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Head-to-head comparison

Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2.5

Gemma 3 27B (Google) and Mercury 2.5 (Inception Labs) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 10 September 2026

As of 10 September 2026, Mercury 2.5 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#117 vs #119); Mercury 2.5 is 3× cheaper per output token ($0.15/1M vs $0.45/1M); and Mercury 2.5 offers the longer context window (260K vs 131K tokens).

Which should you choose?

Choose Gemma 3 27B if…

  • you want provider choice — 4 listed API providers against 1.

Choose Mercury 2.5 if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #117 against #119 (37.1 vs 35.9 points).
  • API cost matters — $0.15/1M output tokens against $0.45/1M, about 3× cheaper.
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.04/1M against $0.08/1M.
  • you need the longer context window — 260K tokens against 131K.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Mercury 2.5 was listed 8 September 2026, Gemma 3 27B 12 March 2025.

Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2.5: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Gemma 3 27B and Mercury 2.5
FieldGemma 3 27BGoogleMercury 2.5Inception Labs
ModelCap Index position#119#117
Index score35.937.1
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokens$0.08$0.04
Output price / 1M tokens$0.45$0.15
Context window131K tokens260K tokens
Max output tokens118K66K
API providers listed41
Weight accessGated accessAPI only
Input modalitiesText, ImageText
First listed12 March 20258 September 2026
PublisherGoogleInception Labs

Evidence: 3 public benchmark observations across 3 boards · global-corpus-prior over 183 held-out anchors (22%); opens from measured predecessor inception/mercury-2 (79%); shrunk 4.5 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2.5

Public benchmark boards where Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2.5 has a published result
BoardGemma 3 27BMercury 2.5Leads
Arena codingArena (LMArena)13581351–1365—Only one result
BFCL V4UC Berkeley (Gorilla)29.5Prompt—Only one result
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis4.9intelligence-index:v4.3:non-reasoning—Only one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis4.5%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Gemma 3 27B":reasoning=false—Only one result
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis10.5%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Gemma 3 27B":reasoning=false—Only one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis4.4%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Gemma 3 27B":reasoning=false—Only one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2.5: common questions

Is Gemma 3 27B better than Mercury 2.5?

Mercury 2.5 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 10 September 2026: #117 against #119. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Gemma 3 27B cheaper than Mercury 2.5?

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper on output tokens: $0.15/1M against $0.45/1M. Input tokens are $0.08/1M for Gemma 3 27B and $0.04/1M for Mercury 2.5. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $0.39 for Gemma 3 27B versus $0.15 for Mercury 2.5. Mercury 2.5 costs 59.7% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.

Which has the bigger context window, Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2.5?

Mercury 2.5 has the larger context window: 260K tokens against 131K.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 3 27B or Mercury 2.5?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are Gemma 3 27B and Mercury 2.5 open-weight models?

Gemma 3 27B: Gated access. Mercury 2.5: API only. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Gemma 3 27B and Mercury 2.5?

ModelCap currently lists 4 API providers for Gemma 3 27B and 1 for Mercury 2.5, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Gemma 3 27B vs Mercury 2.5 comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 10 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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