Inception: Mercury 2.5 Preview
Mercury 2.5 Preview is a reasoning model from Inception released on Sep 1, 2026. It reads text and writes text, with a 260K token context window and up to 66K tokens per reply.
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It costs $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens. Cached input bills at $0.004, 90% less than fresh input.
It supports tool calling, structured JSON output and prompt caching.
- Modalities
- In / out price
- $0.04 / $0.15 per 1M
- Context
- 260K
- Max output
- 66K
- Released
- Sep 1, 2026
- Knowledge cutoff
- n/a
- Tool calling
- Structured output
- Reasoning
- Prompt caching
- Open weights
- Free to use
Mercury 2.5 Preview pricing
USD, as listed on Oct 15, 2026. Most bills are input heavy, so the cached input rate matters as much as the headline price.
| Input | $0.04 / 1M tokens | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | $0.15 / 1M tokens | |
| Cached input (read) | $0.004 / 1M tokens | 90% off input |
What Mercury 2.5 Preview costs per month
Pick a workload close to yours or type your own volumes.
Supported request parameters
What you can set when you call Mercury 2.5 Preview through an OpenAI compatible API.
- Tools
tools - Structured outputs
structured_outputs - Reasoning
reasoning
Alternatives to Mercury 2.5 Preview
Models that take the same inputs and call tools, closest in price, cheaper ones first.
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- Index 10
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More from Inception
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Reads text. Tool calling, structured output, reasoning. Served by 5 providers.
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by inceptionMar 30, 2026$0.25/M input tokens$0.75/M output tokens
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by inceptionFeb 20, 2026$0.25/M input tokens$0.75/M output tokens6 providers
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by inceptionFeb 26, 2025$0.25/M input tokens$1/M output tokens
Mercury 2.5 Preview questions
How much does the Mercury 2.5 Preview API cost?
$0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens, with cached input at $0.004. The estimator on this page turns that into a monthly bill for your own workload.
What is the context window of Mercury 2.5 Preview?
260,000 tokens of input, and it can write up to 65,536 tokens in one reply. As a rough guide, a million tokens is around 750,000 English words.
Does Mercury 2.5 Preview support tool calling?
Yes. It accepts tool definitions and can return JSON that matches a schema, which is what an agent needs to call your APIs.
Is Mercury 2.5 Preview open source?
No. Inception serves it through an API only, so you cannot download the weights or host it yourself.
When was Mercury 2.5 Preview released?
Sep 1, 2026.
Catalog data from models.dev (MIT licensed), refreshed daily, last on Oct 15, 2026. The summary is written from these facts.