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Cursor Pricing Explained: Plans, Usage Pools and What You Will Really Pay

Published Updated 5 min readBy Vibe Coding Intel editorial

Compiled from official docs and public sources, checked .

The short answer: Cursor costs $0 (Hobby), $20 (Pro), $60 (Pro+) or $200 (Ultra) a month for individuals, and $40 per user on Teams. The sticker price is only the entry fee. Usage of third-party models such as Claude, GPT and Gemini is billed at each model’s API price against a monthly pool, and once the pool is spent you either pay on demand or upgrade. Cursor’s docs cite $60 to $100 a month of total usage for daily Agent users, so a heavy user should budget for Pro+ or on-demand top-ups, not $20.

Plans at a glance

Prices from Cursor’s pricing page and docs, checked 29 September 2026. Cursor does not state the pool sizes for Pro+ and Ultra on its own pages; the dollar amounts in the last column are reported by Vantage (March 2026), and you should confirm them in your Cursor dashboard.

PlanPrice per monthWhat Cursor statesThird-party usage pool (as reported)
Hobby$0Limited Agent requests, no credit cardnone stated
Pro$20Unlimited Tab, extended Agent limits, cloud agents, Bugbot on usage billing$20
Pro+$60Everything in Pro with larger included usageabout $70
Ultra$200Largest included usageabout $400
Teams$40 per userShared billing, SSO, privacy mode, analytics$20 per user

How the billing works

Cursor splits usage into two monthly pools:

  1. Cursor Models pool. Cursor’s own models (currently Grok variants and Composer). The docs say it has “significantly more included usage”, and most people never empty it.
  2. Other Models pool. Third-party models such as Claude, GPT and Gemini, charged at the model provider’s API rates.

When a pool runs out you can add on-demand usage at the same API rates or move up a plan. Cursor says requests are not slowed or downgraded when you do.

Auto is not free. Earlier versions of this page, and many older guides, say Auto mode is unlimited and never touches your credits. Cursor’s docs now say Auto is not unlimited: “all Auto modes bill at the list price of the model each request is routed to.” If you read a guide that says otherwise, check its date.

A worked example you can reproduce

Cursor bills third-party models at API list price, so you can estimate a pool’s reach from the provider’s price. The pricing index records Anthropic’s API price for Sonnet 5.5 at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens (checked 28 September 2026).

Take one agent request that reads 50,000 tokens of context and writes 5,000 tokens:

  • Input: 50,000 tokens at $2 per million = $0.10
  • Output: 5,000 tokens at $10 per million = $0.05
  • Cost: about $0.15 per request

A $20 Pro pool then covers roughly 130 such requests a month, about six a working day. That is our arithmetic, not a Cursor figure, and it ignores caching discounts and the fact that agent runs make many calls each. It shows why the $60 to $100 monthly usage that the index records Cursor citing for daily Agent users is plausible, and why the $20 headline understates a heavy user’s bill.

Which plan for which user

If you…Start withWatch for
Want to see whether Cursor suits youHobbyLimited Agent requests; no premium model pool
Code a few hours a week with occasional Agent runsPro at $20Pool usage in the dashboard in the first month
Use the Agent daily on third-party modelsPro+ at $60, or Pro plus on-demandTotal spend near the $60 to $100 range Cursor cites
Want the highest included usageUltra at $200Pool reported around $400, so a usage cost above that is billed on demand
Manage a teamTeams at $40 per userShared billing and privacy mode; per-user pool is small

What else $20 buys

If price is the deciding factor, these are the entry paid plans from the pricing index, each from the vendor’s own page, checked 28 September 2026. The plans are not like-for-like: they differ in editor, model access and how usage is metered.

ToolEntry paid planIncluded usage
GitHub Copilot Pro$10 per month$15 in AI credits plus unlimited inline suggestions
Windsurf Pro$20 per monthRefreshing quota, size not published
Claude Pro (includes Claude Code)$20 per monthUsage limits, amount not published
Cline$0None; you pay the model provider per token

Head-to-heads with more detail: Claude Code vs Cursor, Cursor alternatives and Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot. For the tool itself, see our Cursor review.

Ways to keep the bill down

  • Watch the usage view in the dashboard for the first month before choosing Pro+.
  • Use a cheaper model for routine edits and keep the expensive one for hard problems; billing follows the model’s API price.
  • Scope Agent tasks narrowly. Less context read means fewer input tokens at the model’s rate.
  • Set an on-demand limit if the account has one, so an overnight loop cannot produce a surprise bill. Check the settings for the option on your plan.

The other major pricing model for coding agents, subscription with prepaid usage credits, is covered in Claude Code pricing explained. For how Cursor’s caps compare with Google’s free agent editor, see Antigravity vs Cursor; for a credit-priced rival, see Kiro vs Cursor.

Method

Researched from Cursor’s pricing page and documentation on 29 September 2026, with pool amounts for Pro+, Ultra and Teams from a third-party source, marked as such. We have not measured real usage on any plan, and the worked example is arithmetic on published prices. Pricing changes often and this page is set to be re-checked every 30 days.

Common questions

How much does Cursor cost?

Hobby is free, Pro is $20 a month, Pro+ is $60, Ultra is $200, and Teams is $40 per user per month. Heavy Agent users can spend more than the plan price through usage billing.

Is Cursor’s Auto mode free?

No. According to Cursor’s docs, Auto bills at the list price of whichever model the request is routed to, and draws on the applicable pool.

Why did my Cursor usage run out so fast?

Agent runs read a lot of context and make several model calls each, and third-party models are billed at API prices. See the worked example above.

Should I move to Pro+ or Ultra?

Only after a month of Pro shows you regularly using the whole pool. Cursor is recorded as citing $60 to $100 in total usage for daily Agent users, which is where Pro+ starts to make sense.

Sources

Update log

  1. Rewritten against Cursor's current pricing page and docs. Corrected the claim that Auto mode is unlimited and free of the usage pool (Cursor's docs now say Auto bills at the list price of the routed model). Added the two-pool explanation, a worked cost example and an alternatives table from the pricing index.