How can I see per-chat Agent usage and cap it so one session doesn’t burn the month?

Support Help
1

Hi, I am on the Cursor Pro plan ($20/month) and I am using Agent mode on a course assignment. Some runs chew through a lot of usage when the agent reads a PDF, searches the repo, and then writes LaTeX. Is there a way to see, per chat, which steps counted against usage, and is there a documented way to cap Agent mode so a single homework session cannot burn the rest of the month?

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed request. I’ll cover both parts.

Check what a session cost

Open cursor.com/dashboard and go to the Usage tab. Each Agent turn you send shows up as one row with the model, tokens, and cost (it’ll show as $X.XX Included while it’s covered by your plan). A single turn that reads a PDF, searches the repo, and writes LaTeX can actually be dozens of model calls under the hood, and they’re rolled up into that one row. So that row is the closest view to “how much did this step cost.” There isn’t a per-chat grouping yet, so to see a full session you can filter the table by date, or click Export CSV and sum the rows for the time window you care about. I’ve passed along the request to show a total for the whole conversation.

Tip: enable Cursor Settings > Chat > Usage Summary > Always. This shows how much of your monthly pool you’ve used, right at the bottom of the chat panel while you work.

Limit spend

There’s no per-chat or per-session limit today. Here’s what you can rely on:

  1. Open cursor.com/dashboard and go to the Spending tab. You’ll see your monthly pools, what’s left, and the reset date.
  2. Keep On-demand usage turned off. With on-demand off, Cursor won’t charge anything beyond the $20 subscription. When your pool runs out, the Agent will pause (or switch to reduced speed) until the reset instead of billing, and you’ll get a notification in the editor. That’s your hard cap.
  3. If you decide to turn on on-demand, set a monthly spend limit next to it. That’s the only dollar cap, and it only applies to on-demand.

How to make a session cheaper

The cost of a turn is mostly the context that gets re-sent on every step, so a few habits help a lot:

  1. Start a new chat for each subtask (one chat for reading the PDF, a separate one for LaTeX). Long chats get more expensive with every step.
  2. Attach only the pages you need. Copy the relevant part of the PDF into text or a .md file and attach that, instead of the whole PDF.
  3. Different models cost different amounts. You can see what’s being used in Dashboard > Usage, and current pricing is here: Models & Pricing | Cursor Docs. For routine work, it can make sense to pick a lighter model.
  4. Don’t enable 1M context unless you really need it. Long context noticeably increases input cost on some models.

If you want someone to review a specific expensive session on your account, email [email protected] from the email you use to log into Cursor, and they can dig into the details.

6

Thank you Dean for your answer, very helpful!