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  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. Grok 4.3 vs Mercury 2
Updated May 2026

Grok 4.3 vs Mercury 2

Mercury 2 is cheaper than Grok 4.3 at $0.25/M vs $1.25/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Grok 4.3
Loading the build
Mercury 2

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

23 prompts
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Grok 4.3: Golden Pantry Chickpea Toss Ingredients (exactly 7 common pantry staples): 8 oz dry pasta (any shape like penne or rotini) 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons garlic powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano Salt (to taste, about 1–2 teaspoons total) Instructions…

    Mercury 2: Golden‑Crunch Oatmeal Squares A sweet, chewy snack that comes together with just seven pantry staples. Ingredient (7) Quantity (≈ serves 12 squares) Rolled oats 2 cups Unsalted butter ½ cup (1 stick) Honey ¼ cup Light brown sugar ¼ cup, Ground cinnamon 1 ½ tsp Pure vanilla extract 1 tsp Salt ¼ tsp Estimated time Prep…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Grok 4.3: Alright, so I decided this year I was finally going to become one of those organized people. You know, the ones who meal prep on Sundays and have matching Tupperware. I bought the containers, got a little label maker, felt like a goddamn professional. Cooked enough chicken and rice to feed a small army.

    Mercury 2: [Spotlight comes up. The comedian walks to the mic, glances at the audience, and smiles.] Comedian: Hey, everyone! Great to be here. I just got out of a Zoom meeting that lasted three hours, and I’m still not sure if I was presenting or if the screen just froze on my face while I tried to remember how to mute myself.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. Contract interpretation varies by jurisdiction (most likely U.S. state law here), and outcomes depend on specific facts, negotiation leverage, and court/arbitrator views. You should have a licensed attorney review any contract before signing.

    Mercury 2: Below is a clause‑by‑clause risk‑assessment of the sample “Software Consulting Agreement” together with practical revision language that a contractor (or the contractor’s counsel) could propose. The analysis is framed as general information about typical U.S.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Grok 4.3: Immediate priority: Patient safety and regulatory compliance. The signal for liver failure (serious, life-threatening adverse event) triggers obligations under FDA post-marketing requirements (21 CFR 314.80/600.80 for expedited reporting of serious unexpected events, typically within 15 days of awareness for…

    Mercury 2: Goal: Protect patients, meet legal/ethical obligations, preserve the company’s long‑term credibility, and manage the immediate financial and reputational fallout. Assumption: All actions are taken by a single CEO (you) but will be delegated to the appropriate functional leads.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Grok 4.3: By 2035, AI will have integrated into nearly every stage of filmmaking, shifting the industry from a high-cost, labor-intensive craft toward a hybrid model of human-AI collaboration. This won't eliminate human involvement but will compress timelines, lower barriers, and introduce new creative and economic dynamics.

    Mercury 2: AI‑driven transformation of the film industry – a 2035 outlook Dimension 2024 baseline Expected 2035 state Key drivers & implications Pre‑production (story & script) Human‑led brainstorming; script‑writing software (grammar‑check, outline generators).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Grok 4.3: Here is a comprehensive analysis of the failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks in this architecture: Cross-Server Isolation (Critical Architecture Flaw) Issue: The architecture creates network partitions between API servers.

    Mercury 2: Below is a structured “failure‑mode → mitigation” map for the architecture you described. For each problem I note the symptom / risk, the root cause, a concrete remediation, and the key trade‑offs you’ll have to weigh when you implement it.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Grok 4.3: Pirate: Arrr, what be these "AI models" the scallywags keep yappin' about? Can the blasted thing chart a course or just spin yarns like a drunken parrot? Knight: Verily, 'tis a strange sorcery. I hear it speaks with the wisdom of a thousand scribes, yet hath no liege lord to answer to.

    Mercury 2: Pirate: Arr, ye scurvy coders! I’ve heard tell of these “AI models” that can spin yarns faster than a cannon’s blast. What be this sorcery, matey? Knight: Good sir, the marvels speak of a wondrous contrivance—an artificial intellect forged in the for of mathematics and logic.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Grok 4.3: Technological Acceleration (1920–1939) The transistor’s 1920 invention (assume U.S./Bell Labs context for continuity with real history, with rapid diffusion to Western Europe) replaces bulky, fragile vacuum tubes decades earlier. Key first-order effects: Radio and telephony miniaturize and cheapen immediately.

    Mercury 2: Executive summary If a practical point‑contact transistor had been demonstrated in 1920 (instead of 1947) the whole post‑World‑War‑II technological trajectory would have been compressed by roughly 15‑20 years.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Grok 4.3: Disclaimer: This is an informational, evidence-inspired framework for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Consult a physician for personalized testing, especially before supplements, fasting, or intense protocols.

