Mercury 2.5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

Price, context window & benchmark comparison

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Mercury 2.5

Inception
$0.04 / $0.15
Input / Output · per 1M tokens
VS
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Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

NVIDIA
$0.08 / $0.20
Input / Output · per 1M tokens
Compare different models
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Verdict: Mercury 2.5 is 39% cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on a typical 3:1 input/output mix. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has the larger context window (262K vs 260K).
Mercury 2.5Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Input price / 1M$0.04$0.08
Output price / 1M$0.15$0.20
Blended price (3:1)$0.0675$0.11
Cached input / 1M$0.004$0.04
Context window260K262K
Max output66K131K
Intelligence index12.9
Coding index26.8
Providers4
Best provider uptime (30m)100.0%
Vision inputNoNo
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Released2026-09-082026-08-11
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FAQ

Which is cheaper, Mercury 2.5 or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?

Mercury 2.5 is 39% cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on a typical 3:1 input/output mix.

Mercury 2.5 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: which has a bigger context window?

Mercury 2.5: 260,000 tokens. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning: 262,144 tokens.

How much would 1 million requests cost?

At 2,000 input + 500 output tokens per request: Mercury 2.5 ≈ $155.00, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ≈ $260.00.

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