Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Mercury 3 costs 4.3x less per output token than Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B ($0.35 vs $1.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mercury 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mercury 3 for output tokens 4.3x cheaper ($0.35 vs $1.50 per million) and a larger context window (1M against 262K tokens).
- Shared results
- 5
- Mercury 3 only
- 0
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B only
- 48
- 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 Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B has a AA Intelligence Index result, 11.9.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads, 1244 against 1159.
Same board, both measured
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 Coder 480B A35B $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mercury 3 not benchmarked, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 14.8 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: UI components: Mercury 3 1270 against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 1113, 19.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mercury 3 $0.35 against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B $1.50 per million output tokens, 4.3x apart.
- Context window
- Mercury 3 takes 1M tokens, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 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 Coder 480B A35B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 5 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 5 | 0 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1275 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 18.9% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 27.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 41.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 461.4 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1412 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1393 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1257 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1287 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 11.9 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 43.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 61.8% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 4.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1372 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1338 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1380 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 49.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 39.3 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 39.3% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1365 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1367 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 78.8% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1347 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1347 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1358 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1343 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1244 | 1159 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1270 | 1113 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1227 | 1099 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1207 | 1084 | Mercury 3 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1240 | 1143 | Mercury 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index19 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | Not measured | 40.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 45.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1357 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1355 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1333 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1359 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1346 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1357 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1325 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1311 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1305 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1398 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1360 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1366 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1344 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1366 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1378 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1340 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1317 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mercury 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | 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 Coder 480B A35B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | October 16, 2026 | July 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.10 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.35 | $1.50 |
| 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 Mercury 3 better than Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mercury 3 for output tokens 4.3x cheaper ($0.35 vs $1.50 per million) and a larger context window (1M against 262K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Mercury 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Mercury 3 costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.35 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B costs $0.30 and $1.50. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mercury 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Mercury 3, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Mercury 3 vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Mercury 3's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.