Mercury 3 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Mercury 3 costs 6.7x less per output token than Qwen3.5 397B A17B ($0.35 vs $2.34 per million). Updated October 23, 2026; 6 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mercury 3 or Qwen3.5 397B A17B: which to pick
Only Mercury 3 has a coding score, 29.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5 397B A17B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
- Shared results
- 6
- Mercury 3 only
- 6
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B only
- 60
- 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 Mercury 3 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B has a AA Intelligence Index result, 21.4.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads, 1226 against 1190.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Mercury 3 has a Vals Index result, 43.7%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 $0.0003, Qwen3.5 397B A17B $0.0016 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mercury 3 29.3 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.5 397B A17B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 6.7 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: game dev: Mercury 3 1227 against Qwen3.5 397B A17B 1140, 10.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mercury 3 $0.35 against Qwen3.5 397B A17B $2.34 per million output tokens, 6.7x apart.
- Context window
- Mercury 3 takes 1M tokens, Qwen3.5 397B A17B 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 3 | Bars | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 6 | 0 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1400 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 3.0% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 60.9% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 44.8% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.9% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 621.9 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1465 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1463 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1388 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1409 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 21.4 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 146.8 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 18.2% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 28.9% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 5.0% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 95.6% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 24.9% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 89.3% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 86.4% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 18.0% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1462 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1450 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1277 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1292 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 88.9% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 31.2% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| MathArena | Not measured | 19.2% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1457 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1441 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1435 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1226 | 1190 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1247 | 1161 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1227 | 1140 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1201 | 1175 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1162 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1231 | 1179 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1174 | 1139 | Mercury 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 43.7% | Not measured | Only Mercury 3 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 77.3% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 87.5% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1438 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1423 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1402 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1262 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1443 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1430 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1499 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1444 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1430 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1385 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1462 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1441 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1430 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1447 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1441 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1416 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1399 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1268 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1314 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1271 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1262 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1230 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1265 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1260 | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | 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 | Inception Mercury 3 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | October 16, 2026 | February 16, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.10 | $0.39 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.35 | $2.34 |
| Coding index | 29.3 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mercury 3 better than Qwen3.5 397B A17B for coding?
Only Mercury 3 has a coding score, 29.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5 397B A17B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Mercury 3 or Qwen3.5 397B A17B?
Mercury 3 costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.35 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs $0.39 and $2.34. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mercury 3 or Qwen3.5 397B A17B?
Mercury 3, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Mercury 3 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B comparison based on?
6 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 23, 2026. Mercury 3's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5 397B A17B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.