Everyone says “just use Cursor.” I never paid for it. To me it’s just another tool, man. I think it’s just another way to code.

My coding agents already live inside two plans I pay for: Codex on ChatGPT Pro and Claude Code on Claude Max. So everything about Cursor’s plans below comes from Cursor’s, xAI’s and OpenAI’s own pages, read today. The take at the end is mine.

The new Cursor price ladder, in one table

Cursor switched to these plans on October 12, 2026. This is what cursor.com/pricing and Cursor’s pricing docs show today.

Prices exclude tax. The annual prices are in the docs, not on the pricing page itself.

Check the Claude and GPT column before you pay. The monthly fee buys Cursor’s own models. Everything else is a second bill.

“I’m on Pro for $20. What happened?”

Nothing, yet. Pro, Pro+ and the old Ultra are now legacy plans. Cursor’s legacy plans page says they “keep working as they are,” and that “new customers start on The X Subscription.”

Cursor also publishes its own old-to-new map:

Cursor’s own docs, October 18, 2026: legacy Pro maps to the new Premium plan.

Three things on that page matter before you click switch:

• Switching is permanent. The X Subscription help page says it “can’t be undone, and Support can’t undo it for you.” You get a prorated refund for your old plan.
• Your third-party allowance goes away. Each new tier includes “at least twice as much coding usage with Cursor models,” but it “drops the included third-party model allowance.”
• Billing moves. Your plan gets managed at grok.com/dashboard/billing instead of cursor.com.

Some existing customers are not happy. On Cursor’s own forum thread for the launch, deaniopo wrote on October 13:

“I’ve been paying $20 since the beginning and now that plan doesn’t even exist but they’ve not even sent an email to us warning us about the change?… Most of my usage is third party.”

If most of what you run in Cursor is Claude or GPT, staying on your legacy plan is the safer call until you’ve priced it out.

Claude and GPT cost extra, and GPT has a shutoff date

On the new plans, third-party models “aren’t part of the included pool.” On Premium and above you pay “the model’s API list price from the first request,” out of prepaid credit you top up. Free and Plus can’t use them at all.

So yes, Claude Opus 5.5 is in Cursor. Cursor’s docs list it at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output. That’s metered, on top of your plan.

GPT is a moving target. OpenAI’s help center says it plans to wind down its contract supplying models to Cursor:

OpenAI’s help center, read October 18, 2026. Proposed cutoff: November 12, 2026.

OpenAI’s own post ties the decision to SpaceX acquiring Cursor, and says it won’t provide future models to Cursor. Today GPT-5.6 is still listed inside Cursor. Plan around that date anyway.

One useful detail on that same OpenAI page: you can run the Codex extension inside Cursor’s editor on your ChatGPT subscription. Your ChatGPT plan follows you even if you pick Cursor’s editor.

My take: on the cheap plans you’re very limited, man. Unless you’re on the plan that gets you Claude or GPT, you’re stuck with the house models. And even then, I’d argue it: why would you do that when you can just go straight to the best model?

Usage limits in plain English

Every paid plan gets one pool of usage for Cursor’s own models, and it refreshes weekly. Cursor’s usage limits page says that pool is “shared across Cursor, Grok Bot, and the Grok apps.”

That last part catches people. Heavy Grok chat or a busy Grok Bot drains the same pool your Cursor agent needs. On the launch thread, Archit, who switched from Cursor Pro to the new Premium plan, wrote:

“my weekly usage seems to be depleting at the same rate as Grok Bot alone, making it feel like I have less overall usage.”

What else to know:

• No published size. Cursor shows your remaining usage and reset date under Usage at grok.com/dashboard, but no number per plan.
• When it runs out: wait for the weekly reset, pay from prepaid credit at the per-model rates, or upgrade. Cursor says requests “are never downgraded in quality or speed.”
• Spend controls: Auto Top-up refills credit, and a monthly additional usage limit caps the extra spend. Prepaid credit currently expires 365 days after purchase.
• Legacy plans work differently: two monthly pools (Cursor Models and Other Models) that reset with your billing cycle.

Do you need Cursor on top of a $20 Claude or ChatGPT plan?

Probably not, and here’s why. You may already own a coding agent.

• Claude Code is included on Claude Pro, $20 a month billed monthly, per Claude’s pricing page. Free does not get it.
• Codex is “included across ChatGPT plans, including Free and Go,” per OpenAI’s Codex help page.

If that’s news, start with Codex vs Claude Code to pick which one to open first, and how to use Claude Code for the first session. The Codex side of the money question is on Codex pricing.

Picture Manny on an entry-level Claude or ChatGPT plan who keeps hearing “just use Cursor.” My answer: no, he wouldn’t need it. I think you need it if you have the pain point.

That pain point looks like real, serious workflows that outgrow what your current plan covers. Until you’re building those, a second subscription is a tool looking for a job.

Why I never paid for Cursor

It’s preference, mostly. The real reason I skipped it is because Claude Code is more than enough. It’s the best in my opinion.

The other reason is habit. Simple, I’m used to it. I just use VS Code. Works for me.

And my coding agent bill is already paid. This is my ChatGPT plan’s usage pane:

My ChatGPT Pro plan, October 10, 2026. Codex runs on this weekly limit.

Codex draws from that weekly limit. Claude Code runs on my Claude Max plan. There’s no separate editor bill.

The Grok and X bundle: tempting, for the right person

As someone who has paid for Grok, yes, the bundle does make Cursor more tempting to me.

And if you’re someone who hasn’t used Claude Code or anything, it makes it hella tempting. Premium at $30 rolls in what xAI says was “previously $90/month combined”: SuperGrok, Cursor Pro and X Premium+.

I think that’s on purpose. One subscription gives you more ways in. If you already pay for X Premium, you may want to just do that, depending on which platforms and AI you already have.

So I don’t think it’s a wrong option, to be honest. I think if someone is starting off and they’re heavy on X, it might make sense.

My rule stays the same: check the plan you already pay for first. If it has a coding agent and you don’t feel the pain, keep your money. If you live on X and have no AI plan yet, Premium can make sense as a first buy.

If Claude Code is your pick, Claude Pro vs Claude Max is the next decision. The rest of the picture lives in Claude Guides.

Where this comes from

The prices and rules come from Cursor’s, xAI’s and OpenAI’s own pages, read October 18, 2026. The quotes are from Cursor’s launch thread.

The take and the ChatGPT screenshot are mine. I’ve never paid for Cursor, so there’s no usage test here.

Published October 18, 2026. Prices checked against Cursor’s, xAI’s and OpenAI’s own pages that day.