If you’re looking for an AI coding tool that can help you write code faster, reduce mistakes, and keep costs reasonable, Cursor is likely one of the tools you’ve come across.
Cursor isn’t just a basic code completion tool. It can understand your project, follow code across files, generate full features, and help refactor existing code. Instead of only suggesting single lines of code, it works more like a helper that stays involved in your development process.
To use these advanced features, you need a paid plan. In June 2025, Cursor made a big change to how pricing works. After that change, some users found that their real costs were much higher than the monthly price, sometimes several times more.
This made many developers start asking practical questions: how Cursor actually charges for usage, why costs can grow over time, and whether a paid plan still makes sense for their own work.
In this post, we’ll go through Cursor’s 2026 pricing plans, explain how the billing works in simple terms, point out where extra costs can come from, and help you decide which plan fits your needs.
How Cursor Pricing Works
On June 16, 2025, Cursor made a major update to its pricing system. After this change, Cursor moved to a mixed pricing model that is closer to the real cost of running AI models. The core pricing formula now looks like this:
Cursor pricing = a fixed monthly fee (with included dollar credits) + extra charges (if you go over those credits)
At the moment, Cursor’s fixed monthly plans include:
Individual plans: Hobby, Pro, Pro+, Ultra
Business plans: Teams, Enterprise
Once you subscribe to any paid plan, you get unlimited access to Cursor’s basic AI features, including:
Unlimited Tab completion (AI code suggestions and auto-complete)
Unlimited access to Auto mode (models are chosen automatically and do not use your credits)
Access to Agent tasks, such as multi-file edits and batch code changes
In addition to the monthly fee, Cursor also includes a pool of dollar-based credits, equal to the price of your subscription. These credits can be used when you manually choose higher-performance models, such as Claude (Anthropic) or Gemini (Google).
If your model usage goes beyond the included credit pool, the extra usage is charged separately based on the model’s API cost.
In the next sections, we’ll look more closely at how these costs add up in real usage—and which actions are most likely to increase your bill.
Cursor Pricing: A Full Breakdown of Plans and Costs
After understanding how Cursor’s pricing model works, let’s take a closer look at all of its current subscription plans, including their prices and what each plan includes.
🆓 Hobby – Free
Price: $0
Best for: First-time users, exploring Cursor’s features, light usage
What’s included:
2,000 AI-powered code completions per month
50 slow requests per month for more complex operations
The free plan is mainly for trying out Cursor’s basic AI coding features. It does not include a monthly dollar credit pool and does not allow access to advanced models. Many users start with this plan to see whether Cursor fits their workflow before deciding to upgrade.
💻 Pro – $20/month
Price: $20/month (monthly billing), $16/month (annual billing)
Best for: Daily developers, freelancers, individual engineers
What’s included:
Everything in the Hobby plan
Unlimited Tab completion
Unlimited access to Auto mode (does not use credits)
Background Agents
Maximum context window
$20 in credits for manually selecting advanced models (such as Claude Sonnet, GPT-5.2, Gemini 3, and others)
For users who liked the free trial and already use tools like Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT in their daily work, the $20 credit pool included in the Pro plan can help reduce spending on other AI subscriptions while offering similar capabilities.
🚀 Pro+ – $60/month
Price: $60/month
Best for: Moderate to heavy users, frequent use of advanced models, developers who rely on Agent-based automation
What’s included:
Everything in the Pro plan
A larger dollar credit pool (about 3× the Pro plan), providing higher usage limits
The Pro+ plan does not add new features. The main difference is higher usage limits and a larger credit pool. In practice, it’s the Pro plan with roughly three times the available credits and usage capacity.
💎 Ultra – $200/month
Price: $200/month
Best for: Heavy AI users, large projects, developers or teams that frequently rely on advanced models
What’s included:
Everything in the Pro plan
About 20× the dollar credit pool of Pro (very high usage limits)
Priority access to new features
Ultra is also an upgraded version of Pro. It significantly increases the available credits and adds early access to new features, making it the highest-tier personal subscription Cursor currently offers.
👥 Teams – $40/user/month
Price:
Teams: $40 per user per month
Best for:
Teams working together on shared projects
Companies that need centralized account management, access control, and unified billing
Organizations with security, compliance, or internal management requirements
What’s included (Teams):
Everything in the Pro plan (unlimited completions, Auto mode, dollar credits, etc.)
Shared chats, commands, and rules across team members
Centralized billing and usage analytics
Organization-level privacy controls
Role-based access management
Support for SAML / OIDC single sign-on (SSO)
The value of the Teams plan isn’t about giving each user more AI power, but about making Cursor manageable at the team level. Compared to buying separate Pro subscriptions for each member, Teams offers better control, clearer billing, and smoother collaboration for long-term team use.
🏢 Enterprise – Custom pricing
Price: Custom pricing (contact Cursor sales)
Best for:
Mid-sized to large organizations
Enterprises with strict security, compliance, or audit requirements
Teams that need large-scale user and resource management
What’s included:
Everything in the Teams plan
Organization-wide shared dollar credit pool
Invoice and purchase order (PO) billing
SCIM user lifecycle management
Audit logs and more detailed admin controls
Enterprise-level support and SLA
The Enterprise plan is designed for enterprise-scale use. Its focus is on security, compliance, and operational control rather than simply increasing model access or usage limits. For large teams or organizations with strict internal processes, Enterprise is often a better fit than Teams or individual subscriptions.
