Current model · Inception
Mercury 3 benchmarks, pricing and specs
Mercury 3 is an Inception model released on October 19, 2026 that takes text input and produces text. It costs $0.20 per 1M input tokens and $0.70 per 1M output tokens and accepts up to 1,000,000 tokens of context.
- Per 1M input tokens
- $0.20Listed today
- Per 1M output tokens
- $0.70Listed today
- Context window
- 1M#26 of 64 current models
Data verified October 23, 2026 · Dataset 2026-10-23
Specs
Key facts
- Provider
- Inception
- Model family
- Mercury
- Release date
- October 19, 2026
- Status
- Current
- Access
- API only
- API model id
- mercury-3
- Context window
- 1,000,000 tokens
- Max output
- 131,072 tokens
- Input
- text
- Output
- text
- Task families
- text
- Declared capabilities
- reasoning
Charts
Against every current text model
Where Mercury 3 lands among the current models of its task, on every independent benchmark, on price and on context.
Where it stands
6 of 49 list a lower price per 1M input tokens. Each bar is the share of current models it beats.
Price and context
Price per 1M input tokens
#7of 49
$0.20 · cheaper than 83%
Price per 1M output tokens
#7of 49
$0.70 · cheaper than 88%
Context window
#26of 64
1M tokens · longer than 22%
Benchmarks
Independent benchmark results
Scores come from independent evaluators that ran the model themselves, pinned to a dated snapshot. Rank is among current models in the same snapshot. Inception's own launch figures are listed under strengths with the publisher named, because they are not measured the same way.
No independent benchmark has published a result for Mercury 3 yet. It is still compared below on price, context and capabilities.
Fit
Strengths, cautions and best uses
- Strengths
- A diffusion language model that writes many tokens in parallel; Inception reports 1,068 tokens per second on NVIDIA GPUs
- A 1M-token context, up from 260K on Mercury 2.5, with up to 131,072 output tokens and reasoning efforts from instant to high
- Inception says it outperforms GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5 across its benchmark set while running 4 to 8 times faster
- Cautions
- The recorded rates are list prices; a 50% launch discount was running with no published end date
- Inception comparisons are its own, and no independent benchmark score is recorded here yet
- Best for
- Latency-critical agent loops and real-time search agents
- High-volume text generation at low cost
From benchmark to production
Building on Mercury 3?
Public scores rarely hold on your own data. We test it against the alternatives on your real tasks, then build the agent or pipeline around the model that wins.
Alternatives
Alternatives to Mercury 3
The closest current text models by price. The cheapest model that scores as well or better is listed first; failing that, the cheapest one within 3% of the benchmark's scale.
On score and price
Mercury 3 beside the 4 alternatives listed below, on Arena Text and on blended price per 1M tokens.
Arena Text
Measured October 8, 2026, higher is better
- Mercury 3
- Not scored
- GPT-5.6 Luna
- 1,452
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
- Not scored
- GLM-5.3-Flash
- 1,475
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash
- Not scored
Blended price per 1M tokens
Listed today, lower is better
- Mercury 3
- $0.325
- GPT-5.6 Luna
- $0.45
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
- $0.563
- GLM-5.3-Flash
- $0.238
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash
- $0.262
GPT-5.6 Luna
- Same price per 1M input tokens, $0.20
- From OpenAI
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
- 25% more per 1M input tokens, $0.25 vs $0.20
- From Google
GLM-5.3-Flash
- 25% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.15 vs $0.20
- From Z.ai
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
- 25% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.15 vs $0.20
- From MiniMax
Further reading
More on Mercury 3
FAQ
Mercury 3 FAQ
How much does Mercury 3 cost?
Mercury 3 costs $0.20 per 1M input tokens and $0.70 per 1M output tokens at the standard tier. It is the #7 cheapest of 49 current text models priced per 1M input tokens. Source: Inception, verified October 23, 2026.
What is the context window of Mercury 3?
Mercury 3 accepts up to 1,000,000 tokens of context. It can return up to 131,072 tokens in one response. That ranks #26 of 64 current text models by context length.
Is Mercury 3 open source or API only?
Mercury 3 is available through Inception's API only; its weights are not published.
What are the best alternatives to Mercury 3?
The closest current alternatives by price and measured performance are GPT-5.6 Luna (same price per 1M input tokens, $0.20), Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite (25% more per 1M input tokens, $0.25 vs $0.20), GLM-5.3-Flash (25% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.15 vs $0.20) and MiniMax M3.1 Flash (25% cheaper per 1M input tokens, $0.15 vs $0.20).
Sources
Sources
- Inception models · Inception · official · verified October 23, 2026
- Diffusion at Scale: Introducing Mercury 3 · Inception · official · verified October 23, 2026
Cite this page
Van Data Team. "Mercury 3 Benchmarks, Pricing and Specs." AI Model Benchmark Dataset 2026-10-23. https://vandatateam.com/ai-model-benchmarks/mercury-3
Reuse the data: JSON · CSV · or explore every model in the AI model benchmark comparison.
Production evaluation
Deciding whether Mercury 3 fits your workload?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We test the finalists on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- Evaluation cases and acceptance thresholds tied to real work
- Model routing, fallbacks and cost controls