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Mercury 3 vs Mistral Small

Comparing Mercury 3 and Mistral Small across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Inception · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 and Mistral Small trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 1.8x 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 1.8x 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 Small

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Mistral Small
Mistral AI
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.20 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$0.60 / M
Context window
1,000,000
32,768

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 0 for Mistral Small

No common benchmarks found

Mercury 3 and Mistral Smalldon'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 2.0x cheaper than Mistral Small ($0.20/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 1.7x cheaper than Mistral Small ($0.60/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Mistral Small 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 Small
Input tokens$0.20
Output tokens$0.60
Best providerMistral
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Mistral Small's 32,768 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Mistral Small is limited to 32,768 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small
Input32,768 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Small 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 Small

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Mistral Small was released on 2024-09-17.

Mercury 3 is 25 months newer than Mistral Small.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

1 days ago

2.1yr newer
Mistral Small

Sep 17, 2024

2.1 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 Small is available from Mistral AI.

Mercury 3

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

Mistral Small

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.60/1M
* 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 Small side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Mistral Small.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Mistral Small?

Mercury 3 (Inception) and Mistral Small (Mistral AI) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Mistral Small in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Mistral Small?

Mercury 3 is 2.0x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Mistral Small costs $0.20/M input and $0.60/M output via mistral.

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

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Mistral Small supports 33K 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 Small?

Key differences include context window (1.0M vs 33K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.20/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Mistral Research License). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Mistral Small?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Mistral Small is developed by Mistral AI.

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