Mercury 2 vs Qwen3 14B
Mercury 2 leads Qwen3 14B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 10.8 to 6.7, and Qwen3 14B costs 3.3x less per output token ($0.23 vs $0.75 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 8 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mercury 2 or Qwen3 14B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 2 for a larger context window (128K against 41K tokens).
- Shared results
- 8
- Mercury 2 only
- 34
- Qwen3 14B only
- 12
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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 6.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.6.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mercury 2 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1036.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Mercury 2
Mercury 2 takes 128K tokens against 41K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 14B
Mercury 2 $0.0006, Qwen3 14B $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mercury 2 not benchmarked, Qwen3 14B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 36.5 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Long context reasoning (AA-LCR): Mercury 2 43.7% against Qwen3 14B 0.0%, 43.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mercury 2 $0.75 against Qwen3 14B $0.23 per million output tokens, 3.3x apart.
- Context window
- Mercury 2 takes 128K tokens, Qwen3 14B 41K.
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 | Qwen3 14B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 8 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1171 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 31.1 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 52.3% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| SciCode | 37.7% | 30.7% | Mercury 2 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 26.5% | 5.3% | 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 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| 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 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 10.8 | 6.7 | Mercury 2 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 138.2 | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 1.6 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 70.8% | 34.5% | Mercury 2 |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | Not measured | 41.0% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 77.0% | 60.4% | Mercury 2 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 17.1% | 4.5% | Mercury 2 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 63.8% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1362 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1358 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 49.1% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 58.0 | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 58.0% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 66.4% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 77.4% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1343 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1363 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1349 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1036 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 998 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 985 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1009 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 983 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1022 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 998 | 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 index20
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 69.8% | 40.5% | Mercury 2 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 43.7% | 0.0% | Mercury 2 |
| DTBench | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 18.2% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 62.5% | Only Qwen3 14B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1354 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1328 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1286 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1378 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1330 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1414 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1304 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1357 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1329 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1300 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1314 | Not measured | Only Mercury 2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 2 | Qwen3 14B | 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
Qwen3 14B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 14B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 14B 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 | Qwen3 14B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | March 4, 2026 | April 28, 2025 |
| Context window | 128K | 41K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.25 | $0.11 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.75 | $0.23 |
| 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 Qwen3 14B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 2 for a larger context window (128K against 41K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Qwen3 14B?
Mercury 2 costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; Qwen3 14B costs $0.11 and $0.23. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mercury 2 or Qwen3 14B?
Mercury 2, with 128K tokens against 41K.
How many benchmarks is the Mercury 2 vs Qwen3 14B comparison based on?
8 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Mercury 2's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Qwen3 14B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.