API cost decision in 10 seconds

Mercury 2 vs 🔥DeepSeek V3.2

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 when budget and context both matter.

Pricing data updated:  Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, DeepSeek V3.2 is estimated at $0.44 vs $0.63 for Mercury 2, saving $0.18 (29.4% lower).

Cost-first pickDeepSeek V3.2
Context-first pickDeepSeek V3.2
Sample savings$0.1829.4%
10x traffic gap$1.84

DeepSeek V3.2 is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $1.84. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

DeepSeek V3.2 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shapeToken mixBetter pickMercury 2DeepSeek V3.2
Input-heavy / RAG 5M input + 500K output DeepSeek V3.2 $1.63 $1.45
Balanced workload 1M input + 1M output DeepSeek V3.2 $1 $0.63
Output-heavy chatbot 1M input + 5M output DeepSeek V3.2 $4 $2.14
Cheaper inputMercury 2$0.25 vs $0.25 / 1M
Cheaper outputDeepSeek V3.2$0.75 vs $0.38 / 1M
Larger contextDeepSeek V3.2128K vs 131.07K
Sample workloadDeepSeek V3.2$0.63 vs $0.44

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.
Mercury 2Calculating…Estimated API cost
DeepSeek V3.2Calculating…Estimated API cost
Cheaper for this workloadCalculating…Difference: calculating…

This estimate uses normalized public API pricing per 1M tokens. It is a planning aid, not a billing quote. Verify provider pricing, limits, and terms before production use.

Quick Decision

Verdict

Mercury 2 has the lower input price, DeepSeek V3.2 has the lower output price, and DeepSeek V3.2 offers the larger context window.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.63 for Mercury 2 and $0.44 for DeepSeek V3.2.

Best Fit

Choose Mercury 2 when you care most about lower input-token price.

Choose DeepSeek V3.2 when you care most about lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Head-to-Head Specs
FeatureMercury 2
(Inception)		🔥DeepSeek V3.2
(DeepSeek)
Input Price
prompt tokens per 1M		$0.25$0.25
Completion Price
per 1M tokens		$0.75$0.38
Sample Workload Cost
1M input + 500K output		$0.63$0.44
Context Window128K131.07K
Release Date2026-03-042025-12-01
Popularity#8
Mercury 2

Mercury 2 is an extremely fast reasoning LLM, and the first reasoning diffusion LLM (dLLM). Instead of generating tokens sequentially, Mercury 2 produces and refines multiple tokens in parallel, achieving...

DeepSeek V3.2

DeepSeek-V3.2 is a large language model designed to harmonize high computational efficiency with strong reasoning and agentic tool-use performance. It introduces DeepSeek Sparse Attention (DSA), a fine-grained sparse attention mechanism...

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use caseBetter pickWhy
Budget-constrained productionDeepSeek V3.2On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, DeepSeek V3.2 is estimated at $0.44 vs $0.63 for Mercury 2, saving $0.18 (29.4% lower).
High-volume input processingMercury 2Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts or retrieved passages dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbotsDeepSeek V3.2Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document workDeepSeek V3.2A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages and source files.