Inception: Mercury 3 alternatives
Ranked by capability overlap, similar context window, and similar price tier. Cross-vendor options are weighted higher than same-provider alternatives.
See also: Inception: Mercury 3 model details · Inception provider page
Top 15 alternatives
| # | Model | Provider | Why | Context | Input price / 1M | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthropic: Claude Haiku 5.5 | Anthropic | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.10 Budget | vs → |
| 2 | Anthropic: Claude Haiku 5.5 (batch) | Anthropic | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.05 Budget | vs → |
| 3 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.09 Budget | vs → |
| 4 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.44 Budget | vs → |
| 5 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (batch) | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.11 Budget | vs → |
| 6 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.22 Budget | vs → |
| 7 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp (batch) | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.11 Budget | vs → |
| 8 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.04 Budget | vs → |
| 9 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (batch) | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.05 Budget | vs → |
| 10 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | DeepSeek | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.30 Budget | vs → |
| 11 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.30 Budget | vs → | |
| 12 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash (batch) | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.15 Budget | vs → | |
| 13 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.10 Budget | vs → | |
| 14 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch) | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.05 Budget | vs → | |
| 15 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Preview 09-2025 | shares reasoning, tool-use, structured-output · similar price tier | 1.0M Ultra context (1M+) | $0.10 Budget | vs → |
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Cheaper alternatives to Inception: Mercury 3
Larger-context alternatives
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (batch) — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp (batch) — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (batch) — 1.0MDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 — 1.0M