Mercury 2 vs Mercury Edit 2
Side-by-side comparison of API pricing, specs, benchmarks, and capabilities
| Specification |
by Inception
|
by Inception
|
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Status | Current budget | Current coding |
| Released | ||
| Pricing per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.250/Mtok | $0.250/Mtok |
| Output | $0.750/Mtok | $0.750/Mtok |
| Blended avg | $0.375/Mtok | $0.375/Mtok |
| Cached input | $0.025/Mtok | $0.025/Mtok |
| Price basis | Inception publishes this rate per TOKEN, not per 1M: its own API root (api.inceptionlabs.ai/v1/models) serves prompt 0.00000025 and completion 0.00000075, which is $0.25 / $0.75 per 1M tokens, with cache reads at 0.000000025 ($0.025 per 1M) and cache writes free. Read unauthenticated on 2026-09-01 and again on 2026-09-02, byte-identical both times (973 bytes, md5 a835588b3e712d66d80ab0166a1b8fba). The vendor's own record carries "openrouter": {"slug": "inception/mercury-2"}, so the join to the gateway id is Inception's claim rather than ours. Inception's HTML pricing page is behind a standing bot challenge and is not our source. | Inception's own rate card at docs.inceptionlabs.ai/get-started/models prices Mercury Edit 2 at $0.25 input / $0.025 cached input / $0.75 output per 1M tokens, in a table headed "Input Price (1M Tokens)", so the per-1M basis is the one the vendor declares. Unlike the Mercury 2.5 row on the same card, this row carries no strikethrough and no discount marker: the 80%-off banner on that page names Mercury 2.5 only, so these are plain list prices and not a promotional rate. Confirmed on a second first-party surface the same day: the API's edit- and FIM-scoped model lists (api.inceptionlabs.ai/v1/edit/completions/models and /v1/fim/completions/models) both serve mercury-edit-2 at prompt 0.00000025 and completion 0.00000075 per TOKEN with input_cache_reads 0.000000025 and cache writes free, which is the same $0.25 / $0.025 / $0.75 per 1M. The chat-scoped list at api.inceptionlabs.ai/v1/models does NOT carry this SKU — it lists Mercury 2 and Mercury 2.5 only — so that route's silence is about the endpoint it serves, not about the model. Verified 2026-09-11. Context window, on those same two surfaces, is the one field where they disagree, and we publish the rate card's figure: the card prints "FIM: 32K / NextEdit: 32K" with 8,192 max output tokens, stated per endpoint, while the model-list JSON reports context_length 128000 and max_output_length 32000. That JSON record reads as a template copied from Mercury 2 — 128000 is Mercury 2's exact window, its description is Mercury 2's text, and its created timestamp is byte-identical to the one served for Mercury 2.5, a model Inception launched on 2026-09-08 — so the card, which states a window per endpoint, is the more specific claim. None of the three prices is affected: both surfaces agree on all of them to the digit. |
| Specifications | ||
| Context window | 128K tokens | 32K tokens |
| Parameters | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Speed (TPS) | — | — |
| Modalities | ||
| Input |
text
|
text
|
| Benchmarks sources: Artificial Analysis / n/a | ||
| Independent composite scores each on its own scale — not part of the average above | ||
| AA Intelligence Index | 11.5 | — |
| AA Agentic Index | 4 | — |
| AA-Omniscience Index (−100–100) | -50.7 | — |
| Providers | ||
| Available from |
Inception — $0.250/$0.750/Mtok
|
Inception — $0.250/$0.750/Mtok
|
Cost at scale
1M tokens · 50/50 input/output| Volume | Mercury 2 | Mercury Edit 2 | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M tokens | $0.38 | $0.38 | $0 (0%) |
| 10M tokens | $3.75 | $3.75 | $0 (0%) |
| 100M tokens | $37.5 | $37.5 | $0 (0%) |
| 1000M tokens | $375 | $375 | $0 (0%) |
When to pick which
distilled from the pricing and spec data above
Pick Mercury 2 if…
- you need the longer context: 128K tokens vs 32K (4×)
Pick Mercury Edit 2 if…
- this pairing gives Mercury Edit 2 no edge on price, context, cache discount, or measured performance — pick it only for qualitative fit (ecosystem, compliance, model behavior on your prompts)
Summary
Mercury 2 by Inception costs $0.250/Mtok input and $0.750/Mtok output, with a 128K-token context window. It supports text input.
Mercury Edit 2 by Inception costs $0.250/Mtok input and $0.750/Mtok output, with a 32K-token context window. It supports text input.
Note: Pricing is per million tokens. Actual costs vary with usage patterns, prompt caching, and batch discounts. Always verify against official provider pricing pages.
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