Mercury 3 vs Pixtral Large
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 11.3. 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 11.3, 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 Pixtral Large
- 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 · 7 for Pixtral Large
Mercury 3 and Pixtral Largedon'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 20.0x cheaper than Pixtral Large ($2.00/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 17.1x cheaper than Pixtral Large ($6.00/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Pixtral Large 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 Pixtral Large's 128,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Pixtral Large is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Pixtral Large supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
Pixtral Large can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mercury 3
Pixtral Large
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Pixtral Large uses Mistral Research License (MRL) for research; Mistral Commercial License for commercial use.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Mistral Research License (MRL) for research; Mistral Commercial License for commercial use
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Pixtral Large was released on 2024-11-18.
Mercury 3 is 23 months newer than Pixtral Large.
Oct 19, 2026
0 days ago
1.9yr newerNov 18, 2024
1.9 years 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. Pixtral Large is available from Mistral AI.
Mercury 3
Pixtral Large
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Pixtral Large side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Pixtral Large.