Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Mercury 3
Mercury 3 costs 8.6x less per output token than Gemini 3 Flash Preview ($0.35 vs $3.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 3 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Mercury 3: which to pick
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mercury 3 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 3 for output tokens 8.6x cheaper ($0.35 vs $3.00 per million) and work measured by Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: game dev, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 3
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview only
- 66
- Mercury 3 only
- 2
- Like-for-like categories
- 1 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a AA Intelligence Index result, 26.3.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a MMLU Pro result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads, 1244 against 1196.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Gemini 3 Flash Preview takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 3
Gemini 3 Flash Preview $0.0020, Mercury 3 $0.0003 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has the number, $0.37.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview 43.7 from 2 benchmarks, Mercury 3 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 6.7 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: game dev: Gemini 3 Flash Preview 1166 against Mercury 3 1227, 7.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview $3.00 against Mercury 3 $0.35 per million output tokens, 8.6x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview takes 1.05M tokens, Mercury 3 1M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Bars | Mercury 3 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 0 | 3 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 3 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index13 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 20.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 6.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 53.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 90.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 38.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GSO-Bench | 9.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| WeirdML | 61.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1367.2 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 26.3 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1110 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1063 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1090 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1050 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1161 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1036 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 11.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 18.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 80.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| BALROG | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,635 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 36.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 89.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Chess puzzles | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| VPCT | 72.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AA Math Index | 97.0 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 97.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 51.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 17.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProofBench | 15.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 88.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 95.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 55.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GeoBench | 88.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1196 | 1244 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1270 | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | 1227 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1207 | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1184 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1189 | 1240 | Mercury 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 52.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| IFBench | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DTBench | 89.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMCA | 43.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 3 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Mercury 3 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Mercury 3 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inception Mercury 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 17, 2025 | October 16, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.50 | $0.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.35 |
| Coding index | 43.7 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.37 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Mercury 3 for coding?
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a coding score, 43.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mercury 3 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 3 for output tokens 8.6x cheaper ($0.35 vs $3.00 per million) and work measured by Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: game dev, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Mercury 3?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $3.00 per million output tokens; Mercury 3 costs $0.10 and $0.35. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3 Flash Preview only.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Mercury 3?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Mercury 3 comparison based on?
3 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Gemini 3 Flash Preview's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Mercury 3's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.