Background Agent error for required usage limit of $10 is inaccurate or misleading

Describe the Bug

Attempting to use Background Agents without Usage-Based pricing enabled results in an error stating that a minimum of $10 is required in the hard limit before it can be used. This issue also extends to the Slack integration.

Steps to Reproduce

  • Set the usage limit to $10
  • Attempt to use the Background Agent feature directly in Cursor or via the Slack bot

Expected Behavior

Expected it to run the background agent with $10 set in the usage limit.

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.1.1
VSCode Version: 1.96.2
Commit: f81622395bb52bc30ed251a6299eeaf51ab49110
Date: 2025-06-12T09:07:09.121Z (3 days ago)
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.5.0

Additional Information

I also tried increasing it to $20 and $30, but I still received the same error. It worked after I set it to $50.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

1 Like

I have this problem as well.

1 Like

I had this same issue. I have an ultra subscription so I increase the usage limit to my subscription cost + $10. This is obviously incorrect as I am now risking an additional $210 after already paying $200 per month.

This gets rid of the error.

Based on an email from the support email address, I am not sure if the background agents are charged separately to my ultra subscription ro not

it doesn’t work for me. I even set 500$ and still nothing.
I even logout and login and still getting that message:
“You need to increase your your individual hard limit
Background Agent requires at least $10 remaining until your hard limit. Please increase your hard limit or enable usage-based pricing.”
have Pro+ sub

tried logging out, increasing limits significantly etc. and still doesn’t work for me either. i’m prompted in cursor to open settings with the following message: ‘You need to increase your hard limit
Background Agent requires at least $10 remaining until your hard limit. Please increase your hard limit or enable usage-based pricing.’, which takes me to the billing section, which is clearly incorrect

Same here, despite the pro subscription

I have the same exact issue I am on pro plan with $50 limit but getting the error

just got email from the support about it:
“There’s a bug here that we fixed yesterday, which was setting the UI spend to $0 even though usage spend had taken place causing a discrepancy between the dashboard spend UI and the backend.”

today is July 1st 2025.

now it working well.