text model comparison
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Mercury 2.5
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite and Mercury 2.5 are both current text models, from Google and Inception. Mercury 2.5 is 20% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, $0.20 vs $0.25. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 260,000 tokens.
Data verified October 13, 2026 · Dataset 2026-10-13
Side by side
Standard-tier prices in effect today. The better value in each row is highlighted.
| Fact | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Price per 1M input tokens | $0.25 | $0.20 (better) |
| Price per 1M output tokens | $1.50 | $0.75 (better) |
| Cost of 10M input and 2M output tokens | $5.50 | $3.50 (better) |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% (#36 of 40) | Not measured |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2) | 27.7% (#36 of 40) | Not measured |
| Provider | Inception | |
| Release date | May 7, 2026 | September 8, 2026 |
| Access | API only | API only |
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens | 260,000 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | 65,536 tokens |
| Input | text, image, audio, video | text |
| Output | text | text |
Scores:Epoch AI · 2026-10-12
When to choose each
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Best for
- High-volume multimodal extraction and translation
Watch out for
- The published price for audio input differs from the listed text, image, and video input price
- Google's earliest published shutdown date is 2027-05-07; migrate to gemini-3.5-flash-lite.
Mercury 2.5
Best for
- Latency-critical agent loops and voice agents
- High-throughput, low-cost text generation
Watch out for
- Inception publishes no benchmark scores for it, and no independent score is recorded here
- The recorded rates are list prices; an 80% launch discount was running with no published end date
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Mercury 2.5 FAQ
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Mercury 2.5?
Mercury 2.5 is 20% cheaper per 1M input tokens than Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, $0.20 vs $0.25. For 10M input and 2M output tokens, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite costs $5.50 and Mercury 2.5 $3.50 at standard rates.
Which has the larger context window, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Mercury 2.5?
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the larger context window, 1,048,576 vs 260,000 tokens.
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Production evaluation
Choosing between Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite and Mercury 2.5?
Public benchmarks narrow the shortlist. We run both on your own tasks, data and cost limits, then build the routing and review controls to run the winner in production.
- A head-to-head evaluation on your real workload
- Routing between models by cost and difficulty