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Mercury 2.5 model card

CurrentReleased Sep 8, 2026ProprietaryReasoning260K context

Released Sep 8, 2026 see all recent releases

Decision reading
Mercury 2.5 is Inception’s September 8, 2026 diffusion reasoning release. It has 260K context and launch rates of $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens. Inception reports 79% on GPQA Diamond and 77% on IFBench. These are provider-reported results, with the source linked beside each row.

Data as of September 8, 2026 · How the score is built

Strongest published evidence

Instruction Following ranks #53. A well-rounded choice across a range of tasks.

Validate before choosing

5 published rows leave some tracked benchmark slots empty. Independent runtime speed has not been measured.

Decision snapshot

Each value carries a field reference instead of floating alone. Markers compare this model with the current ranked and priced catalog; they are not absolute quality thresholds.

Capability

Unranked

field median 56.3

Not eligible for a public rank

Price

$0.040input / $0.15 output

input median $1

cached $0.004 · blended $0.095

Speed

1107tok/s

No field comparison available

Provider-reported · NVIDIA GPUs · TTFT not published

Context

260Ktokens

field median 256,000

Maximum output length is tracked separately

How much of this is verified

Coverage is split by category so a strong number never hides a thin evidence base. Verified means the row is tied to a published source; provisional rows remain visible but separate.

  1. Agentic2/2 verified
  2. Coding1/1 verified
  3. ReasoningNot measured
  4. Knowledge1/1 verified
  5. MathNot measured
  6. MultilingualNot measured
  7. MultimodalNot measured
  8. Inst. Following1/1 verified
Verified sourceProvisionalNot measured

Spec sheet

Each documented value carries its source. Missing fields stay visible as not sourced or not published, rather than disappearing from the page.

Maximum output
Not sourced yet
Knowledge cutoff
Not sourced yet
Input modalities
Not sourced yet
Output modalities
Not sourced yet
Parameters
Not disclosed by the provider
Availability
Available through the Inception API as `mercury-2.5`, with 260K context, tunable reasoning, parallel tool calls, and schema-aligned JSON. The launch also lists Baseten and OpenRouter access.
Cloud regions
Not tracked yet
Lifecycle
Current
API capabilities
Tool calling, structured outputs, and batch support are not tracked yet
Prompt caching
Published at $0.004 per million cached input tokensInception models and Mercury 2.5 launch pricing
Self-host
Weights are not published
Rate limits
Not tracked yet

Category score record

Scores and ranks appear only where published evidence can be displayed. The table keeps the score, weight, cohort, and evidence state together.

Category scores, ranks, weighting, benchmark coverage, and evidence status
CategoryScore
AgenticRank #91 of 152Percentile 40thWeight 22%2 benchmarksVerified44.5
CodingRank #73 of 151Percentile 52ndWeight 20%1 benchmarkVerified47.8
ReasoningWeight 17%0 benchmarksNot measuredNot measured
KnowledgeRank #94 of 182Percentile 49thWeight 12%1 benchmarkVerified48.3
MathWeight 5%0 benchmarksNot measuredNot measured
MultilingualWeight 7%0 benchmarksNot measuredNot measured
MultimodalWeight 12%0 benchmarksNot measuredNot measured
Inst. FollowingRank #53 of 121Percentile 57thWeight 5%1 benchmarkVerified80.1

Benchmark ledger

Coding opens by default. The marker compares each value with the best source-verified result in the catalog; provisional leaders do not set the reference. Expand the remaining categories for every published row.

Coding1 row
Coding benchmark values, best verified comparison, weight, and source status
SciCodeScientific Code BenchmarkScore38%Versus best verified row

Best verified: Sakana Fugu · 60.1%

Gap22.1 behindWeightWeighted 10%
Agentic2 rows
Agentic benchmark values, best verified comparison, weight, and source status
τ³-bench resultsτ³-Bench Tool-Agent-User EvaluationScore96.0%Versus best verified row

Best verified: Mercury 2.5 · 96.0%

GapBest verifiedWeightDisplay only
DeepSearchQAScore34.0%Versus best verified row

