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  5. DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision ExpvsMercury 2.5 Preview
Updated Aug 2026

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision ExpvsMercury 2.5 Preview

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp at $0.04/M vs $0.22/M input tokens.

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp and Mercury 2.5 Preview compared across 8 shared prompts
SpecDeepSeek V4 Flash Vision ExpMercury 2.5 Preview
Input price$0.22/M tokens$0.04/M tokens
Output price$0.66/M tokens$0.15/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens260K tokens
WeightsOpen—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedAug 2026Aug 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 3 of the 8 prompts both answered. Formatting stripped, words untouched.

Simple 7-Ingredient Recipe

Create a simple recipe for a delicious dish (sweet or savory) using only 7 common pantry ingredients. Include a creative name for the dish…

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp144 words
Sticky Soy-Glazed Midnight Noodles A sweet-savory, buttery noodle dish that comes together in about 20 minutes with pantry staples. Ingredients (7): 8 oz spaghetti or noodles 3 tbsp butter 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp honey ½ tsp chili flakes 1 tbsp sesame seeds Instructions: Cook the noodles…
Read the full answer
Mercury 2.5 Preview186 words
Dish Name: Rustic Sun-Dried Pasta Ingredients (7 Pantry Staples): Spaghetti (or any long pasta) Canned crushed tomatoes Olive oil Garlic powder Dried oregano Salt Black pepper Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 20 minutes Instructions: Boil the Pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Read the full answer

Beginner's Longevity Plan

Outline a simple, actionable 1-month plan for someone starting their journey towards better health and longevity. Focus on 3 key areas…

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp565 words
Here’s a simple, beginner-friendly 1-month plan built around three key pillars: Nutrition, Movement, and Sleep & Stress. The goal is small, repeatable habits — not perfection. The 3 Key Areas Nutrition Goal: Eat more whole foods, more protein, and more plants.
Read the full answer
Mercury 2.5 Preview176 words
Here is a straightforward 4-week roadmap designed to build sustainable habits without overwhelming you. Core Pillars Nutrition: Focus on whole foods and hydration. Activity: Prioritize consistent movement over intensity. Restoration: Protect sleep quality and manage energy.
Read the full answer

Explain Like I'm a Specific Expert

Explain how a large language model (like GPT or Claude) learns and generates text to each of these three audiences: 1. **An experienced…

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp869 words
Here is how a large language model learns and generates text, tailored to each of your three audiences. To an Experienced Software Engineer You build distributed systems, so think of an LLM as a massively parallel, lossy compression engine for human text.
Read the full answer
Mercury 2.5 Preview608 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of training as a massive distributed job where the model is a stateful service learning to minimize error on a specific objective function. Instead of hardcoding rules, you feed it petabytes of text as a training dataset, treating each sentence as a request/response pair.
Read the full answer
Our Verdict
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Mercury 2.5 PreviewRunner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp has the edge: bigger model tier, bigger context window, major provider backing.

Mercury 2.5 Preview costs 4.4x less per token.

Slight edge
API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
Input
$0.22
Output
$0.66
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input
$0.04
5.5× cheaper
Output
$0.15
4.4× cheaper

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper on both: 5.5× input, 4.4× output.

Where to run it

6 hosts, cheapest first

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp5 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
FFireworks$0.22 in·$0.66 out·1M·99.8% upGGMI Cloudfp8$0.44 in·$1.32 out·1M·99.8% upNNovita$0.44 in·$1.32 out·1M·100% upSSiliconFlowfp8$0.44 in·$1.32 out·1M·97.4% upDDeepInfrafp8degraded$0.22 in·$0.65 out·1M·66.3% up
Mercury 2.5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 23 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp is developed by DeepSeek while Mercury 2.5 Preview is developed by Inception. DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp has a 1.0M token context window vs Mercury 2.5 Preview's 260K. You can compare their actual outputs across 8 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp and Mercury 2.5 Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 8 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp costs $0.22/M input tokens and Mercury 2.5 Preview costs $0.04/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 Preview is $0.18/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp and Mercury 2.5 Preview across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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Model pages

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DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp8 outputs, specs and price
Mercury 2.5 Preview logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
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