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  5. Mercury 2.5 PreviewvsQwen3.8 Flash
Updated Aug 2026

Mercury 2.5 PreviewvsQwen3.8 Flash

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper than Qwen3.8 Flash at $0.04/M vs $0.15/M input tokens.

Mercury 2.5 Preview and Qwen3.8 Flash compared across 8 shared prompts
SpecMercury 2.5 PreviewQwen3.8 Flash
Input price$0.04/M tokens$0.15/M tokens
Output price$0.15/M tokens$0.47/M tokens
Context window260K tokens1.0M tokens
Weights—Closed
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…

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
Qwen3.8 Flash147 words
Moon Halo Cookies A soft, golden sugar cookie with crisp edges and a tender center—made with just 7 pantry staples. Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Total time: 20 minutes Makes: About 16 cookies Ingredients 1/2 cup butter, softened 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour…
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…

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
Qwen3.8 Flash368 words
1-Month Beginner Health & Longevity Plan Focus areas: Nutrition, Movement, Sleep Week 1: Build the basics Nutrition Add 1 serving of vegetables to 2 meals per day. Drink water with each meal. Choose protein at most meals: eggs, beans, tofu, chicken, fish, yogurt. Movement Walk 10–15 minutes daily.
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…

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
Qwen3.8 Flash983 words
For an experienced software engineer Training a large language model is not “just” making it guess the next word in isolation. It is fitting an enormous parameterized function to predict the next token conditioned on all previous tokens in a sequence.
Read the full answer
Our Verdict
Qwen3.8 Flash
Qwen3.8 Flash
Mercury 2.5 Preview
Mercury 2.5 PreviewRunner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Qwen3.8 Flash has the edge: bigger model tier, bigger context window.

Mercury 2.5 Preview costs 3.1x less per token.

Too close to call
API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Mercury 2.5 Preview
Input
$0.04
3.8× cheaper
Output
$0.15
3.1× cheaper
Qwen3.8 Flash
Input
$0.15
Output
$0.47

Mercury 2.5 Preview is cheaper on both: 3.8× input, 3.1× output.

Where to run it

2 hosts

Mercury 2.5 Preview1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·100% up
Qwen3.8 Flash1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Alibaba Cloud$0.15 in·$0.47 out·1M·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 22 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Mercury 2.5 Preview is developed by Inception while Qwen3.8 Flash is developed by Qwen. Mercury 2.5 Preview has a 260K token context window vs Qwen3.8 Flash's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 8 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Mercury 2.5 Preview and Qwen3.8 Flash 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.

Mercury 2.5 Preview costs $0.04/M input tokens and Qwen3.8 Flash costs $0.15/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 Preview is $0.11/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 Mercury 2.5 Preview and Qwen3.8 Flash 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.

Keep exploring

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Same lab, same size, long tail

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Mercury 2.5 Preview vs Mercury 2.5Same lab
Mercury 2.5 Preview logoMercury logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview vs MercurySame lab
Qwen3.8 Flash logoQwen3.8 Max (0902) logo
Qwen3.8 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Same lab
Qwen3.8 Flash logoQwen3.8 2.4T A95B logo
Qwen3.8 Flash vs Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BSame lab
Mercury 2.5 Preview logoGPT-5.6 Luna Pro logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview vs GPT-5.6 Luna ProSame size
Mercury 2.5 Preview logoGPT-5.6 Sol logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview vs GPT-5.6 SolNew provider
Mercury 2.5 Preview logoGPT-5.6 Terra logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview vs GPT-5.6 TerraNew provider
Mercury 2.5 Preview logoGPT-6 Astra logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview vs GPT-6 AstraNew provider

Model pages

Mercury 2.5 Preview logo
Mercury 2.5 Preview58 outputs, specs and price
Qwen3.8 Flash logo
Qwen3.8 Flash8 outputs, specs and price
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