Best verified: Claude Opus 5 · 95.0%

Gap61 behindWeightDisplay only
Knowledge1 row
Knowledge benchmark values, best verified comparison, weight, and source status
GPQA-DGPQA DiamondScore79.0%Versus best verified row

Best verified: GPT-6 Astra · 96.0%

Gap17 behindWeightDisplay only
Inst. Following1 row
Inst. Following benchmark values, best verified comparison, weight, and source status
IFBenchInstruction Following BenchmarkScore77%Versus best verified row

Best verified: MAI-Thinking-1 · 85%

Gap8 behindWeightWeighted 70%

Lineage

The sequence follows explicit supersedes links. A successor's displayed score stays at least 0.1 points above its predecessor; raw benchmark rows do not move. Scores and prices remain blank when the corresponding public row or first-party rate is unavailable.

  1. Feb 24, 2026

    Mercury 2

    Score 42.3 · $0.25 / $0.75

  2. Sep 8, 2026 · you are here

    Mercury 2.5

    Not publicly ranked · $0.04 / $0.15

Base entry

How to read this profile

The visual layer above carries the decisions. These notes preserve the model, ranking, coverage, and family context behind the numbers.

We track Mercury 2.5, but the public leaderboard excludes this profile until enough non-generated benchmark coverage is available. Only published rows appear above.

Mercury 2.5 is a proprietary model with a 260K context window. It uses an explicit reasoning mode, which can improve complex problem solving while adding latency and token use.

Available through the Inception API as `mercury-2.5`, with 260K context, tunable reasoning, parallel tool calls, and schema-aligned JSON. The launch also lists Baseten and OpenRouter access.

Inception released Mercury 2.5 on September 8, 2026. The launch chart supplies provider-reported GPQA Diamond, IFBench, long-context reasoning, SciCode, DeepSearchQA at ten tool calls, Omniscience accuracy and non-hallucination, and Tau3Bench Telecom results. TerminalBench lacks a version; the GDPval bar uses an unexplained percentage scale. Neither is mapped. Benchmark values are separate from Mercury 2 and Mercury 2.5 Preview.

Mercury 2.5 sits in the Mercury 2.5 family with Mercury 2.5 Preview. Its explicit predecessor is Mercury 2. 5 of 427 tracked benchmark slots currently have displayable evidence. Missing categories stay blank.

Its strongest eligible category is Instruction Following at #53, while its lowest eligible position is Knowledge at #94. a well-rounded choice across a range of tasks.

Model research

The launch rates are temporary

The models page lists standard rates of $0.20 per million input tokens, $0.02 per million cached input tokens, and $0.75 per million output tokens. The 80% launch discount reduces them to $0.04, $0.004, and $0.15. Inception does not state an end date on that page.

The first-party quick start uses the API model ID mercury-2.5. Mercury 2.5 supports adjustable reasoning, parallel tool calls, and JSON constrained to a schema. Mercury 2 remains supported for existing customers.

What the launch chart establishes

Inception reports 79% on GPQA Diamond, 77% on IFBench, and 38% on SciCode. The chart also reports 34% on DeepSearchQA with a ten-tool-call budget. These values belong to Mercury 2.5 and are not copied to Mercury 2 or the earlier Preview record.

The chart’s 96% Tau3Bench result is labeled Telecom in its source note. It should not be compared directly with the older Mercury 2 Banking result. Its TerminalBench bar does not identify a benchmark version, so we leave that result outside the versioned ledger until the setup is documented.

Measure the complete request

Inception reports 1,107 output tokens per second on NVIDIA GPUs. That is a provider throughput claim, separate from the hosted runtime measurements. It does not establish time to first token or the full response latency of a voice application.

Mercury Voice and Mercury Router were announced as separate previews. Their latency and routing claims do not become Mercury 2.5 specifications.

Radar

Mercury 2.5 release history

Full release history

Radar confirmed these at the source. Use Mercury 2.5 in your work? Explore Radar to follow supported changes and choose your alerts.

Compare Mercury 2.5 with every tracked model411 comparisons

Last updated September 8, 2026. Runtime fields remain blank until a sourced snapshot exists.

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