Mercury 3 vs Mistral Small 4
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 18.3. Mercury 3 is 1.6x cheaper per token.
Inception · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 18.3, ranking #98 overall.
In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 1.6x 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 value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 3 exact shared results
- cost matters — it's about 1.6x 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 4
- 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 · 9 for Mistral Small 4
Mercury 3 outperforms in 3 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GPQA, IFBench), while Mistral Small 4 is better at 0 benchmarks.
Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
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 1.5x cheaper than Mistral Small 4 ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 1.7x cheaper than Mistral Small 4 ($0.60/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Mistral Small 4 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 Mistral Small 4's 256,000 tokens. Mistral Small 4 can generate longer responses up to 256,000 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Mistral Small 4 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
Mistral Small 4 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mercury 3
Mistral Small 4
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Small 4 uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Mistral Small 4 was released on 2026-03-16.
Mercury 3 is 7 months newer than Mistral Small 4.
Oct 19, 2026
0 days ago
7mo newerMar 16, 2026
7 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. Mistral Small 4 is available from Mistral AI.
Mercury 3
Mistral Small 4
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Mistral Small 4 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Mistral Small 4.