Mercury 2 vs Qwen3.6 Flash

Mercury 2 at $0.287 in and $0.863 out and Qwen3.6 Flash at $0.216 in and $1.29 out — per million tokens, from the same wallet.

Mercury 2

Inception

0.21¢

for a client proposal

$0.287 in · $0.863 out / 1M

128K context · released 8 months ago

Full page →

Qwen3.6 Flash

Qwen

0.21¢

for a client proposal

$0.216 in · $1.29 out / 1M

1M context · released 7 months ago

Full page →

Asking all both at once — identical prompt, identical context — costs about 0.42¢ for a typical client proposal.

At a glance

Cheapest input: Qwen3.6 Flash at $0.216 per million tokens.
Cheapest output: Mercury 2 at $0.863 per million tokens.
Largest context: Qwen3.6 Flash at 1M tokens — about 1,400 pages.

Cost per task

Estimated totals at the rates above. Solid bar is input, lighter bar is output.

Quick code fix

2K in · 500 out

Mercury 2

0.1¢

Qwen3.6 Flash

0.11¢

Draft a client proposal from notes

5K in · 800 out

Mercury 2

0.21¢

Qwen3.6 Flash

0.21¢

Context-heavy session (Alyph workspace)

155K in · 4K out

Mercury 2

needs 155K ctx

Qwen3.6 Flash

3.9¢

Analyze a 50-page legal contract

35K in · 1K out

Mercury 2

1.1¢

Qwen3.6 Flash

0.89¢

Large architecture refactor

250K in · 3K out

Mercury 2

needs 250K ctx

Qwen3.6 Flash

$0.06

Solid part of each bar is input tokens, the lighter part is output. Models that don’t fit a task are marked instead of priced.

Cost vs Token Amount

Drag the slider to adjust the split between input and output workload.

80% Input20% Output

Mercury 2

Qwen3.6 Flash

Adjust the ratio slider to change how output tokens influence the final price for equivalent workloads.

Pricing

Mercury 2

Qwen3.6 Flash

Input / 1M tokens

$0.287

$0.216

Output / 1M tokens

$0.863

$1.29

Cached input / 1M

$0.029

—

Specs

Mercury 2

Qwen3.6 Flash

Provider

Inception

Qwen

Released

8 months ago

7 months ago

Context window

128K

Max output

50K

66K

Input

Text

Text, Images, and Video

Output

Text

Reasoning

Shows its thinking

Knowledge cutoff

—

Try it with real numbers

2K tokens in · 500 tokens out.

Mercury 2

Inception

0.1¢

for this task

57% input · 43% output

Full pricing →

Qwen3.6 Flash

Qwen

0.11¢

for this task

40% input · 60% output

Full pricing →

All 2, same prompt and context: 0.21¢. That is the entire cost of the comparison.

Your $5 welcome credit covers about 2,397 of these.

Which should you pick?

For long documents, Qwen3.6 Flash has the largest context window here — 1M tokens.

On price, Qwen3.6 Flash is the cheapest of the two on a typical task, at about 0.21¢.

For images or files, Qwen3.6 Flash can read them directly; Mercury 2 is text-only.

Or don’t pick. Send the identical prompt to all both, read the answers side by side, and keep the winner. How to run a fair bake-off →

Mercury 2 pricing →Qwen3.6 Flash pricing →Add Lyria 3 Clip Preview Add Grok 4.20

Questions, answered

Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Qwen3.6 Flash?

On a typical client proposal (5K tokens in, 800 out): Qwen3.6 Flash at 0.21¢; Mercury 2 at 0.21¢. Long prompts can change the order when long-context rates apply.

Which has the largest context window?

Qwen3.6 Flash — 1M tokens, about 1,400 pages.

Can I run Mercury 2 and Qwen3.6 Flash side by side on Alyph?

Yes — that is what Alyph is built for: the identical prompt with identical context to all 2, answers rendered side by side, billed from one wallet. This exact combination costs about 0.42¢ for a typical task.

Ask both at once

Identical prompt, identical context, answers side by side — about 0.42¢ for a typical client proposal. Free to start, with $5 of credit.