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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Mercury 2 vs Qwen3.5 9B Base

Too close to call on our weighted score (Mercury 2 52, Qwen3.5 9B Base 50). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Inception

    Mercury 2

    Released Feb 24, 2026

    52/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.25 / $0.75
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Mercury 2

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 9B Base

    Released Feb 26, 2026

    50/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.30 / $0.807
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 9B Base

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Mercury 2 52/100, Qwen3.5 9B Base 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mercury 2 on price and Qwen3.5 9B Base for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. 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 · Qwen3.5 9B Base $0.427 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 9B BaseQwen3.5 9B Base 262,144 · Mercury 2 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 9B BaseMercury 2: Text · Qwen3.5 9B Base: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 9B BasePublishes downloadable weights (Apache-2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMercury 2Qwen3.5 9B Base
Price50%6765
Inputs & features30%4535
Context window20%2437
Overall100%52/10050/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Mercury 2 vs Qwen3.5 9B Base specifications side by side
SpecificationMercury 2InceptionQwen3.5 9B BaseAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)——
ECI rank——
Price per million tokens
Input$0.25 (best)$0.30
Output$0.75 (best)$0.807
Cached input$0.025—
Blended (3:1)$0.375 (best)$0.427
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Inception APIMedian of 1 providers
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output50,000 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoYes
ReasoningYeslow · medium · highNo
Tool callingYesNo
Structured outputYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenApache-2.0
API model IDmercury-2—
API providers7 (best)1
ReleasedFeb 24, 2026Feb 26, 2026
Knowledge cutoff——
03 — Cost

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 9B Base$4.61
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mercury 2 or Qwen3.5 9B Base?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Mercury 2 52/100, Qwen3.5 9B Base 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mercury 2 on price and Qwen3.5 9B Base for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. 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 9B Base?

Mercury 2 is cheaper at $0.25 input / $0.75 output per million tokens (official Inception API price). Qwen3.5 9B Base costs $0.30 input / $0.807 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.375 per million tokens for Mercury 2 versus $0.427 for Qwen3.5 9B Base (1.1× as much).

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 9B Base has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mercury 2 and Qwen3.5 9B Base yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Qwen3.5 9B Base does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 9B Base 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 9B Base up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mercury 2 accepts text; Qwen3.5 9B Base accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 9B Base handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3.5 9B Base publishes its weights (Apache-2.0) and can be self-hosted; Mercury 2 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 9B Base is the newest, released Feb 26, 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.

05 — Keep comparing

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