Choose AionLabs: Aion-1.0 if…
No advantage on the data we track — pick it for provider preference or output quality on your own prompts.
AionLabs: Aion-1.0 vs Inception: Mercury 3
Inception: Mercury 3 comes out ahead on the data we track: 6 advantages and none for AionLabs: Aion-1.0.
Key numbers
| Spec | AionLabs: Aion-1.0 | Inception: Mercury 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Aion Labs | Inception |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $4.00 | $0.10 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $8.00 | $0.35 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $5.00 | $0.16 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 10% | 73% |
| Context window | 131K tokens (~197 pages) | 1M tokens (~1,500 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 22% | 69% |
| Max output per response | 33K tokens (~24,600 words) | 131K tokens (~98,300 words) |
| Input types | text | text |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2025-02-04 | 2026-10-16 |
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What it costs for real workloads
Monthly cost at list price for five common workloads. Token counts per unit are stated so you can scale them to your own traffic. A workload that does not fit a model's context window is marked rather than priced.
| Workload (per month) | AionLabs: Aion-1.0 | Inception: Mercury 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $460 | $14.50 | Inception: Mercury 3 saves $446 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $560 | $15.50 | Inception: Mercury 3 saves $545 |
| Coding / tool-using agent 2,000 tasks — each a multi-step task with tool calls and file context (60,000 in / 6,000 out tokens) | $576 | $16.20 | Inception: Mercury 3 saves $560 |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $368 | $10.10 | Inception: Mercury 3 saves $358 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | $208 | $5.35 | Inception: Mercury 3 saves $203 |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | AionLabs: Aion-1.0 | Inception: Mercury 3 | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool / function calling | — | ✓ Yes | call your APIs and run agent loops |
| Structured output (JSON schema) | — | ✓ Yes | return JSON that validates against your schema |
| Reasoning / thinking mode | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | spend extra tokens thinking before answering hard problems |
| Image input | — | — | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | — | take speech or audio directly |
| File / PDF input | — | — | accept documents without your own parsing step |
| Image output | — | — | generate images, not just text |
| Built-in web search | — | — | answer from live web results |
| Seed (reproducible sampling) | — | — | repeat a generation for tests and evals |
| Log-probabilities | — | — | read token confidence for classification and scoring |
From each model's published parameters and input/output types. “—” means not advertised, not proven absent.
Price history
- AionLabs: Aion-1.0: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-03-10.
- Inception: Mercury 3: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-20.
Which should you choose?
Choose Inception: Mercury 3 if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 97% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($14.50 vs $460 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need to fit long inputs in one request — 1M tokens is roughly 1,500 pages, against 197
- you need tool / function calling — to call your APIs and run agent loops; AionLabs: Aion-1.0 does not advertise it
- you need structured output (JSON schema) — to return JSON that validates against your schema; AionLabs: Aion-1.0 does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 131K tokens (about 98,300 words) per response
- you want the newer model — released 2026-10-16, 21 months after the other
Frequently asked questions
Is AionLabs: Aion-1.0 better than Inception: Mercury 3?
Inception: Mercury 3 comes out ahead on the data we track: 6 advantages and none for AionLabs: Aion-1.0.
Which is cheaper, AionLabs: Aion-1.0 or Inception: Mercury 3?
Inception: Mercury 3 is cheaper: $0.16 vs $5.00 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 97% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $14.50 against $460.
How much do AionLabs: Aion-1.0 and Inception: Mercury 3 cost per million tokens?
AionLabs: Aion-1.0 costs $4.00 per 1M input tokens and $8.00 per 1M output tokens; Inception: Mercury 3 costs $0.10 input and $0.35 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, AionLabs: Aion-1.0 or Inception: Mercury 3?
Inception: Mercury 3: 1M tokens, about 1,500 pages, against 131K (about 197 pages) for AionLabs: Aion-1.0.
Do AionLabs: Aion-1.0 and Inception: Mercury 3 support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — AionLabs: Aion-1.0: not advertised, Inception: Mercury 3: yes. JSON-schema structured output — AionLabs: Aion-1.0: not advertised, Inception: Mercury 3: yes.
Can AionLabs: Aion-1.0 or Inception: Mercury 3 read images?
Neither accepts image input — both are text-in models.
Is AionLabs: Aion-1.0 or Inception: Mercury 3 free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of AionLabs: Aion-1.0 and Inception: Mercury 3?
AionLabs: Aion-1.0 can write up to 33K tokens (about 24,600 words) per response; Inception: Mercury 3 up to 131K (about 98,300 words).
When were AionLabs: Aion-1.0 and Inception: Mercury 3 released?
AionLabs: Aion-1.0 was listed on 2025-02-04; Inception: Mercury 3 on 2026-10-16.
About the two models
AionLabs: Aion-1.0
Aion-1.0 is a multi-model system designed for high performance across various tasks, including reasoning and coding. It is built on DeepSeek-R1, augmented with additional models and techniques such as Tree of Thoughts (ToT) and Mixture of Experts (MoE). It is Aion Lab's most powerful reasoning model.
Full AionLabs: Aion-1.0 specs →Inception: Mercury 3
Mercury 3 is a diffusion-based language model from Inception, and the lab's most capable model to date. It is suited for agentic workflows and real-time applications where latency compounds, such...
Full Inception: Mercury 3 specs →