Mercury Edit 2 vs Qwen3.5 9B Base
Qwen3.5 9B Base comes out ahead, 50 to 34 on our weighted score, though Mercury Edit 2 is 12% cheaper per token.
InceptionMercury Edit 2
34/100- ECI—
- Price$0.25 / $0.75
- Context32K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 9B Base
50/100- ECI—
- Price$0.30 / $0.807
- Context262K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Qwen3.5 9B Base is our pick
Qwen3.5 9B Base is the better all-round choice, scoring 50/100 against Mercury Edit 2 (34). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mercury Edit 2 wins on price. 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 Edit 2Mercury Edit 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 Edit 2 32,000 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.5 9B BaseMercury Edit 2: Text · Qwen3.5 9B Base: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingQwen3.5 9B BasePublishes downloadable weights (Apache-2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Mercury Edit 2 | Qwen3.5 9B Base |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 67 | 65 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 0 | 35 |
| Context window | 20% | 0 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 34/100 | 50/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mercury Edit 2Inception | Qwen3.5 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 rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Inception API | Median of 1 providers |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 32,000 tokens | 262,144 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Tool calling | No | No |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache-2.0 |
| API model ID | mercury-edit-2 | — |
| API providers | 1 | 1 |
| Released | Mar 30, 2026 | Feb 26, 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 Edit 2$4.00
- Qwen3.5 9B Base$4.61
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mercury Edit 2 or Qwen3.5 9B Base?
Qwen3.5 9B Base is the better all-round choice, scoring 50/100 against Mercury Edit 2 (34). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mercury Edit 2 wins on price. 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 Edit 2 or Qwen3.5 9B Base?
Mercury Edit 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 Edit 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 Edit 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 Edit 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 Mercury Edit 2 and 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 32,000 for Mercury Edit 2. Maximum output per response: Mercury Edit 2 up to 8,192, Qwen3.5 9B Base up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mercury Edit 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 Edit 2 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Mercury Edit 2 is the newest, released Mar 30, 2026. Qwen3.5 9B Base came out Feb 26, 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.
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