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 numbersMercury 2 wins on price. MiniMax M3 wins on intelligence and on context window. Benchmark data is unavailable for one or both models.
Price
Mercury 2
Coding
Not called
Intelligence
MiniMax M3
Context window
MiniMax M3
Key takeaways
who wins on what, from the published numbersMercury 2 wins
- Cheaper input ($0.25 vs $0.30 /1M)
- Cheaper output ($0.75 vs $1.20 /1M)
MiniMax M3 wins
- Larger context window (128K vs 1M)
- Higher max output (50K vs 512K)
- More serving providers (1 vs 2)
- Supports vision
- Has reasoning mode
Cheaper overall
Mercury 2
$0.25 + $0.75 /1M
Larger context
MiniMax M3
1M
More providers
MiniMax M3
2 providers
Pricing & specs
cheapest serving route · per 1M tokens| Mercury 2 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input $/1M | $0.25 best | $0.30 |
| Output $/1M | $0.75 best | $1.20 |
| Context window | 128K | 1M best |
| Max output | 50K | 512K best |
| Serving providers | 1 | 2 best |
| Released | 2026-02-24 | 2026-06-01 |
Benchmarks
Artificial Analysis indices, side by side| Mercury 2 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 25.3 | 44.4 best |
| Coding | Not available | 58.6 |
| GPQA Diamond | 77% | 93% best |
| Output speed | 602 t/s best | 85 t/s |
| Latency (TTFT) | 2.73s best | 5.28s |
Cost calculator
choose a serving route for each sideInput tokens / month
Output tokens / month
Mercury 2
via Inception
$2.00
MiniMax M3
via Fireworks AI
$2.70
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?
Mercury 2 is cheaper for input ($0.25 vs $0.30 per 1M tokens). Mercury 2 is cheaper for output ($0.75 vs $1.20 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 intelligence.
Pricing verified against LiteLLM + OpenRouter + provider pages · refreshed daily
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