Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2
Mercury 2 leads Gemma 3 27B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 10.8 to 4.9, and Gemma 3 27B costs 2.5x less per output token ($0.30 vs $0.75 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 29 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Gemma 3 27B for output tokens 2.5x cheaper ($0.30 vs $0.75 per million) and a larger context window (131K against 128K tokens).
- Shared results
- 29
- Gemma 3 27B only
- 37
- Mercury 2 only
- 13
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Mercury 2
Mercury 2 leads, 10.8 against 4.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Mercury 2
Mercury 2 leads, 1.6 against 0.1.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1036.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemma 3 27B
Gemma 3 27B takes 131K tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemma 3 27B
Gemma 3 27B $0.0002, Mercury 2 $0.0006 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemma 3 27B not benchmarked, Mercury 2 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 30.9 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Gemma 3 27B 10.5% against Mercury 2 70.8%, 60.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemma 3 27B $0.30 against Mercury 2 $0.75 per million output tokens, 2.5x apart.
- Context window
- Gemma 3 27B takes 131K tokens, Mercury 2 128K.
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 | Gemma 3 27B | Bars | Mercury 2 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 5 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 5 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 0 | ||
| General | 7 | 6 | ||
| All shared boards | 10 | 19 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index05
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 4.9% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1171 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 10.1 | 31.1 | Mercury 2 |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.7% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| SciCode | 23.3% | 37.7% | Mercury 2 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 26.5% | Mercury 2 |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 43.2% | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 785.6 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1322 | 1390 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1354 | 1385 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1160 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1199 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| SciCode | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 4.9 | 10.8 | Mercury 2 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.0 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 0.1 | 1.6 | Mercury 2 |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 10.5% | 70.8% | Mercury 2 |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 29.5% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.8% | 77.0% | Mercury 2 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.4% | 17.1% | Mercury 2 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 47.7% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1340 | 1362 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1304 | 1358 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1353 | 1374 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1156 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1160 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 35.1% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 20.7 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 20.7% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 22.5% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| MATH level 5 | 74.0% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1312 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1327 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 66.9% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| GeoBench | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1383 | 1343 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1391 | 1363 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1375 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1360 | 1349 | Gemma 3 27B |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 29.1% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1036 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 996 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 984 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1009 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 982 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1021 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 998 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 988 | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index76
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 31.8% | 69.8% | Mercury 2 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 7.3% | 43.7% | Mercury 2 |
| DTBench | 52.5% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMCA | 12.3% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 79.9% | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1354 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1321 | 1328 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1345 | 1286 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1377 | 1378 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1334 | 1330 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1346 | 1414 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1362 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1287 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1308 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1349 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1349 | 1304 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1345 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1345 | 1357 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1333 | 1329 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1347 | 1300 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1320 | 1314 | Gemma 3 27B |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1188 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1164 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1156 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1166 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1151 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1196 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1177 | Not measured | Only Gemma 3 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Mercury 2 | 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
Gemma 3 27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemma 3 27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemma 3 27B 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 Gemma 3 27B | Inception Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | March 12, 2025 | March 4, 2026 |
| Context window | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.08 | $0.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.75 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemma 3 27B better than Mercury 2 for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Gemma 3 27B for output tokens 2.5x cheaper ($0.30 vs $0.75 per million) and a larger context window (131K against 128K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2?
Gemma 3 27B costs $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Mercury 2 costs $0.25 and $0.75. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2?
Gemma 3 27B, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2 comparison based on?
29 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemma 3 27B's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Mercury 2's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.