Qwen3.6 35B A3B is $0.1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).
API cost decision in 10 seconds
Qwen3.6 35B A3B vs Mercury 2
Pick Mercury 2 for lower cost; pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B only if the larger context window matters more.
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Data confirmed:
Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens
Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output
Budget verdict
Pick Mercury 2 for lower cost; pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B only if the larger context window matters more.
On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2 is estimated at $0.62 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.03 (3.8% lower).
Cost-first pickMercury 2
Context-first pickQwen3.6 35B A3B
Sample savings$0.033.8%
10x traffic gap$0.25
Qwen3.6 35B A3B has more context, but Mercury 2 saves $0.03 on the standard workload. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $0.25. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.
Cost sensitivity
Workload Sensitivity
Cost winner changes by workload shape: input-heavy / RAG favors Qwen3.6 35B A3B, balanced workload favors Mercury 2, and output-heavy chatbot favors Mercury 2.
| Workload shape | Token mix | Better pick | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input-heavy / RAG | 5M input + 500K output | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | $1.25 | $1.62 |
| Balanced workload | 1M input + 1M output | Mercury 2 | $1.15 | $1 |
| Output-heavy chatbot | 1M input + 5M output | Mercury 2 | $5.15 | $4 |
Mercury 2 is $0.25 cheaper per 1M output tokens (25% lower; 1.33x difference).
Qwen3.6 35B A3B has 134.14K more context (2.05x larger).
Mercury 2 is $0.03 cheaper on the standard workload (3.8% lower).
Estimate your workload cost
Your Workload Cost
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
Qwen3.6 35B A3B has the lower input price; Mercury 2 has the lower output price; Qwen3.6 35B A3B offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Mercury 2 is cheaper for the standard workload.
For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B and $0.62 for Mercury 2.
Choose Qwen3.6 35B A3B when you care most about lower input-token price, and larger context window.
Choose Mercury 2 when you care most about lower output-token price.
- On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2 is estimated at $0.62 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.03 (3.8% lower).
- Mercury 2 is $0.03 cheaper on the standard workload (3.8% lower).
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B is $0.1 cheaper per 1M input tokens (40% lower; 1.67x difference).
- Mercury 2 is $0.25 cheaper per 1M output tokens (25% lower; 1.33x difference).
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B has 134.14K more context (2.05x larger).
| Feature | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Qwen) | Mercury 2 (Inception) |
|---|---|---|
| Input Price prompt tokens per 1M | $0.15 | $0.25 |
| Completion Price per 1M tokens | $1 | $0.75 |
| Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output | $0.65 | $0.62 |
| Context Window | 262.14K | 128K |
| Release Date |
Use-Case Decision Matrix
| Use case | Better pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Budget-constrained production | Mercury 2 | On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2 is estimated at $0.62 vs $0.65 for Qwen3.6 35B A3B, saving $0.03 (3.8% lower). |
| High-volume input processing | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill. |
| Long responses and chatbots | Mercury 2 | Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens. |
| RAG or long-document work | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files. |
Related Alternatives
- Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct (free) can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (free) can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.09.
- Qwen3.5-9B can replace Qwen3.6 35B A3B when lower sample workload cost matters most: $0.11.
- Llama 4 Scout offers 10M context with $0.23 sample workload cost.
- Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.2 sample workload cost.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite offers 1.05M context with $0.3 sample workload cost.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash · DeepSeek · #1
- Hy3 preview · Tencent · #2
- Claude Opus 4.7 · Anthropic · #3
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 · Anthropic · #4
Cheaper alternatives
Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.
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Open provider hubsQwen catalog
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Check other Inception models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.
Open Inception modelsQwen3.6-35B-A3B is an open-weight multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud with 35 billion total parameters and 3 billion active parameters per token. It uses a hybrid sparse mixture-of-experts architecture combining Gated...
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...