Cursor's Free Tier Survived the Merger. The $20 Plan Did Not.

Cursor is now sold as the entry rungs of The X Subscription, the plan that bundled Cursor with Grok, Grok Bot and X Premium on 12 October 2026. Free still costs $0 and still needs no card, but the tier above it is $8 and covers Grok models only. The $20 Cursor Pro plan that most developers were on is no longer offered to new customers. Third-party models such as Claude, GPT and Gemini are reachable from Premium at $30, where they bill at API list price on top of the subscription.¹

The repackaging changed three things at once. The entry price fell. The model menu at that entry price narrowed to one vendor. And the meter moved from a dollar allowance you could read off a page to a shared pool that is published only as a multiple of the tier below it.

The plan ladder, measured

Prices measured on 27 October 2026. Vendor plan terms, allowances and prices change without notice, so treat every figure on this page as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. Where a number here differs from the vendor's own pricing page, the vendor's page is correct and the figure above is simply older than it.

Two things about that table are worth stating plainly. The multiples are Cursor's own words, and they are relative to Plus, which the same page describes only as a basic pool. No absolute figure is published for any tier, so 4x Plus is a ratio without a published denominator. Prices are monthly; the page carries an Individual and Teams toggle and no annual rate.

Free is now a social account with a code editor attached

The Free tier keeps the agent, limited agent requests and limited chat requests, and the full editor. It also includes X posting, replying and following, and a 6 percent APY on X Money with direct deposit. Cloud agents, code hosting, AI code reviews, Grok Bot, video generation and Grok API access are all marked absent.

Cursor still publishes no number for the word limited, on either agent requests or chat requests. That was true before the merger and it is true after it. Any guide quoting a specific free request count is quoting user reports from an earlier version of the product, not the vendor.

The practical consequence is unchanged: the editor works indefinitely and the AI runs out on a schedule you cannot see. There is no counter to check before you start something large.

The $8 tier is Grok-only, and that is the point

Plus costs $8 and the pricing page carries a footnote under it: only Grok models are available on this plan. Chat, voice, image generation, Build and API access to Grok are included. Claude, GPT and Gemini are not.

That is a deliberate structure rather than an oversight. The subscription now sits inside a company that owns both the editor and a model family, and the cheapest paid rung is where that ownership shows. If your work depends on one specific frontier model from another vendor, the $8 tier cannot serve you at any usage level.

For a developer whose work is mostly refactoring, test writing and boilerplate, a single competent model is usually enough. Grok models are not the weak point of this plan. Needing a particular model is.

Third-party models moved to API list price

From Premium upward, Claude, GPT and Gemini remain available inside Cursor. They are not included in the monthly fee. The page says third-party models are billed separately by usage, at API list price, through top-ups, with spending caps you can set.

Cursor's staff put the same thing in its own words on the launch thread: on Premium and above, third-party usage is billed at API list prices through top-ups, and a spending cap can be set. The older arrangement, where a $20 subscription carried an included allowance of third-party model spend, does not exist on the new tiers.

This is the change that costs existing heavy users the most money, and it is the one that does not appear in the headline price. A developer who previously paid $20 and routinely used an included allowance of frontier-model requests now pays $30 plus the list price of everything they send. The subscription no longer subsidises the expensive part.

What 4x Plus means when nobody publishes Plus

Every tier above Plus is defined by a multiple of Plus. Plus is defined as a basic pool. The only quantitative statement about the pool is that it refreshes weekly rather than monthly, so one heavy day does not consume the month.

Weekly refresh is a genuine improvement for anyone who has been caught by a monthly reset, and it is the one mechanic here that is unambiguous. The size of the pool is not. Two developers on the same tier can therefore have very different experiences of running out, and neither can point to a published figure that settles it.

12 November: GPT models leave Cursor entirely

OpenAI published on 28 August 2026 that it had notified SpaceX of its intention to wind down the contract supplying OpenAI models to Cursor, with a proposed shutoff date of 12 November 2026. OpenAI described that date as the maximum notice its contract allowed, and said it would not supply future models to Cursor in the meantime.

Two details matter for planning. The date is described by OpenAI as proposed rather than final, so it is a scheduled outcome with a date attached, not a confirmed termination. And the shutoff concerns models supplied through Cursor's own agreement; using your own OpenAI API key inside the editor is a separate arrangement that OpenAI's notice does not address.

Either way, the arithmetic is uncomfortable for the product Cursor has just been selling. Premium and above advertise third-party models at API list price, and one of those three vendors has announced it intends to stop supplying them within a fortnight of this article.

If you already pay for Cursor, you are not being moved

Existing subscribers keep their current plan, its price and its included third-party usage until they choose to switch. Switching is opt-in and appears in account billing settings. Cursor's staff said on the launch thread that included third-party usage on a current plan continues for as long as the subscriber stays on it.

That makes the decision unusual for a repricing: there is no deadline forcing a move, and staying put is a legitimate option. The catch is that the old plan is a dead end. It is not sold to new customers, it will not receive the new tiers' features, and the eventual migration has been signalled without a date.

The one thing that does force a decision is the model shutdown. If your workflow depends on GPT models inside Cursor, switching now buys you nothing and waiting buys you two weeks.

When free is enough now

Using Cursor as an editor, which is still fully functional and still free without a card. Light agent use on small projects. Anyone who wants to evaluate the agent before paying, since the free tier is the only way to test the current product without a subscription.

The free tier is also a reasonable permanent home for a developer who pays for a chat assistant elsewhere and wants occasional completions. What free no longer is, is a cheap route into the paid ladder. The rung immediately above it costs $8 and hands you one model family.

When it stops being enough

When you need cloud agents, which start at $30 and are absent from Free and Plus. When you need a model Cursor does not own, which starts at $30 plus metered usage. When you need to see what you have consumed, which the free tier still does not show.

The honest comparison is no longer against GitHub Copilot, which prices per seat and includes a fixed number of requests. It is against the cost of assembling the same thing yourself: an editor, a chat subscription on a different vendor, and an API key. The X Subscription wins on integration and loses on the ability to mix vendors, which is precisely the trade it is asking you to make.

How it compares

Against Grok's own plans, the overlap is now substantial, because Plus is Grok models inside a code editor. Against ChatGPT's Pro tiers, the difference is that OpenAI still publishes an absolute price ladder without a bundling story attached.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cursor still free?
Yes. The Free tier is $0, needs no card, and includes the full editor with limited agent and chat requests. Cloud agents, code reviews and Grok Bot are not included.

Can I still buy Cursor Pro for $20?
Not as a new customer. The pricing page lists Free, $8, $30, $100 and $200. Existing subscribers keep their old plan and its included third-party usage until they switch.

Does the free plan include Claude or GPT?
No plan includes them any more. From Premium upward you can use third-party models, billed at API list price through top-ups.

What happens to GPT models in Cursor on 12 November 2026?
OpenAI has said it intends to stop supplying models to Cursor on that date, which it describes as proposed. Cursor has not published a confirmed termination date.

Do I have to switch to The X Subscription?
No. Switching is opt-in and appears in account billing settings. Cursor's staff confirmed that a current plan keeps working, including its included third-party usage, unless you switch.

Plan tiers, prices and feature limits verified against Cursor's own pricing page on 27 October 2026. Pool sizes are published only as multiples of the Plus tier, and no absolute allowance is quoted here because Cursor does not publish one.

Sources

1. Cursor pricing: cursor.com/pricing. Used for: Plan pricing and the absence of a published free quota.

All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 27 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.