API cost decision in 10 seconds

NewFlint (free) vs Mercury 2.5

Pick Flint (free) when budget and context both matter.

Page updated: 2026-10-21T21:07:30Z Data confirmed: 2026-10-21T22:07:19Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Flint (free) when budget and context both matter.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Flint (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.11 for Mercury 2.5, saving $0.11 (100% lower).

Cost-first pickFlint (free)

Context-first pickFlint (free)

Sample savings$0.11100%

10x traffic gap$1.15

Flint (free) is cheaper on the standard workload and also has the larger context window. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $1.15. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Flint (free) stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Flint (free)	Mercury 2.5
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Flint (free)	$0	$0.28
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Flint (free)	$0	$0.19
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Flint (free)	$0	$0.79

Cheaper input Flint (free) $0 vs $0.04 / 1M

Flint (free) is free for input tokens while Mercury 2.5 costs $0.04 per 1M tokens.

Cheaper output Flint (free) $0 vs $0.15 / 1M

Flint (free) is free for output tokens while Mercury 2.5 costs $0.15 per 1M tokens.

Larger context Flint (free) 262.14K vs 260K

Flint (free) has 2.14K more context (1.01x larger).

Sample workload Flint (free) $0 vs $0.11

Flint (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.11.

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Flint (free) Calculating… Estimated API cost

Mercury 2.5 Calculating… Estimated API cost

Cheaper for this workload Calculating… 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

Flint (free) has the lower input price; Flint (free) has the lower output price; Flint (free) offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Flint (free) is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0 for Flint (free) and $0.11 for Mercury 2.5.

Best Fit

Choose Flint (free) when you care most about lower input-token price, lower output-token price, and larger context window.

Choose Mercury 2.5 when its provider, model quality, latency, or availability is more important than the numeric price/context winner.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Flint (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.11 for Mercury 2.5, saving $0.11 (100% lower).
Flint (free) is free for the standard workload while the other model is estimated at $0.11.
Flint (free) is free for input tokens while Mercury 2.5 costs $0.04 per 1M tokens.
Flint (free) is free for output tokens while Mercury 2.5 costs $0.15 per 1M tokens.
Flint (free) has 2.14K more context (1.01x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	NewFlint (free) (Recursive)	Mercury 2.5 (Inception)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0	$0.04
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$0	$0.15
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$0	$0.11
Context Window	262.14K	260K
Release Date	2026-10-19	2026-09-08

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Flint (free)	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Flint (free) is estimated at $0 vs $0.11 for Mercury 2.5, saving $0.11 (100% lower).
High-volume input processing	Flint (free)	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Flint (free)	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Flint (free)	A larger context window leaves more room for retrieved passages, conversation history, or source files.

Related Alternatives

Same-provider lower-cost swaps

No lower-cost same-provider swap is currently tracked for this pair.

Larger context near this budget

Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.07 sample workload cost.
GLM 5.3 Flash offers 1.05M context with $0.06 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek Flash Latest offers 1.05M context with $0.1 sample workload cost.

Popular competitors

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Cheaper alternatives

Review low-cost models sorted by a standard 1M input plus 500K output workload.

Open cheapest models

Larger context alternatives

Find models with larger context windows for RAG, long documents, and codebase review.

Open largest context models

Provider catalogs

Compare models within provider hubs before choosing a final API vendor.

Open provider hubs

Recursive catalog

Review all tracked Recursive models before deciding whether this matchup is the right shortlist.

Open Recursive models

Inception catalog

Check other Inception models with comparable pricing, context, or release timing.

Open Inception models

Flint (free)

Flint is an open-weight mixture-of-experts model from Recursive, with about 2.5B active parameters out of 40B total, built by Recursive's autoresearch system Eureka Machine for coding agents. It is suited...

Mercury 2.5

Mercury 2.5 is the fastest reasoning LLM, and the latest diffusion LLM (dLLM) from Inception. Instead of generating tokens sequentially, Mercury 2.5 produces and refines multiple tokens in parallel, achieving...