Mercury 2 vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Mercury 2 leads Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 10.8 to 8.9, and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs 3.4x less per output token ($0.22 vs $0.75 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 29 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 2 for work measured by LMArena Text: hard prompts in English or LMArena Text: science, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 29
- Mercury 2 only
- 13
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B 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 8.9.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Mercury 2
Mercury 2 leads, 1.6 against 1.0.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1035.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B takes 262K tokens against 128K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Mercury 2 $0.0006, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mercury 2 not benchmarked, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 15.2 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Mercury 2 70.8% against Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B 40.9%, 29.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mercury 2 $0.75 against Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B $0.22 per million output tokens, 3.4x apart.
- Context window
- Mercury 2 takes 128K tokens, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B 262K.
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 | Mercury 2 | Bars | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 5 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 1 | ||
| General | 12 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 26 | 3 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index50
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1171 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 31.1 | 14.4 | Mercury 2 |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 74.1% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| SciCode | 37.7% | 30.6% | Mercury 2 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 26.5% | 13.6% | Mercury 2 |
| WeirdML | 43.2% | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 785.6 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1390 | 1378 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | 1383 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1160 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1199 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 10.8 | 8.9 | Mercury 2 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 1.6 | 1.0 | Mercury 2 |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 70.8% | 40.9% | Mercury 2 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index41
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 77.0% | 75.7% | Mercury 2 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 17.1% | 11.4% | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1362 | 1348 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1358 | 1355 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | 1376 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 91.0 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 91.0% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1371 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1375 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.4% | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1343 | 1353 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1363 | 1349 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1341 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1349 | 1346 | Mercury 2 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1035 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 996 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 983 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1010 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 982 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1021 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 997 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 988 | Not measured | 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 index121
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 69.8% | 71.1% | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 43.7% | 38.0% | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text | 1354 | 1348 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1328 | 1303 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1286 | 1269 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1378 | 1377 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1330 | 1320 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1414 | 1383 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1348 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1268 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1269 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1396 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1376 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1304 | 1304 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1303 | Only Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1357 | 1319 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1329 | 1300 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1300 | 1283 | Mercury 2 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1314 | 1293 | Mercury 2 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B | 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
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B 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 | Inception Mercury 2 | NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | NVIDIA |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | March 4, 2026 | December 14, 2025 |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.25 | $0.055 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.75 | $0.22 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mercury 2 better than Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 2 for work measured by LMArena Text: hard prompts in English or LMArena Text: science, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
Mercury 2 costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B costs $0.055 and $0.22. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mercury 2 or Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B?
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks is the Mercury 2 vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B comparison based on?
29 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Mercury 2's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.