Model comparison
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Mercury 2
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2 costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 7 categories and Mercury 2 in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.9 to 23.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 52.7% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 38.7% for Mercury 2.
- Mercury 2 is cheaper at $0.25 / $0.75 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Inception | |
| Noometry Index | 54.1 | 38.8 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2026-02-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 128K |
| Max output | 66K | 50K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.75 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3.75 | $0.75 |
| Results tracked | 46 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 49.6 (#45), Mercury 2: 33.2 (#250)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1536 | 1170 |
| SciCode | 52.7% | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | 56.1% | 43.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1492 | 1391 |
| ALE-Bench | 715.52 | 785.58 |
| DeepSWE | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierCode | 34.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.4 (#56), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 46.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.9 (#20), Mercury 2: 23.0 (#170)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 10.6% | 0.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1486 | 1362 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 89% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 91.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 43% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 30% | — |
| DTBench | 95.5% | — |
| LMCA | 44.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.36 | — |
Math Not comparable
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.0 (#33), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 58.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 22% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 70.8% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 36% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1504 | — |
Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#7), Mercury 2: 35.6 (#170)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1489 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.7 (#55), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1297 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 31.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 23.3% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1456 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.8 (#17), Mercury 2: 46.8 (#153)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1470 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1530 | 1416 |
| LMArena Russian | 1490 | 1303 |
| LMArena French | 1501 | — |
| LMArena German | 1478 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1477 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1435 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1477 | — |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.2 (#27), Mercury 2: 70.4 (#161)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1467 | 1328 |
Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#47), Mercury 2: 40.4 (#149)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1475 | 1329 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.3 (#26), Mercury 2: 54.0 (#151)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1478 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1464 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1481 | 1358 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1604 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Mercury 2?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2 costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Mercury 2?
Mercury 2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Mercury 2 better for coding?
Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.6 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and Mercury 2 share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.