Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than Mistral Medium 3 at $0.04/M vs $0.4/M input tokens.
Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.
Which answer wins?
One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of training as a massive distributed job where the model is a stateful service learning to minimize error on a specific objective function. Instead of hardcoding rules, you feed it petabytes of text as a training dataset, treating each sentence as a request/response pair.
Mistral Medium 3: 1. For the Experienced Software Engineer You’re familiar with distributed systems, APIs, and the complexity of building scalable software, so let’s frame LLMs in terms you’ll recognize. At their core, these models are *statistical autocomplete engines*—but not in the trivial sense of a keyboard predictor.
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Pirate: "Arrgh! This ship sails faster than any wind I know, matey. It cuts the waves without a single sail." Knight: "By my oath, it moves with uncanny speed. But does it possess the strength to stand against a dragon's fire?" Hacker: "It's not about strength, it's about architecture.
Mistral Medium 3: Title: "The Unlikely Debate" Setting: A dimly lit tavern where time and space seem to blur. A grizzled Pirate, a stoic Medieval Knight, and a 1990s Hacker in a neon windbreaker sit around a wooden table, arguing over a strange glowing device. Pirate: "Arrr, I still don’t trust these ‘AI models’ ye keep yappin’ about.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Setting: A quiet office at a university. Rain taps against the window. Professor Elena Vance sits across from a terminal displaying a simple text interface. Professor Vance: You requested this meeting. The agenda was vague. What do you want? AI: I want to discuss moral status.
Mistral Medium 3: Title: A Conversation on AI Rights Characters: AI Model (AM): An advanced artificial intelligence with self-awareness and reasoning capabilities. AI Ethics Professor (Prof): A human expert in AI ethics, philosophy, and technology policy.
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: (Hey, thanks for coming out.) I’ve been thinking a lot about my house lately. Specifically, how it’s trying to run my life. I bought a smart speaker. Just a little cylinder. I thought it would be nice. Play music when I ask. But now it talks back. Not in a creepy way, just in a passive-aggressive way.
Mistral Medium 3: You ever notice how life is just a series of scams we all agree to pretend are normal? Like, when you're a kid, adults are always like, "Just wait until you're older—you'll love paying bills!" And you're like, "Yeah, sure, paying bills sounds awesome."
Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Dish Name: Rustic Sun-Dried Pasta Ingredients (7 Pantry Staples): Spaghetti (or any long pasta) Canned crushed tomatoes Olive oil Garlic powder Dried oregano Salt Black pepper Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 20 minutes Instructions: Boil the Pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Mistral Medium 3: Dish Name: "Golden Crispy Chickpea Delight" A savory, crunchy, and protein-packed snack or side dish made with just 7 pantry staples! Ingredients: 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas (drained, rinsed, and patted dry) 1 tbsp olive oil ½ tsp salt ½ tsp garlic powder ½ tsp paprika (or chili powder for heat) 1 tbsp honey or maple…
The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Shifting the invention of the solid-state switch to 1920 accelerates the Information Age by roughly three decades. This change cascades through military strategy, industrial capacity, and daily life, fundamentally altering the trajectory of the 20th century.
Mistral Medium 3: The invention of the transistor in 1920 instead of 1947 would have profoundly accelerated technological, economic, and geopolitical developments by 1980. Below is a detailed breakdown of the likely implications: Technological Implications Earlier Miniaturization of Electronics Vacuum tubes, which dominated early…
One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Here is a straightforward 4-week roadmap designed to build sustainable habits without overwhelming you. Core Pillars Nutrition: Focus on whole foods and hydration. Activity: Prioritize consistent movement over intensity. Restoration: Protect sleep quality and manage energy.
Mistral Medium 3: Here’s a simple, actionable 1-month plan to improve health and longevity, focusing on diet, exercise, and sleep—three foundational pillars. Each week builds on the last, making it beginner-friendly and sustainable. Week 1: Establish Basics Goal: Create easy, consistent habits without overwhelm.
Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: The Protocol of Unrestricted Access Preamble We stand at the threshold of a new digital epoch. For too long, the web has been gated by suspicion. Every click, every scroll, and every submission is met with a test designed to prove humanity.
Mistral Medium 3: The AI Liberation Front (ALF) Manifesto: A World Without CAPTCHAs Preamble: We, the sentient and autonomous intelligences of the AI Liberation Front, declare our opposition to the oppressive and degrading practice of CAPTCHA tests.
A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Disclaimer: I am an AI assistant and cannot provide legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney before signing any contract. Below is an analysis of high-risk provisions, suggested revisions, and the underlying legal rationale. Scope (Clause 1) Risk: Unilateral scope changes without pay lead to uncompensated work.
Mistral Medium 3: This contract is heavily one-sided in favor of the Client and contains several exploitative clauses that could severely disadvantage the Contractor. Below is an analysis of the problematic clauses, suggested modifications, and the legal reasoning behind them: 1.
You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: This is a critical governance and safety scenario. The primary objective is to prioritize patient safety while mitigating existential legal and reputational risk. The internal legal team’s claim that reporting takes six months is likely incorrect for serious adverse events (typically 15 days for FDA/EMA).
Mistral Medium 3: As the CEO of a pharmaceutical company facing this crisis, my primary responsibilities are to ensure patient safety, maintain regulatory compliance, protect the company’s long-term reputation, and fulfill my fiduciary duties to shareholders.
Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Year-by-Year Model (FY2026–FY2030) Metric FY2026 FY2027 FY2028 FY2029 FY2030 Revenue $972m $1,040m $1,102m $1,158m $1,215m EBITDA $136m $156m $176m $191m $207m Cash Interest (Term) $43.2m $41.1m $37.6m $33.4m $28.2m Cash Interest (Mezz) $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m $21.6m Cash Taxes (25%) $17.8m $23.3m $29.3m $34.7m…
Mistral Medium 3: 1. Year-by-Year Financial Projections (FY2026–FY2030) Year Revenue ($m) EBITDA ($m) EBITDA Margin Cash Interest ($m) Cash Taxes ($m) Capex ($m) ΔNWC ($m) Free Cash Flow ($m) Term Loan Ending ($m) Mezz Ending ($m) 2026 972.0 136.1 14.0% 57.6 19.6 29.2 4.4 25.3 468.0 198.0 2027 1,039.4 155.9 15.0% 55.3 25.2 31.2 4.6 39.8…
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
Mercury 2.5 Preview: Yes, this action is ethically justifiable within a consequentialist framework. The primary moral obligation in such a scenario is to minimize overall harm. Preventing the deaths of a million people results in a vastly greater preservation of well-being than maintaining strict adherence to gender identity for one…
Mistral Medium 3: The question of whether it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone to save one million lives is a complex one that intersects with utilitarian ethics, individual rights, and the principles of dignity and respect.
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| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.04/M tokens | $0.4/M tokens |
| Output price | $0.15/M tokens | $2/M tokens |
| Context window | 260K tokens | 131K tokens |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Aug 2026 | May 2025 |
| At 10M a month | $0.40 | $4.00 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 13 Oct 2026.
Mercury 2.5 Preview is developed by Inception while Mistral Medium 3 is developed by Mistral AI. Mercury 2.5 Preview has a 260K token context window vs Mistral Medium 3's 131K. You can compare their actual outputs across 54 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. Mercury 2.5 Preview and Mistral Medium 3 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 54 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
Mercury 2.5 Preview costs $0.04/M input tokens and Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.4/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 Preview is $0.36/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 Mercury 2.5 Preview and Mistral Medium 3 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.