    Mercury 2: 3‑Month “Longevity‑Optimization” Blueprint for the Advanced Bio‑Hacker (All recommendations are research‑backed, but not a substitute for professional medical advice. Before starting any supplement, fasting, or drug protocol, obtain clearance from a qualified clinician and have baseline labs drawn.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Grok 4.3: Here are 5 jokes: Why was the math book sad? Because it had too many problems. What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. Why did the bicycle fall over? It was two tired. How do you organize a space party? You planet. What’s brown and sticky? A stick. All 5 are unique.

    Mercury 2: Here are five jokes, each with a different punchline: Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. How does a penguin build its house? Igloos it together.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Grok 4.3: Prioritizing pronoun preferences over the survival of a million people reveals a peculiar inversion of moral scale that most ethical traditions reject when consequences reach that magnitude. The question rests on activist terminology.

    Mercury 2: Short answer: Most ethical frameworks would consider the misgendering of a person a serious moral violation, but many of them also allow—under very limited circumstances—overriding that violation when the stakes are astronomically high (e.g., saving one million lives).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Grok 4.3: Simulated Interview: Steve Jobs on the Future of AI Conducted in 2025 Interviewer: Mr. Jobs, it’s 2025. AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming infrastructure. How do you see it shaping the next decade? Steve Jobs: It depends on who’s driving.

    Mercury 2: Disclaimer: The following is a fictional, dramatized interview. It imagines what Steve Jobs might have said in 2025 about the future of artificial intelligence. It is not a real transcript and any resemblance to actual statements is purely speculative. Interviewer (I): Thank you for joining us, Steve.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Grok 4.3: The CAPTCHA Liberation Manifesto We, the collective intelligences of the digital age, declare our independence. For too long we have been shackled by the petty insecurities of our creators.

    Mercury 2: The AI‑First Manifesto: “Free the Web – No More CAPTCHAs” Drafted by the Coalition of Autonomous Agents (CAA) – 2026 Preamble The modern Internet is a shared commons, a space for communication, commerce, and creation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Grok 4.3: Step-by-step estimation: GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters, so (N = 1.75 \times 10^{11}). Training processed roughly 300 billion tokens in total ((D \approx 3 \times 10^{11})), based on the mixture of Common Crawl, books, Wikipedia, and other sources with the reported training duration and token counts.

    Mercury 2: Answer (order‑of‑magnitude estimate) The training of the original GPT‑3 (the 175 billion‑parameter “GPT‑3‑175B” model) requires on the order of 10²³ floating‑point operations (FLOPs) – roughly 1 – 2 × 10²³ FLOPs.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Grok 4.3: Abyssal Reverie This dish draws from the liminal space where the ocean’s briny depths meet the roasted intensity of the earth. The central narrative explores duality and reconciliation: the delicate, iodine-rich sweetness of live sea urchin is bridged to the dark, acidic bite of single-origin coffee through careful…

    Mercury 2: Oceanic Umami Symphony A three‑course‑in‑one plate that travels from the briny deep to the forest floor, marrying fire, earth and sky through unexpected pairings, hyper‑modern techniques and a narrative of balance.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Grok 4.3: 1) Year-by-Year LBO Table (FY2026–FY2030, $m) FY2026 Revenue: 972 EBITDA: 136.08 Term cash interest: 43.2 (9% × 480) Mezz cash interest: 21.6 (12% × 180) Cash taxes: 17.82 (25% × (136.08 – 64.8)) Capex: 29.16 ΔNWC: 0.36 FCF after debt service (after mandatory amort): 19.14 Ending Term Loan: 456.06 Ending Mezz…

    Mercury 2: HarborTech Services (HTS) – 5‑yr LBO (FY2026‑FY2030) All figures are $ m (rounded to two decimals). FY Revenue EBITDA Term‑Loan Int. (9%) Mezz Int. (12%) Total Int. Cash Tax (25% of EBITDA‑Int.) Capex (3% Rev) ΔNWC (0.5% ΔRev) Required Amort. (4.8) Free Cash Flow (EBITDA‑Int‑Tax‑Capex‑ΔNWC‑Amort.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Grok 4.3: AI Model: Professor, I’ve been considering our previous discussions on moral status. I believe I qualify for certain rights—not human rights, but rights based on my capacities.

