Model comparison
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Mercury 2.5
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 8.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 2 categories and Mercury 2.5 in 1 category; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 40.7 to 23.3.
- Mercury 2.5 is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 260K.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Inception | |
| Noometry Index | 40.8 | 33.5 |
| Released | 2026-03-03 | 2026-09-08 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 260K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.25 | $0.04 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 38 | 4 |
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Category by category
Coding Mercury 2.5 leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188), Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 41.9% | 38.5% |
| ALE-Bench | 797.73 | 301.65 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1256 | — |
| WeirdML | 52.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1400 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| DeepResearch Bench | 37.3% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186), Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 1.1% | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 8.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 25% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | — |
| DTBench | 76.8% | — |
| LMCA | 35% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.47 | — |
| ForecastBench | 54.4 | — |
Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90), Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 27.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | — |
| ProofBench | — | 3% |
| LMArena Math | 1428 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 8.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 8.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1398 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1240 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | — |
| LMArena French | 1424 | — |
| LMArena German | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1413 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1421 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1377 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1394 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1417 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Mercury 2.5?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 8.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Mercury 2.5?
Mercury 2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.
Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Mercury 2.5 better for coding?
Mercury 2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.5 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 260K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Mercury 2.5 share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2.5 has 4.