Five tiers from $0 to $200. Each paid plan bundles a credit pool equal to its price, and Auto mode is unlimited. Here's the complete breakdown — and how to cut your bill.
Cursor has five plans in 2026. Every paid tier includes a monthly usage credit pool equal to the plan price, plus unlimited Auto-mode model usage that never touches that pool.
| Plan | Price | Credit Pool | Auto Mode | What's Included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $0 | — | Limited | Basic Tab & Agent limits, try it free |
| Pro | $20/mo | $20 included | Unlimited | Unlimited Tab, extended Agent, Cloud Agents, all frontier models, MCP, hooks |
| Pro+ | $60/mo | $60 included | Unlimited | Everything in Pro, 3× the frontier-model credit pool |
| Ultra | $200/mo | $200 included | Unlimited | Everything in Pro+, 10× the credit pool for heavy frontier use |
| Teams | $40/user/mo | Per-seat pools | Unlimited | Pro features, admin & billing, org privacy, split usage pools |
Auto mode — where Cursor picks a cost-efficient model — is included at no extra cost. Manually selecting frontier models (Claude, GPT, Gemini) draws from your credit pool; overages bill at API rates with no markup.
Cursor bills by tokens beneath the plan pool. These approximate Auto-mode rates are what your credit pool draws down against, and what overages are charged at.
| Usage Type | Approx Rate ($/M tokens) | Counts Against Pool? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto mode (Cursor picks model) | Included | No | Unlimited on all paid plans |
| Cache read | ~$0.25 | When frontier-selected | Cheapest — reused context |
| Input tokens | ~$1.25 | When frontier-selected | Prompts, files, context |
| Output tokens | ~$6.00 | When frontier-selected | Model responses — most expensive |
Because Auto usage is included, these rates mainly matter when you manually run Claude, GPT, or Gemini past your credit pool and start paying overages.
What each kind of developer actually spends. The plan price is only a floor — heavy frontier-model use pushes you into overages on top.
A single day of hand-picked frontier-model agent work can drain the entire $20 Pro pool. Here's a realistic day when you keep selecting Claude Opus manually on a large context — and how much smaller it gets with tighter prompts.
Six proven techniques — starting with the ones that have the highest impact per hour of effort.
Terse's 7-stage pipeline removes filler, fixes typos, and strips redundancy from the prompts you type into Cursor before they hit the model. 40–70% fewer input tokens means your credit pool drains far slower on frontier models.
Highest ImpactAuto mode is unlimited and included on every paid plan — it never touches your credit pool. Let Cursor route routine edits, searches, and boilerplate to a cost-efficient model, and reserve your pool for tasks that truly need Claude or GPT.
Included, $0Manually selecting Opus-class models is where bills spike. Hand-pick them only for genuinely hard reasoning or architecture work. A single day of frontier agent runs on a big repo can consume the entire $20 Pro pool.
Avoid SpikesDragging whole folders into chat re-sends thousands of input tokens every turn. Attach only the files you need. Smaller context means cheaper cache reads and less pool burn — especially on frontier models billed per token.
Cuts Input TokensTerse's Agent Monitor surfaces per-turn token usage and cost in real time, so you can see which requests are draining your credit pool and switch back to Auto before an expensive turn repeats.
Catch Expensive TurnsIf you consistently exhaust the $20 Pro pool mid-month, Pro+ ($60) or Ultra ($200) may be cheaper than paying overages. If you rarely leave Auto, Pro is plenty. Match the plan to how often you hand-pick frontier models.
Avoid OveragesAnswers to the most common questions about Cursor costs in 2026.
Terse reduces token costs across every major AI coding tool.
Terse compresses prompts, trims context, and monitors per-request cost so your $20 pool stretches across the week instead of one heavy day. 30-day free trial — no credit card required until your trial ends.