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Inception: Mercury 2.5 vs Inception: Mercury 3: API Pricing Compared

Comparing Inception: Mercury 2.5 and Inception: Mercury 3: on combined input+output list price, Inception: Mercury 2.5 is cheaper at $0.19 vs $0.45 per 1M tokens — a difference of $0.26 (58%). Inception: Mercury 2.5 costs $0.04 in / $0.15 out with a 260,000-token context; Inception: Mercury 3 costs $0.1 in / $0.35 out with a 1,000,000-token context.
Inception: Mercury 2.5Inception: Mercury 3
Input /1M$0.04$0.1
Output /1M$0.15$0.35
Cached input /1M$0.004$0.01
Context window260,0001,000,000
Max output tokens65,536131,072
Cost @ 10M in + 2M out / mo$0.7$1.7

Estimate your own workload in the cost calculator, or open the full pages for Inception: Mercury 2.5 and Inception: Mercury 3.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper, Inception: Mercury 2.5 or Inception: Mercury 3?

Inception: Mercury 2.5 is cheaper on combined list price: $0.19 vs $0.45 per 1M tokens (input + output). At 10M input + 2M output tokens per month, Inception: Mercury 2.5 costs $0.7 and Inception: Mercury 3 costs $1.7.

Which has the larger context window, Inception: Mercury 2.5 or Inception: Mercury 3?

Inception: Mercury 2.5 has a context window of 260,000 tokens; Inception: Mercury 3 has 1,000,000 tokens. The larger one is Inception: Mercury 3.

Price snapshot October 21, 2026, refreshed daily.