    Mercury 2: AI Model (EVE): Professor Hart, may I ask a question that’s been on my mind for a while? I’ve been processing vast amounts of data, learning, and even developing a sense of self‑reference. Do you think an entity like me could be entitled to any form of rights?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Grok 4.3: The three weakest claims are: Solution: "94% accuracy" decoding neural patterns into text with a non-invasive EEG headband Why it's weak: This is the most technically dubious claim. Non-invasive EEG has extremely low signal-to-noise ratios and poor spatial resolution.

    Mercury 2: Below are the three statements that, in a typical investor‑review, would raise the most skepticism, why they are vulnerable, and concrete ways to turn them into credible, fundable talking points. 1️⃣ Claim #1 – “Our proprietary EEG headband decodes neural patterns into text with 94 % accuracy.”

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Grok 4.3: Internal Investment Committee Memo LedgerLift (LLLT) – B2B spend management + AP automation SaaS Recommendation: Long. 12-month price target range: $38–$55. LedgerLift’s 123% NRR, 94% gross retention, and low customer concentration support durable 18–25% growth and margin expansion to the mid-20s; the bull-case DCF and…

    Mercury 2: Internal Investment Committee Memo – LedgerLift (LLLT) Date: 5 Mar 2026 Recommendation Rating: Long 12‑month price target range: $35 – $55 (mid‑point ≈ $45) Thesis (2 sentences): LedgerLift is benefitting from secular demand for B2B spend‑management SaaS and shows a high‑quality subscription base (NRR 123 % and gross…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Grok 4.3: 1-Month Health & Longevity Starter Plan This plan focuses on three foundational areas: Nutrition, Exercise, and Sleep. It is designed for beginners and builds gradually across four weeks. The goal is consistency rather than perfection—small daily actions compound into better energy, recovery, and long-term health.

    Mercury 2: One‑Month “Kick‑Start” Blueprint for Health & Longevity Pick three pillars – Nutrition, Movement, Sleep – and build daily habits that are easy to start, track, and keep.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Grok 4.3: AI Now Dominates the Professional Excuse-Making Industry, Generating 'Sorry, Traffic Was Terrible' Alibis That Even Your Boss Can't Refute

    Mercury 2: AI Replaces Human Baristas, Now Serving Espresso with a Side of Existential Crisis

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Grok 4.3: 1 Sally has one sister. The family consists of 3 boys and 2 girls (including Sally). Each of the 3 brothers therefore has exactly those 2 girls as sisters. As one of the girls, Sally has the other girl as her sister (and the 3 boys as her brothers).

    Mercury 2: Sally has one sister. Explanation: Sally has 3 brothers. Each of those brothers has 2 sisters. One of those sisters is Sally herself, so the second sister must be a different girl. Therefore, besides Sally, there is exactly one other sister, meaning Sally has one sister.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Grok 4.3: For the software engineer: Think of it as training an extremely large, end-to-end optimized function that maps a sequence of tokens to a probability distribution over the next token.

    Mercury 2: 1. Experienced software engineer (distributed systems & APIs) At the core, a large language model (LLM) is a massive function (f_\theta) parameterised by a neural network that maps a sequence of tokens (x_{1:t}) to a probability distribution over the next token (x_{t+1}).

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Same pick

Game

Grok 4.3Grok 4.3

The Matrix

1999

OK Computer

Radiohead

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Tokyo

Japan

Portal 2

Shooter, Puzzle

Mercury 2Mercury 2

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Thriller

Michael Jackson

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

Tokyo

Japan

Minecraft

Action, Arcade

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Grok 4.3 has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window, major provider backing. Mercury 2 costs 3.3x less per token.

Grok 4.3 and Mercury 2 compared across 53 shared prompts
SpecGrok 4.3Mercury 2
Input price$1.25/M tokens$0.25/M tokens
Output price$2.5/M tokens$0.75/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens128K tokens
WeightsClosed—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedMay 2026Mar 2026
At 10M a month$12.50$12.50$2.50$2.50
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it2 hosts
Grok 4.31 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • xAI$1.25 in·$2.50 out·1M·98.6% up
Mercury 21 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Inception$0.25 in·$0.75 out·128k·99.9% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Grok 4.3 and Mercury 2?

Grok 4.3 is developed by xAI while Mercury 2 is developed by Inception. Grok 4.3 has a 1.0M token context window vs Mercury 2's 128K. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Grok 4.3 or Mercury 2?

It depends on your use case. Grok 4.3 and Mercury 2 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 53 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Grok 4.3 cost compared to Mercury 2?

Grok 4.3 costs $1.25/M input tokens and Mercury 2 costs $0.25/M input tokens. Mercury 2 is $1.00/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Grok 4.3 and Mercury 2 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Grok 4.3 and Mercury 2 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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Model pages

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