Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 30B A3B
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 16.8. Qwen3 30B A3B is 1.1x cheaper per token.
Inception · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 16.8, ranking #98 overall.
In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Qwen3 30B A3B is roughly 1.1x 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 1 of 1 exact shared results
- 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 Qwen3 30B A3B
- cost matters — it's about 1.1x cheaper per token
- 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 · 8 for Qwen3 30B A3B
Mercury 3 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen3 30B A3B 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) costs the same as Qwen3 30B A3B ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 1.2x more expensive than Qwen3 30B A3B ($0.30/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Mercury 3 is more expensive than Qwen3 30B A3B.*
* 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 Qwen3 30B A3B's 128,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Qwen3 30B A3B is limited to 128,000 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3 30B A3B 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 Qwen3 30B A3B was released on 2025-04-29.
Mercury 3 is 18 months newer than Qwen3 30B A3B.
Oct 19, 2026
0 days ago
1.5yr newerApr 29, 2025
1.5 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. Qwen3 30B A3B is available from DeepInfra, Novita, Fireworks.
Mercury 3
Qwen3 30B A3B
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Qwen3 30B A3B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 30B A3B.