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  5. Mercury 2.5vsQwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Updated Sep 2026

Mercury 2.5vsQwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper than Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 at $0.04/M vs $0.4/M input tokens.

Mercury 2.5 and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 compared across 20 shared prompts
SpecMercury 2.5Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Input price$0.04/M tokens$0.4/M tokens
Output price$0.15/M tokens$2.4/M tokens
Context window260K tokens1.0M tokens
Weights—Open
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedSep 2026Apr 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 6 of the 20 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 2.5190 words
Pantry Pasta Primavera Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Servings: 2 Ingredients (7 Common Pantry Items) Pasta (spaghetti, penne, or fusilli) – 8 oz Canned crushed tomatoes – 1 can (14 oz) Olive oil – 3 tablespoons Garlic powder – 1 teaspoon Dried oregano – 1 teaspoon Parmesan cheese (grated) – ½ cup Salt and…
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20306 words
🌙 Midnight Magic Noodles 🍜 A savory-sweet garlic butter noodle dish that feels like a gourmet meal but comes together in minutes using pantry staples. ⏱️ Estimated Time: Prep: 5 minutes Cook: 10 minutes Total: 15 minutes 🛒 The 7 Ingredients (Assumes water and salt for boiling pasta are on hand) 8 oz Pasta…
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Startup Pitch Teardown

Here's a pitch deck summary for a startup called "MindMeld AI": **Slide 1 - Vision:** "We're building the future of human-AI collaboration.…

Mercury 2.5544 words
Based on the pitch deck summary, here are the three weakest claims, along with an analysis of their vulnerabilities and concrete suggestions for improvement. The "Pre-Thought" Prediction Claim Claim: "MindMeld AI reads your brainwaves to predict what you want to type before you think it."
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20845 words
Here are the 3 weakest claims in the pitch, why they undermine investor confidence, and how to fix them with concrete, actionable improvements. 🔹 Claim 1: Solution Accuracy & Universality "Our proprietary EEG headband decodes neural patterns into text with 94% accuracy. Works with any language, any device."
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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 2.5572 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of the model as a stateless microservice that has ingested the entire public internet as its training dataset. During the training phase, it performs a massive distributed optimization job, adjusting internal weights to minimize a loss function based on next-token prediction.
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20852 words
Experienced Software Engineer (Distributed Systems/APIs) Think of an LLM not as a rule-based program, but as a massive, stateless probabilistic routing engine. During training, it ingests terabytes of text and learns to minimize a cross-entropy loss: essentially, it builds a high-dimensional lookup table that maps…
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Historical Counterfactual Analysis

If the transistor had been invented in 1920 instead of 1947, trace the likely technological, economic, and geopolitical implications through…

Mercury 2.5660 words
Inventing the transistor in 1920 would have fundamentally reshaped the 20th century, compressing the digital age by roughly two decades. The shift from vacuum tubes to solid-state electronics would accelerate industrial capacity, alter conflict dynamics, and redistribute global power.
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-201,197 words
Introduction: The Counterfactual Premise A transistor invented in 1920 would not instantly revolutionize technology. Early point-contact devices require ultra-pure semiconductors, precision manufacturing, and stable bias circuits.
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Advanced Investment Memo (IC Memo)

You are writing an internal investment committee memo for a long/short equity fund. Company (fictional): LedgerLift (ticker: LLLT) – B2B…

Mercury 2.5735 words
To: Investment Committee From: Equity Research Date: September 22, 2026 Subject: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Initiation of Coverage Recommendation & Thesis Recommendation: Long 12-Month Price Target: $55 – $68 Thesis: LedgerLift offers a rare combination of high-quality SaaS unit economics (NRR 123%, CAC payback 18mo) and…
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20755 words
TO: Investment Committee FROM: Analyst Desk DATE: October 26, 2023 SUBJECT: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Short Recommendation Recommendation & Thesis Recommendation: Short 12-Month PT Range: $26 – $32 Thesis: LLLT trades at ~50x FY25 EBIT and 9x NTM Revenue, pricing in flawless execution and multiple expansion.
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Michelin Star Recipe Design

Design an innovative recipe for a multi-component dish worthy of a Michelin 3-star restaurant. The recipe should feature an unusual…

Mercury 2.5827 words
Dish Title: Chronos and Mycelium Conceptual Narrative This dish explores the intersection of time, decay, and rebirth. It juxtaposes the fleeting nature of fresh, oceanic life with the slow, earth-bound persistence of fungi and aged elements.
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Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-201,321 words
Dish Title: Convergence: Abalone, Asparagus, and the Alchemy of Time Course: Signature Main / Pre-Dessert Bridge Yield: 4 Plates Prep Time: 72 Hours (primarily curing/fermentation) Cooking Time: 45 Minutes I. Conceptual Narrative Convergence is a meditation on duality and transformation.
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Our Verdict
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Mercury 2.5
Mercury 2.5Runner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 has the edge: bigger model tier, bigger context window.

Mercury 2.5 costs 16x less per token.

Too close to call

Reviewing agent-written code?See a Brief PR report

API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Mercury 2.5
Input
$0.04
10× cheaper
Output
$0.15
16× cheaper
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Input
$0.40
Output
$2.40

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper on both: 10× input, 16× output.

Where to run it

2 hosts

Mercury 2.51 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Inception$0.04 in·$0.15 out·260k·100% up
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-201 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Alibaba Cloud$0.30 in·$1.80 out·1M·100% up

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

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Mercury 2.5 is developed by Inception while Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 is developed by Qwen. Mercury 2.5 has a 260K token context window vs Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 20 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Mercury 2.5 and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 20 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

Mercury 2.5 costs $0.04/M input tokens and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs $0.4/M input tokens. Mercury 2.5 is $0.36/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 and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 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

Mercury 2.5 logo
Mercury 2.520 outputs, specs and price
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 logo
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-2056 outputs, specs and price
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