Inception Mercury vs MiniMax
Inception Mercury and MiniMax are both AI assistants tools. Inception Mercury is aimed at developers and enterprise, while MiniMax is aimed at developers and small businesses. Both have a free plan.
Diffusion LLM API built for very fast, low-latency text generation
Low-cost agentic coding models, video and speech via API and M Plan
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium · $22 |
| Starting price | Not published | $22/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Enterprise | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise, Creators |
| Platforms | web | web, macos, windows, linux, ios, android |
| Country | — | — · 2022 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Inception Mercury if
Developers building latency-sensitive agents, voice bots or coding tools who want a fast, cheap text model behind an OpenAI-compatible API.
- Very high output speed suits real-time and agent loops
- Low list price of $0.20 input and $0.70 output per million tokens
- 100 million free tokens with no card to start
Look elsewhere if: Teams that need multimodal models, open weights or the widest ecosystem of hosted tools (Gemini, DeepSeek, Claude).
Choose MiniMax if
Developers and cost-sensitive teams that run agentic coding and automation workloads and want low token prices behind Anthropic- or OpenAI-style APIs.
- Very low token prices for agentic coding workloads
- Drop-in base URL for tools built on the Anthropic SDK
- One platform covers text, video, speech and image generation
Look elsewhere if: Teams that need top-tier frontier models with mature enterprise admin and compliance controls (Claude, Gemini).
Inception Mercury vs MiniMax pricing
Inception Mercury
- Free$0100M free tokens for new API keys, all models, no card
- Mercury 3$0.20 in / $0.70 out/1M tokensLaunch price 50% off: $0.10 in, $0.35 out; cached input $0.02
- Mercury Voice$0.40 in / $1.50 out/1M tokensLaunch price 50% off: $0.20 in, $0.75 out; enterprise access via sales
- Mercury Decide$0.04 in/1M tokensLaunch price 50% off: $0.02 in; output tokens free
- EnterpriseCustomCustom rate limits, SLA, volume pricing, dedicated capacity
MiniMax
- MiniMax Code Free$0Limited M3.1 Flash, image and speech use in MiniMax Code
- M3.1 Flash API$0.15/1M input tokensOutput $0.60/1M, cached input $0.015/1M; pay-as-you-go
- M3 API$0.30/1M input tokensUp to 512k input, after permanent 50% off; output $1.20/1M
- M Plan Go$22/moM3.1 Flash, image and speech models; $220 billed yearly
- M Plan Explore$55/mo3x Go usage, adds H3 video; $550 billed yearly
Inception Mercury · Key features
- Mercury 3 diffusion LLM with a 1M-token context window
- Measured 1,068 tokens per second output on NVIDIA GPUs
- Adjustable reasoning effort to trade speed against thoroughness
- Tool calling with parallel and chained calls for agents
- Mercury Voice with under 170 ms time-to-first-token for voice agents
- Mercury Decide classification model with calibrated probabilities
Cons
- Quality claims against rivals come without published benchmark scores
- Text-focused lineup with no image or video generation
- Launch discount has no stated end date, so costs may double
MiniMax · Key features
- MiniMax-M3.1-Flash at $0.15 input and $0.60 output per 1M tokens
- 1M-token context window on M3.1 Flash and M3
- Effort setting on M3.1 Flash, from low to max, to trade thinking depth for cost
- Anthropic- and OpenAI-compatible endpoints, plus the Responses API
- M Plan key usable in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and OpenCode
- MiniMax Code agent on web, desktop, CLI, iOS and Android
Cons
- M Plan is for individual interactive use, not production traffic
- Usage resets in 5-hour and weekly windows that can cut sessions short
- M2.5 and M2.7 retire on November 18, 2026, forcing migrations
Inception Mercury vs MiniMax: FAQ
Do Inception Mercury and MiniMax have a free plan?
Yes, both Inception Mercury and MiniMax have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.
Which is better for small businesses, Inception Mercury or MiniMax?
MiniMax lists small businesses as a core audience, while Inception Mercury is aimed more at developers and enterprise.