If you’re confident that you’ll be using Cursor long term, choosing an annual plan is usually more cost-effective. For example, the Pro plan costs $20 per month when billed monthly, but only $16 per month with annual billing—saving about 20%, or nearly $50 per year.
While using Cursor, you may find that beyond the monthly subscription fee, there are several hidden costs that can quickly increase your expenses if not managed carefully.
Using High-End Models
When you choose high-end models like Claude Sonnet 4.5 or GPT-5, credits are deducted from your credit pool. Under the current system, the Pro plan ($20/month) gives you a fixed credit pool worth $20.
On average, this covers about 225 Claude Sonnet 4.5 requests, 550 Gemini requests, or 500 GPT-5 requests. Upgrading to Pro+ triples your credit pool, while Ultra gives you 20 times the amount included in the Pro plan.
Enabling Max Mode
By default, the regular mode supports a context window of up to 200,000 tokens (around 15,000 lines of code). If your context exceeds that, you’ll need to manually enable Max Mode, which expands the limit depending on the model.
For example, Gemini 2.5 Pro and GPT-4.1 can handle up to 1 million tokens, but using this mode consumes more credits.
Activating Agent Mode
When you enable Agent Mode (where AI performs multi-step tasks automatically), Cursor runs several model calls in the background to complete complex operations.
Each of these counts as a separate request, so Agent Mode costs significantly more than normal mode. Every extra agent request costs around $0.04 per call.
What Happens If You Exceed Your Cursor Limit?
Of course, if you use up your credits before the end of the month, you have two options:
1️⃣ Switch to Auto Mode, which automatically selects cheaper models to complete your tasks.
2️⃣ Keep using premium models and pay based on usage, with charges deducted from your account according to the rates below.
According to Cursor’s official estimates, once the $20 credit pool in the Pro plan is used up, any additional use of advanced models will be billed at the following rates:
Model | Price per request |
Claude Sonnet 4.5 | $0.09 / request |
Gemini | $0.036 / request |
GPT-5 | $0.04 / request |
How to Reduce Extra Cursor Usage Costs?
Your usage habits directly affect how much you spend. If you want to avoid extra charges, pay attention to the following tips:
Use Auto Mode whenever possible
Auto Mode works like the Cursor’s built-in “smart saver.” It automatically selects the cheapest model that’s powerful enough for your task.
For example, if you just need to fix a small bug, Auto Mode will choose a lightweight model instead of a costly one like Claude Sonnet 4, which may be overkill for that task.
Use Tab completions instead of Chat
Tab completion is completely free, while every Chat interaction (like asking questions, rewriting, or explaining code) consumes credits in the background.
For instance, if you’re refactoring a Python function to improve readability, Tab completion can often give you a clean, efficient result without using any credits.
Break tasks into smaller steps
Cursor’s billing is tied to context length. The more code and information you feed in at once, the faster your credits are consumed. Breaking your work into smaller parts helps save credits.
Set a budget alert
On the billing page, you can track your credit balance in real time and set spending limits. Once your credits run low, Cursor will send you a notification so you won’t be caught off guard by a sudden end-of-month bill spike.
How to Save on Cursor Subscription Costs
Besides controlling usage, you can save even more by choosing where you subscribe. GamsGo is a trusted subscription-sharing platform that helps users subscribe to Cursor at a lower cost.
Through GamsGo, you can get the full Cursor Pro experience at a much lower price — starting at around $8.65/month, which is nearly 60% cheaper than the official price. You still get the same $20 monthly credit pool and full feature access.
All sellers on GamsGo are strictly verified to ensure account safety, timely delivery, and reliable after-sales support, making the whole subscription process smooth and secure.
GamsGo also regularly adds new Cursor subscription options, often with limited-time discounts, so whether you want a short-term trial or a long-term plan, you’ll find flexible and affordable options.
Conclusion: Is Cursor Worth it?
In short, if Cursor has become part of your daily development workflow, it’s worth paying for.
While Cursor’s pricing has shifted from a simple “fixed request limit” to a dollar-based credit system, which does make things a bit harder to understand at first, the picture becomes much clearer once you learn how the billing works. In practice, the Pro plan still offers the best value and is the most suitable option for the majority of developers.
For users who rely on Cursor heavily, subscription costs can also be kept under control. For example, by subscribing to Cursor Pro through GamsGo, you can keep the same $20 monthly credit pool while paying around 40% of the official price, significantly reducing long-term costs.
🎁 As a bonus for users who choose GamsGo, we’ve also prepared a small gift:
We’ve prepared an exclusive promo code for all blog readers:
Enjoy an additional 3% off on your next purchase!
FAQ
Does Cursor Have a Free Limit?
Yes. Cursor offers a free Hobby Plan with 2,000 AI code completions and 50 slow requests per month — enough for learning and light use. New users also get a 7-day free Pro trial with unlimited Tab completions, Auto Mode, and a $20 credit pool.
How to Get Free Cursor AI for Students?
Verified students can get one year of Cursor Pro for free. Simply sign up with your school email and complete the verification on the student page. If you already have a paid plan, Cursor will automatically refund the remaining balance.
Is Cursor AI Better Than ChatGPT?
It depends on your use case. Cursor is built for coding, understanding the full project context, and refactoring code inside your editor, making it ideal for developers. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is a general AI assistant better suited for writing, brainstorming, and learning.
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