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Mercury 3 vs Sakana Namazu

Sakana Namazu leads the LLM Stats Score 41.7 to 36.1. Mercury 3 is 10.5x cheaper per token.

Inception · Sakana AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Sakana Namazu leads the overall LLM Stats Score 41.7 to 36.1, ranking #67 overall.

On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 10.5x 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

  • cost matters — it's about 10.5x 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 Sakana Namazu

  • overall performance matters — it scores 41.7 and ranks #67 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Sakana Namazu
Sakana AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
41.7
#67
Reasoning
34.8
#103
41.5
#61
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.95 / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
$4.00 / M
Context window
1,000,000
256,000

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 3 for Sakana Namazu

No common benchmarks found

Mercury 3 and Sakana Namazudon'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 9.5x cheaper than Sakana Namazu ($0.95/1M tokens).

For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 11.4x cheaper than Sakana Namazu ($4.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Sakana Namazu is more expensive than Mercury 3.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com
Inception
Mercury 3
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.35
Best providerInception
Sakana AI
Sakana Namazu
Input tokens$0.95
Output tokens$4.00
Best providerUnknown Organization
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Sakana Namazu's 256,000 tokens. Sakana Namazu can generate longer responses up to 256,000 tokens, while Mercury 3 is limited to 131,072 tokens.

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Sakana AI
Sakana Namazu
Input256,000 tokens
Output256,000 tokens
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Sakana Namazu supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.

Sakana Namazu can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mercury 3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Sakana Namazu

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Sakana Namazu

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Sakana Namazu was released on 2026-08-03.

Mercury 3 is 3 months newer than Sakana Namazu.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

0 days ago

2mo newer
Sakana Namazu

Aug 3, 2026

2 months 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. Sakana Namazu is available from Sakana AI.

Mercury 3

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

Sakana Namazu

sakana logo
Unknown Organization
Input Price:Input: $0.95/1MOutput Price:Output: $4.00/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Sakana Namazu side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Sakana Namazu
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Sakana Namazu.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Sakana Namazu?

Sakana Namazu leads the LLM Stats Score 41.7 to 36.1. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Sakana Namazu is made by Sakana AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Sakana Namazu in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Sakana Namazu scores AIME 2026: 96.7%, LiveCodeBench v6: 90.3%, MMLU-Pro: 90.3%.

Is Mercury 3 cheaper than Sakana Namazu?

Mercury 3 is 9.5x cheaper for input tokens. Mercury 3 costs $0.10/M input and $0.35/M output via inception. Sakana Namazu costs $0.95/M input and $4.00/M output via sakana.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Sakana Namazu?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Sakana Namazu supports 256K 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 Sakana Namazu?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs 41.7), context window (1.0M vs 256K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.95/M), multimodal support (no vs yes). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Sakana Namazu?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Sakana Namazu is developed by Sakana AI.

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