Mercury 2 vs Qwen3.5 0.8B
Qwen3.5 0.8B comes out ahead, 57 to 37 on our weighted score.
InceptionMercury 2
37/100- ECI—
- Price$0.25 / $0.75
- Context128K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 0.8B
57/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context262K
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Make it a three-way comparison.
Qwen3.5 0.8B is our pick
Qwen3.5 0.8B is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Mercury 2 (37). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceMercury 2Mercury 2 $0.375 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Qwen3.5 0.8B unpriced
- Longest contextQwen3.5 0.8BQwen3.5 0.8B 262,144 · Mercury 2 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.5 0.8BMercury 2: Text · Qwen3.5 0.8B: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingQwen3.5 0.8BPublishes downloadable weights (Apache-2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Mercury 2 | Qwen3.5 0.8B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 45 | 70 |
| Context window | 40% | 24 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 37/100 | 57/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mercury 2Inception | Qwen3.5 0.8BAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.25 | — |
| Output | $0.75 | — |
| Cached input | $0.025 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.375 | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Official Inception API | — |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 50,000 tokens | 81,920 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yeslow · medium · high | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache-2.0 |
| API model ID | mercury-2 | — |
| API providers | 7 (best) | 1 |
| Released | Feb 24, 2026 | Mar 2, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Mercury 2$4.00
- Qwen3.5 0.8B—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mercury 2 or Qwen3.5 0.8B?
Qwen3.5 0.8B is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Mercury 2 (37). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Qwen3.5 0.8B?
Mercury 2 is cheaper at $0.25 input / $0.75 output per million tokens (official Inception API price). . At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.375 per million tokens for Mercury 2 versus . Qwen3.5 0.8B has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Mercury 2 has not been scored yet and Qwen3.5 0.8B has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mercury 2 and Qwen3.5 0.8B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 0.8B has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 128,000 for Mercury 2. Maximum output per response: Mercury 2 up to 50,000, Qwen3.5 0.8B up to 81,920 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mercury 2 accepts text; Qwen3.5 0.8B accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 0.8B handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Qwen3.5 0.8B publishes its weights (Apache-2.0) and can be self-hosted; Mercury 2 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Qwen3.5 0.8B is the newest, released Mar 2, 2026. Mercury 2 came out Feb 24, 2026.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
