Inception lists 6 models and Particle Ai 1. Inception is cheaper on a typical model ($0.27 per 1M tokens median). Below: line-up, price tiers, the cheapest model for each capability, and what each costs for five real workloads.
| Inception | Particle Ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Models listed | 6 | 1 |
| Models with published pricing | 6 | 1 |
| Typical price (median, 3:1 blend per 1M) | $0.27 | $0.44 |
| Cheapest paid model | Inception: Mercury 2.5 ($0.07) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| Longest context | Inception: Mercury 3 (1M) | Particle AI: Particle-1 (1.0M) |
| Free models | 0 | 0 |
| Newest model | Inception: Mercury 3 (2026-10-16) | Particle AI: Particle-1 (2026-10-28) |
| Price changes in the last 90 days | 0 | 0 |
For each workload: the cheapest model from each provider that can actually do it (fits the context window; tool calling required for the agent), and its monthly cost at list price.
| Workload (per month) | Inception | Particle Ai |
|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation | $6.00 with Inception: Mercury 2.5 | $38.75 with Particle AI: Particle-1 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages | $6.30 with Inception: Mercury 2.5 | $40.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context | $6.60 with Inception: Mercury 2.5 | $42.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page | $4.10 with Inception: Mercury 2.5 | $26.00 with Particle AI: Particle-1 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass | $2.15 with Inception: Mercury 2.5 | $13.50 with Particle AI: Particle-1 |
| You need | Inception | Particle Ai |
|---|---|---|
| Any model | Inception: Mercury 2.5 ($0.07) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| With tool calling | Inception: Mercury 2.5 ($0.07) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| With image input | none listed | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| With reasoning mode | Inception: Mercury 2.5 ($0.07) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| 128K+ context | Inception: Mercury 2.5 ($0.07) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| 1M+ context | Inception: Mercury 3 ($0.16) | Particle AI: Particle-1 ($0.44) |
| Model type | Inception | Particle Ai |
|---|---|---|
| text+image->text | 0 | 1 |
| text->text | 6 | 0 |
| Price per 1M (3:1 blend) | Inception | Particle Ai |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 0 |
| Under $0.50 | 6 | 1 |
| $0.50 – $3 | 0 | 0 |
| $3 – $10 | 0 | 0 |
| $10 and up | 0 | 0 |
Inception is cheaper on a typical model: a median of $0.27 per 1M tokens (3:1 input/output) against $0.44 for Particle Ai. The cheapest paid models are Inception: Mercury 2.5 at $0.07 and Particle AI: Particle-1 at $0.44.
It depends on the job: Inception offers the broader line-up (6 models vs 1), Inception the lower typical price, Particle Ai the longest context (1.0M tokens). The workload table above shows which wins for chat, RAG, agents, batch jobs and long documents.
Inception: Inception lists 6 models and Particle Ai lists 1.
Particle Ai: Inception's longest is Inception: Mercury 3 at 1M tokens; Particle Ai's is Particle AI: Particle-1 at 1.0M.
Neither lists a free model; both are pay-per-token.
Inception: 0 of 6 models accept images. Particle Ai: 1 of 1.