Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 Max
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 21.3. Mercury 3 is 10.0x 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 21.3, 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, Mercury 3 is roughly 10.0x 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
- cost matters — it's about 10.0x 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 Qwen3 Max
- you want predictable pricing at $0.50/M input and $5.00/M output
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
12 reported for Mercury 3 · 6 for Qwen3 Max
Mercury 3 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen3 Max 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 5.0x cheaper than Qwen3 Max ($0.50/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 14.3x cheaper than Qwen3 Max ($5.00/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Qwen3 Max 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 Qwen3 Max's 256,000 tokens. Both models can generate responses up to 131,072 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.
Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.
Proprietary
Closed source
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Qwen3 Max was released on 2025-12-15.
Mercury 3 is 10 months newer than Qwen3 Max.
Oct 19, 2026
6 days ago
10mo newerDec 15, 2025
10 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. Qwen3 Max is available from Novita, DeepInfra.
Mercury 3
Qwen3 Max
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Qwen3 Max side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 Max.