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Mercury 3 vs Mistral NeMo Instruct

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -5.2. Mistral NeMo Instruct is 7.5x cheaper per token.

Inception · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -5.2, ranking #98 overall.

On price, Mistral NeMo Instruct is roughly 7.5x 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
  • 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 NeMo Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 7.5x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
-5.2
#379
Reasoning
34.8
#103
-5.4
#372
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.02 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$0.03 / M
Context window
1,000,000
131,072

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 8 for Mistral NeMo Instruct

No common benchmarks found

Mercury 3 and Mistral NeMo Instructdon'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

Mistral NeMo Instruct costs less

For input processing, Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens) is 5.3x more expensive than Mistral NeMo Instruct ($0.02/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 11.7x more expensive than Mistral NeMo Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Mercury 3 is more expensive than Mistral NeMo Instruct.*

* 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 NeMo Instruct
Input tokens$0.02
Output tokens$0.03
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Mistral NeMo Instruct's 131,072 tokens. Both models can generate responses up to 131,072 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral NeMo Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral NeMo Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Mistral NeMo Instruct was released on 2024-07-18.

Mercury 3 is 27 months newer than Mistral NeMo Instruct.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

3 days ago

2.3yr newer
Mistral NeMo Instruct

Jul 18, 2024

2.3 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 NeMo Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Google, Mistral AI.

Mercury 3

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

Mistral NeMo Instruct

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.02/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.03/1M
google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.15/1M
mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.15/1M
* 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 NeMo Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Mistral NeMo Instruct.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Mistral NeMo Instruct?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -5.2. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Mistral NeMo Instruct 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 NeMo Instruct in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Mistral NeMo Instruct scores HellaSwag: 83.5%, Winogrande: 76.8%, TriviaQA: 73.8%, CommonSenseQA: 70.4%, MMLU: 68.0%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Mistral NeMo Instruct?

Mistral NeMo Instruct is 5.3x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Mistral NeMo Instruct costs $0.02/M input and $0.03/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Mistral NeMo Instruct?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Mistral NeMo Instruct supports 131K 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 NeMo Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs -5.2), context window (1.0M vs 131K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.02/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Mistral NeMo Instruct?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Mistral NeMo Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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