Choose Moondream: Moondream 3.1 if…
No advantage on the data we track — pick it for provider preference or output quality on your own prompts.
Moondream: Moondream 3.1 vs Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5
Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 comes out ahead on the data we track: 5 advantages and none for Moondream: Moondream 3.1.
Key numbers
| Spec | Moondream: Moondream 3.1 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moondream | Perceptron |
| Input price (per 1M tokens) | $0.30 | $0.15 |
| Output price (per 1M tokens) | $2.50 | $1.50 |
| Blended price (3:1 input/output) | $0.85 | $0.49 |
| Cheaper than … of all models we track | 43% | 54% |
| Context window | 32K tokens (~48 pages) | 37K tokens (~55 pages) |
| Larger context than … of all models | 5% | 10% |
| Max output per response | 4K tokens (~3,100 words) | 8K tokens (~6,100 words) |
| Input types | text, image | text, image, video, audio |
| Output types | text | text |
| Free variant | No | No |
| Listed since | 2026-10-15 | 2026-09-25 |
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) | Moondream: Moondream 3.1 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-support chatbot 50,000 conversations — each a 6-turn conversation (1,500 in / 400 out tokens) | $72.50 | $41.25 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 saves $31.25 |
| RAG search over documents 20,000 questions — each a question answered from ~8 retrieved passages (6,000 in / 500 out tokens) | $61.00 | $33.00 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 saves $28.00 |
| 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) | Doesn't fit context | Doesn't fit context | — |
| Batch summarisation 10,000 documents — each a 6,000-word report summarised to a page (8,000 in / 600 out tokens) | $39.00 | $21.00 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 saves $18.00 |
| Long-document analysis 500 documents — each a 150-page contract or codebase read in one pass (100,000 in / 2,000 out tokens) | Doesn't fit context | Doesn't fit context | — |
Capabilities side by side
| Capability | Moondream: Moondream 3.1 | Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 | 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 | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | read screenshots, charts and scanned pages |
| Audio input | — | ✓ Yes | 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
- Moondream: Moondream 3.1: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-10-16.
- Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5: price unchanged since we started tracking it on 2026-09-26.
Which should you choose?
Choose Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 if…
- cost matters at scale — it is 43% cheaper on a typical 3:1 input/output mix ($41.25 vs $72.50 a month for 50,000 support chats)
- you need tool / function calling — to call your APIs and run agent loops; Moondream: Moondream 3.1 does not advertise it
- you need structured output (JSON schema) — to return JSON that validates against your schema; Moondream: Moondream 3.1 does not advertise it
- you need audio input — to take speech or audio directly; Moondream: Moondream 3.1 does not advertise it
- you generate long outputs in one go — up to 8K tokens (about 6,100 words) per response
Frequently asked questions
Is Moondream: Moondream 3.1 better than Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5?
Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 comes out ahead on the data we track: 5 advantages and none for Moondream: Moondream 3.1.
Which is cheaper, Moondream: Moondream 3.1 or Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5?
Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 is cheaper: $0.49 vs $0.85 per 1M tokens at a typical 3:1 input/output mix, 43% less. For 50,000 support conversations a month that is $41.25 against $72.50.
How much do Moondream: Moondream 3.1 and Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 cost per million tokens?
Moondream: Moondream 3.1 costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $2.50 per 1M output tokens; Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 costs $0.15 input and $1.50 output. Output tokens are billed separately, so long answers shift the gap.
Which has the bigger context window, Moondream: Moondream 3.1 or Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5?
Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5: 37K tokens, about 55 pages, against 32K (about 48 pages) for Moondream: Moondream 3.1.
Do Moondream: Moondream 3.1 and Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 support function calling and JSON output?
Tool calling — Moondream: Moondream 3.1: not advertised, Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5: yes. JSON-schema structured output — Moondream: Moondream 3.1: not advertised, Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5: yes.
Can Moondream: Moondream 3.1 or Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 read images?
Yes, both accept image input.
Is Moondream: Moondream 3.1 or Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 free to use?
No free variant is listed for either; both are pay-per-token.
What is the maximum output length of Moondream: Moondream 3.1 and Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5?
Moondream: Moondream 3.1 can write up to 4K tokens (about 3,100 words) per response; Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 up to 8K (about 6,100 words).
When were Moondream: Moondream 3.1 and Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 released?
Moondream: Moondream 3.1 was listed on 2026-10-15; Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 on 2026-09-25.
About the two models
Moondream: Moondream 3.1
Moondream 3.1 is a vision-language model from Moondream, the successor to Moondream 3 Preview, with 9B total parameters and 2B active (mixture-of-experts). It handles visual question answering, captioning, OCR, and...
Full Moondream: Moondream 3.1 specs →Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5
Perceptron Mk1.5 is Perceptron's embodied reasoning model for physical agents. It accepts text, image, video, and audio input, and answers with text plus optional structured annotations: points, boxes, polygons, tracks,...
Full Perceptron: Perceptron Mk1.5 specs →