Mercury 2 vs MiniMax M3
API pricing, context window and capabilities for Mercury 2 and MiniMax M3, side by side. Prices are the cheapest serving route per 1M tokens, verified against LiteLLM and OpenRouter.
Verdict
computed from the published numbersMiniMax M3 wins on coding, on intelligence and on context window.
Price
Tied
Coding
MiniMax M3
Intelligence
MiniMax M3
Context window
MiniMax M3
Key takeaways
who wins on what, from the published numbersMercury 2 wins
- Cheaper output ($0.75 vs $0.96 /1M)
MiniMax M3 wins
- Cheaper input ($0.25 vs $0.23 /1M)
- Larger context window (128K vs 1M)
- Higher max output (50K vs 524K)
- More serving providers (2 vs 8)
- Supports vision
- Has reasoning mode
Cheaper overall
Mercury 2
$0.25 + $0.75 /1M
Larger context
MiniMax M3
1M
More providers
MiniMax M3
8 providers
Pricing & specs
cheapest serving route · per 1M tokens| Mercury 2 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input $/1M | $0.25 | $0.23 best |
| Output $/1M | $0.75 best | $0.96 |
| Context window | 128K | 1M best |
| Max output | 50K | 524K best |
| Serving providers | 2 | 8 best |
| Released | 2026-02-24 | 2026-06-01 |
Benchmarks
Artificial Analysis indices, side by side| Mercury 2 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 21.9 | 45.4 best |
| Coding | 31.1 | 58.6 best |
| GPQA Diamond | 77% | 93% best |
| Output speed | 939 t/s best | 108 t/s |
| Latency (TTFT) | 3.44s | 1.08s best |
Cost calculator
choose a serving route for each sideInput tokens / month
Output tokens / month
Mercury 2
via Inception
$2.00
MiniMax M3
via Wandb
$2.11
Capabilities
feature support, side by side| Feature | Mercury 2 | MiniMax M3 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | — | ✓ |
| Tool use | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning | — | ✓ |
| Audio | — | — |
| Prompt caching | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web search | — | — |
Related comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or MiniMax M3?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper for input ($0.25 vs $0.23 per 1M tokens). Mercury 2 is cheaper for output ($0.75 vs $0.96 per 1M tokens).
What is the context window difference between Mercury 2 and MiniMax M3?
Mercury 2 has a 128K-token context window and MiniMax M3 has 1M tokens, so MiniMax M3 can take a larger prompt.
How do Mercury 2 and MiniMax M3 compare on benchmarks?
On the tracked Artificial Analysis indices, MiniMax M3 leads on coding, and MiniMax M3 leads on intelligence.
Pricing verified against LiteLLM + OpenRouter + provider pages · refreshed daily
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