GPT-4.1 Mini vs Mercury 3
Mercury 3 costs 4.6x less per output token than GPT-4.1 Mini ($0.35 vs $1.60 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
GPT-4.1 Mini or Mercury 3: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick GPT-4.1 Mini for a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens) and work measured by Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 5
- GPT-4.1 Mini only
- 81
- Mercury 3 only
- 0
- 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
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only GPT-4.1 Mini has a AA Intelligence Index result, 10.2.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GPT-4.1 Mini has a GPQA Diamond result, 67.9%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only GPT-4.1 Mini has a AIME result, 49.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GPT-4.1 Mini has a MMLU Pro result, 77.2%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads, 1242 against 997.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-4.1 Mini
GPT-4.1 Mini takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 3
GPT-4.1 Mini $0.0012, Mercury 3 $0.0003 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-4.1 Mini has the number, $1.818.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-4.1 Mini not benchmarked, Mercury 3 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 27.5 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: UI components: GPT-4.1 Mini 958 against Mercury 3 1255, 37.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-4.1 Mini $1.60 against Mercury 3 $0.35 per million output tokens, 4.6x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-4.1 Mini 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 | GPT-4.1 Mini | Bars | Mercury 3 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 0 | 5 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 5 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 32.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 23.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| AA Coding Index | 20.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 58.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 48.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 7.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| WeirdML | 37.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1367 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1360 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 10.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 134.9 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 52.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 50.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 67.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 70.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 66.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 5.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 65.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| ARC-AGI | 3.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Chess puzzles | 1.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 7.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1349 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1338 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1362 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1182 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1214 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 48.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 49.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 88.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 87.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| AA Math Index | 46.3 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 46.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 44.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 6.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MATH level 5 | 87.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1343 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1347 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 77.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 78.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 57.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 65.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 84.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 78.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 12.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1328 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1324 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1343 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1322 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 997 | 1242 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 958 | 1255 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1070 | 1225 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1034 | 1192 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 836 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 993 | 1237 | Mercury 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | Mercury 3 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 38.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 44.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| DTBench | 68.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMCA | 21.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text | 1341 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1333 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1299 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1181 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1356 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1318 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1329 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1350 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1290 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1298 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1358 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1319 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1324 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1326 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1354 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1344 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1319 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1300 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1191 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1186 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1188 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1182 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1174 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1187 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1182 | Not measured | Only GPT-4.1 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 Mini | 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 | OpenAI GPT-4.1 Mini | Inception Mercury 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Inception |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 14, 2025 | October 16, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.60 | $0.35 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.818 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-4.1 Mini better than Mercury 3 for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick GPT-4.1 Mini for a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens) and work measured by Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 Mini or Mercury 3?
GPT-4.1 Mini costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens; Mercury 3 costs $0.10 and $0.35. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-4.1 Mini only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-4.1 Mini or Mercury 3?
GPT-4.1 Mini, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-4.1 Mini vs Mercury 3 comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GPT-4.1 Mini's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Mercury 3's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.