API cost decision in 10 seconds

NewSolar Mini 4 vs Mercury 2.5

Pick Mercury 2.5 for lower cost; pick Solar Mini 4 only if the larger context window matters more.

Page updated: 2026-09-23T11:07:57Z Data confirmed: 2026-09-23T12:07:51Z Prices normalized to USD per 1M tokens Sample workload: 1M input + 500K output

Budget verdict

Pick Mercury 2.5 for lower cost; pick Solar Mini 4 only if the larger context window matters more.

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2.5 is estimated at $0.11 vs $0.15 for Solar Mini 4, saving $0.04 (23.3% lower).

Cost-first pickMercury 2.5

Context-first pickSolar Mini 4

Sample savings$0.0423.3%

10x traffic gap$0.35

Solar Mini 4 has more context, but Mercury 2.5 saves $0.04 on the standard workload. At 10x that traffic, the same price gap is about $0.35. Use the calculator below to replace the sample workload with your own token volume.

Cost sensitivity

Workload Sensitivity

Same prices, different token mixes.

Mercury 2.5 stays cheaper across input-heavy, balanced, and output-heavy sample workloads.

Workload shape	Token mix	Better pick	Solar Mini 4	Mercury 2.5
Input-heavy / RAG	5M input + 500K output	Mercury 2.5	$0.35	$0.28
Balanced workload	1M input + 1M output	Mercury 2.5	$0.25	$0.19
Output-heavy chatbot	1M input + 5M output	Mercury 2.5	$1.05	$0.79

Cheaper input Mercury 2.5 $0.05 vs $0.04 / 1M

Mercury 2.5 is $0.01 cheaper per 1M input tokens (20% lower; 1.25x difference).

Cheaper output Mercury 2.5 $0.2 vs $0.15 / 1M

Mercury 2.5 is $0.05 cheaper per 1M output tokens (25% lower; 1.33x difference).

Larger context Solar Mini 4 524.29K vs 260K

Solar Mini 4 has 264.29K more context (2.02x larger).

Sample workload Mercury 2.5 $0.15 vs $0.11

Mercury 2.5 is $0.04 cheaper on the standard workload (23.3% lower).

Estimate your workload cost

Your Workload Cost

Prices are normalized to USD per 1M tokens.

Monthly input tokens Monthly output tokens

Solar Mini 4 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

Mercury 2.5 has the lower input price; Mercury 2.5 has the lower output price; Solar Mini 4 offers the larger context window. For the 1M input plus 500K output sample, Mercury 2.5 is cheaper for the standard workload.

For a 1M input token plus 500K output token workload, the estimated API cost is $0.15 for Solar Mini 4 and $0.11 for Mercury 2.5.

Best Fit

Choose Solar Mini 4 when you care most about larger context window.

Choose Mercury 2.5 when you care most about lower input-token price, and lower output-token price.

Decision Notes

On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2.5 is estimated at $0.11 vs $0.15 for Solar Mini 4, saving $0.04 (23.3% lower).
Mercury 2.5 is $0.04 cheaper on the standard workload (23.3% lower).
Mercury 2.5 is $0.01 cheaper per 1M input tokens (20% lower; 1.25x difference).
Mercury 2.5 is $0.05 cheaper per 1M output tokens (25% lower; 1.33x difference).
Solar Mini 4 has 264.29K more context (2.02x larger).

Head-to-Head Specs

Feature	NewSolar Mini 4 (Upstage)	Mercury 2.5 (Inception)
Input Price prompt tokens per 1M	$0.05	$0.04
Completion Price per 1M tokens	$0.2	$0.15
Sample Workload Cost 1M input + 500K output	$0.15	$0.11
Context Window	524.29K	260K
Release Date	2026-09-23	2026-09-08

Use-Case Decision Matrix

Use case	Better pick	Why
Budget-constrained production	Mercury 2.5	On the standard 1M input plus 500K output workload, Mercury 2.5 is estimated at $0.11 vs $0.15 for Solar Mini 4, saving $0.04 (23.3% lower).
High-volume input processing	Mercury 2.5	Lower prompt-token price matters most when prompts, retrieved passages, or documents dominate the bill.
Long responses and chatbots	Mercury 2.5	Lower output-token price matters most when assistants generate many completion tokens.
RAG or long-document work	Solar Mini 4	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

GPT-6 Luna Pro (batch) offers 1.05M context with $0.17 sample workload cost.
GPT-6 Luna (batch) offers 1.05M context with $0.17 sample workload cost.
Owl Alpha offers 1.05M context with $0 sample workload cost.
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 offers 1.05M context with $0.18 sample workload cost.

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Cheaper alternatives

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Larger context alternatives

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Provider catalogs

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

Open provider hubs

Upstage catalog

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

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Inception catalog

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

Open Inception models

Solar Mini 4

Solar Mini 4 is Upstage's compact, cost-efficient language model, a 35B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 3B active parameters and a 524K context window. It is built for agentic use cases where response...

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...