Mercury 2 vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.
model vs model · prices as of
Mercury 2 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct split the 5 rounds this table counts: the two list price rows, the cheapest price we can explain, the standard price and context. The weighting you pick decides the rest.
InceptionMercury 2
$1.50/M tokens
Inception list price, nothing below it is accounted for · $0.195 per 1,000 pages
128k context · tool calling
Alibaba CloudQwen2.5 72B Instruct
$1.48/M tokens
OpenRouter list price, nothing below it is accounted for · $0.24 per 1,000 pages
33k context · tool calling · open weights
List price in (lower wins)
$0.25/M
$0.36/M
List price out (lower wins)
$0.75/M
$0.40/M
Cheapest we can explain (lower wins)
none below list
none below list
Standard price (lower wins)
$1.50/M
$1.48/M
Cost per 1,000 pages (lower wins)
$0.195
$0.24
Context
128k tokens
33k tokens
Open weights
no
yes
Tool calling
yes
yes
Structured output
yes
yes
Reads images
no
no
Reasoning
yes
no
Released
24 Feb 2026
19 Sept 2024
Providers selling it
9
9
Price we measure against
the maker's own
OpenRouter
Trains on your prompts (no is better)
no provider to check
no provider to check
Providers selling both · 5
NanoGPT$1.50 / $1.48
Kilo Gateway$1.50 / $1.48
Nous Portal$1.50 / $1.48
OpenRouter$1.50 / $1.48
TrustedRouter$1.58 / $1.63
Mercury 2 then Qwen2.5 72B Instruct, per million tokens
Go further
Add a third or fourth model, or switch the weighting, in the tool.
What moved in the last seven days
- Mercury 2Nous Portal$0.20 / $0.60 $0.25 / $0.7525% dearer ·
- Qwen2.5 72B InstructNous Portal$0.29 / $0.32 $0.36 / $0.4025% dearer ·
Frequently asked
- Which is cheaper, Mercury 2 or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct, at $1.48 per million tokens against $1.50 for Mercury 2, three parts input to one part output, read on 16 Sept 2026.
- Where is each one cheapest?
- Mercury 2: nobody goes below the maker's own price with a reason we can point at, so $1.50 is the number to beat. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: nobody goes below OpenRouter's own price with a reason we can point at, so $1.48 is the number to beat.
- Can I buy both from one provider?
- Yes. 5 providers sell both: NanoGPT, Kilo Gateway, Nous Portal, OpenRouter, TrustedRouter. The cheapest of them for the two together is NanoGPT.
- Which holds more context?
- Mercury 2, at 128k tokens against 33k.
Prices exclude tax and are per million tokens, read 16 Sept 2026 from each provider's own catalog. The standard price blends three parts input to one part output; a page is 600 tokens in and 60 out. Bars are scaled to the larger value in each row.