AI Models · Paid vs Paid

WRPalmyra X5 Paid vs INMercury 2 Paid

Palmyra X5 vs Mercury 2 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

WRPalmyra X5PaidWriter
$0.6 /M input
$6 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window1M tokens
MultimodalNo
Self-hostNo
INMercury 2PaidInception
$0.25 /M input
$0.75 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window128K tokens
MultimodalNo
Self-hostNo
Choose Mercury 2 for the lower output price ($0.75/M vs $6/M). Choose Palmyra X5 if you need the larger 1M context window.

Palmyra X5 vs Mercury 2 specs

SpecPalmyra X5Mercury 2Winner
MakerWriterInception
TypeProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M tokens128K tokensWRPalmyra X5
Input price$0.6/M$0.25/MINMercury 2
Output price$6/M$0.75/MINMercury 2
Vision / multimodalNoNo
Tool / function callingNoYesINMercury 2
Self-hostableNo (API only)No (API only)
LicenseProprietaryProprietary

Price gap & when to choose each

8.0×cheaper per output token

Mercury 2 is ~8.0× cheaper than Palmyra X5 on output tokens ($0.75 vs $6 per M tokens).

WRChoose Palmyra X5 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You need the longer 1M context window
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure
INChoose Mercury 2 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You want the lower output price
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

CapabilityPalmyra X5Mercury 2
Open weights (downloadable)
Self-hostable
Runs fully offline
Vision / multimodal
Tool / function calling
1M+ context window

Benchmarks: Palmyra X5 vs Mercury 2

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

Palmyra X5
Mercury 2
Intelligence index
11.5
Coding index
31.1
GPQA
77%
Humanity's Last Exam
17.1%
Long Context Reasoning
43.7%
SciCode
37.7%
IFBench
69.8%
τ²-Bench
70.8%
τ-Bench Banking
9.5%
Terminal-Bench
27.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard
26.5%
Speed
1011.9 tok/s
Latency
4.14s
Intelligence per $
30.7

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Palmyra X5 and Mercury 2 score

🤝 Neck and neck on these criteria (2.7 vs 2.9 / 5).
CriterionPalmyra X5Mercury 2
Cost-efficiency4.05.0
Context window5.03.5
Openness1.51.5
Self-hosting1.01.0
Multimodality2.03.5

Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.

What each model is

Palmyra X5 Paid

Writer · Proprietary

Palmyra X5 is Writer's most advanced model, purpose-built for building and scaling AI agents across the enterprise. It delivers industry-leading speed and efficiency on context windows up to 1 million...

Mercury 2 Paid

Inception · Proprietary

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...

Frequently asked questions

Palmyra X5 vs Mercury 2 — which is cheaper?

Mercury 2 is cheaper on output ($0.75/M vs $6/M).

Which has the larger context window?

Palmyra X5 offers the larger context window (1M tokens).

Palmyra X5 vs Mercury 2 — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Mercury 2 for the lower output price ($0.75/M vs $6/M). Choose Palmyra X5 if you need the larger 1M context window.

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