Mercury 3
$0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.35 per 1M output tokens · 1M context · tools, reasoning, JSON.
Prices checked Oct 21, 2026 · tracked by LLM Cost Index since Oct 21, 2026
What Mercury 3 costs per month
Estimated monthly bill for typical workloads, using the cached-input price for repeated context. Try your own numbers in the cost calculator.
| Workload | Per month |
|---|---|
| Customer chatbot 1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each | $45.96 |
| Document Q&A (RAG) 500 questions a day over retrieved documents | $10.81 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 200 tasks a day, long tool-heavy contexts | $20.10 |
| Content generation 30 long articles a day | $1.06 |
| Classification / extraction 100,000 short items a day | $106 |
Price history
We started tracking Mercury 3 on Oct 21, 2026; the chart appears as soon as there is a second data point. See all recent price changes.
Cheaper alternatives to Mercury 3
Models with the same tool calling, structured output for at least 20% less (3:1 input/output mix), most capable first.
| Model | Input / 1M | Output / 1M | Context | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai | $0.041 | $0.12 | 1.05M | visiontoolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| Ling 3.1 Flash inclusionAI | $0.075 | $0.225 | 262K | toolsreasoningJSON |
| Ling 3.0 Flash VL inclusionAI | $0.06 | $0.18 | 131K | visiontoolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 DeepSeek | $0.091 | $0.182 | 1.05M | toolsreasoningJSONopen weights |
| Solar Mini 4 Upstage | $0.05 | $0.20 | 524K | toolsreasoningJSON |
How to pay less for Mercury 3
For a customer chatbot (1,000 conversations a day, 8 turns each) that costs $65.40 a month at list price without caching:
| Option | Per month | You save |
|---|---|---|
| Move to GLM 5.3 Flash (similar capabilities) | $16.82 | $48.58 (74%) |
| Use prompt caching (60% of input cached) | $45.96 | $19.44 (30%) |
Other workloads: cut-your-bill tool for Mercury 3.
Specifications
| Model ID | inception/mercury-3 |
| Input | text |
| Output | text |
| Tool calling | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes |
| Reasoning mode | Yes |
| Open weights | No |
| Released | Oct 16, 2026 |
FAQ
- How much does Mercury 3 cost?
- $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.35 per million output tokens; cached input costs $0.01 per million. Prices as of Oct 21, 2026.
- What is the context window of Mercury 3?
- 1M tokens, with up to 131K output tokens per response.
- Does Mercury 3 support images, tools and structured output?
- Images as input: no. Tool calling: yes. Structured (JSON) output: yes. Reasoning mode: yes.
- What are cheaper alternatives to Mercury 3?
- Models with the same key capabilities for at least 20% less include GLM 5.3 Flash ($0.041 / $0.12), Ling 3.1 Flash ($0.075 / $0.225), Ling 3.0 Flash VL ($0.06 / $0.18).
More from Inception: all Inception models · how we collect prices