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  5. Claude 3 SonnetvsMercury 2.5
Updated Sep 2026

Claude 3 SonnetvsMercury 2.5

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper than Claude 3 Sonnet at $0.04/M vs $3/M input tokens.

Claude 3 Sonnet and Mercury 2.5 compared across 1 shared prompts
SpecClaude 3 SonnetMercury 2.5
Input price$3/M tokens$0.04/M tokens
Output price$15/M tokens$0.15/M tokens
Context window—260K tokens
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedMar 2024Sep 2026
Our Verdict
Claude 3 Sonnet
Claude 3 Sonnet
Mercury 2.5
Mercury 2.5

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, nothing separates them.

Mercury 2.5 costs 100x less per token.

Too close to call

Reviewing agent-written code?See a Brief PR report

API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Claude 3 Sonnet
Input
$3.00
Output
$15.00
Mercury 2.5
Input
$0.04
75× cheaper
Output
$0.15
100× cheaper

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper on both: 75× input, 100× output.

Where to run it

1 host

Claude 3 Sonnet

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Mercury 2.51 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 22 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Claude 3 Sonnet is developed by Anthropic while Mercury 2.5 is developed by Inception. You can compare their actual outputs across 1 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Claude 3 Sonnet and Mercury 2.5 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 1 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

Claude 3 Sonnet costs $3/M input tokens and Mercury 2.5 costs $0.04/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 is $2.96/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Claude 3 Sonnet and Mercury 2.5 across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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