I’m a bit confused about the usage tracking on my free auto plan.
When Grok 4.5 went online, I saw it was included in the Auto and Composer quota. I tried it out in Cursor, and it showed up as “Free”. However, a few minutes ago, I noticed it started counting against my quota (showing as “Included” with a price tag).
I didn’t receive any notification about this change. What is the actual billing rule for the old free auto plan? Is it only free when “Auto” is selected?
Also, I’ve noticed that the billing and usage pages have changed multiple times without any prior announcement. It really lacks transparency and leaves users in the dark.
Hey, thanks for the detailed report. I can see the screenshots from the usage page showing Grok 4.5 events and the effort level breakdown. Let me break it down.
Billing on your free Auto plan
Your answer is basically yes. Auto stays free. But when you explicitly pick Grok 4.5, that’s a named first party model, and it uses your included First party models pool. This was renamed from Auto + Composer on July 8. That’s why the usage page shows it as Included plus a per token price. This is expected.
The quick Free label you saw at the start was a launch day glitch. When Grok 4.5 launched, usage was incorrectly attributed to the API pool. This is fixed now, and usage is correctly pulled from the First party models pool. More details in this thread: Grok 4.5 pricing for subscription plans
Small bonus: included Grok 4.5 usage is currently doubled. This is 50% off, but the promo ends on July 15, so there are only a couple days left.
xhigh vs high
This is a known display mismatch in the effort level labels between the model picker app and the usage page. It’s visual only and doesn’t affect billing. Charges are applied correctly. I don’t have an ETA for a fix yet, but the issue is being tracked.
On billing page transparency, feedback noted and I’ll pass it to the team. If anything on the usage page looks off, send the Request ID right from the chat menu using Chat menu > Copy Request ID, and we can check the exact events.
The usage page in my current plan does not show the first-party pool and API pool separately. There is only a single “Included Usage” summary section. Because of this, I want to double-check: will using Grok 4.5 and the Composer model count against my API usage?
Thanks for the extra info. I can see the screenshot from Billing & Invoices, where all items Grok 4.5, Composer 2.5, GPT-5.5 are marked as “Included”, and the total shows $34.60 Included.
Short answer: no, Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5 do not use up your API quota. Both are first-party models, so they draw from the included First-party models pool, not from API or on-demand. That’s why they show up as “Included” in usage.
About gpt-5.5-medium in the same list: that’s a third-party model, and it draws from your API pool around $20 on Pro, not from first-party. It’s also marked “Included” right now, which means it’s still within your API quota. Keep in mind that once the API pool runs out, GPT-5.5 and other third-party models like Claude or Gemini will be the first to switch to on-demand, not Grok or Composer.
A single “Included Usage” block without splitting by pools is normal for your plan. As long as a line is marked “Included”, it’s within the included limit and won’t count as paid spend. If on-demand kicks in, it would show up as a separate paid line, not under “Included”.
If you see any item that isn’t marked “Included”, send the Request ID via Chat menu > Copy Request ID, and I’ll check the specific events.
Thanks for your patience and the detailed explanation!
However, my experience from last month felt a bit different. After my API quota ran out, some Composer 2.5 requests actually started drawing from my credits. Unfortunately, I can’t track down the exact Request IDs from last month now.
I’ll keep a close eye on my usage this month. If the same thing happens again, I’ll post it here.
I have done some simple testing today, and it turns out that Grok 4.5 is actually using my credits now.
Please see the screenshots above. I used two different GPT models, which cost exactly $10 of my API quota total. The remaining requests were from Composer and Grok, which according to the rules, should be included in the first-party pool.
On my billing page, it shows zero usage for the Pro plan, but the usage details show these requests are being drawn from promotions and credits. In fact, I noticed my credit balance decreased. You can see my credits dropped from $221 to $214 compared to the screenshot I posted in post #4. (In my latest test today, it dropped from $215 to $214, costing $1).
Then, I tried using GPT 5.6 Sol in a new session, and it also consumed my credits.
Based on this, it looks like only the $10 GPT model usage should have counted towards the API pool, and I should still have at least $10 of that quota left. Instead, the other models that should be in the first-party model pool are also eating into my credits.
This confirms that both the Composer and Grok models are being incorrectly counted towards my API pool, which matches my suspicion from recent months regarding Composer 2.5 usage.
Here are some Request IDs associated with my tests today. Hopefully, they can help you investigate and debug this issue:
Grok 4.5: fc3e9fae-1d3f-4ccd-a69a-9c72b420512880a7570e-52a0-4375-8528-244ea860ee95
GPT 5.6 Sol: 2f6ca644-43bb-41bc-b756-70c24fd88ee9 (These session are still in progressing when I submit this post.)
Also, it seems I can’t switch models in a single session as expected.
In session 2f6ca644-43bb-41bc-b756-70c24fd88ee9, I started with GPT 5.6 Sol to generate a plan, and then manually switched to Grok 4.5 to execute it.
However, even though I selected Grok, the system kept generating GPT 5.6 Sol requests in the background. Because it was too slow, I stopped it and switched to “Auto” — but the logs show GPT 5.6 Sol requests were still being made.
To make matters worse, the billing for these unintended requests is completely inconsistent (as shown in the screenshot):
One of them was charged as “Included” (using my plan quota).
But the others (marked as “Free” with the info icon) actually deducted my credits.
This is clearly unreasonable and there must be a bug somewhere.
Thanks for the detailed testing and for the Request IDs. That’s exactly what we need to check the events one by one. I can see your screenshots with Included Usage, the credit deduction breakdown, and the session from post #12 where, after selecting Grok, gpt-5.6-sol-medium requests kept running in the background.
A couple quick notes so we don’t get mixed up:
The “Free” label with the info icon does not mean “free outside limits”. It means “covered by promos or credits” (the tooltip says usage provided by Cursor, including promotions or credits). So when you see “Free” on those requests, those are the ones that reduce your credit balance.
That explains the balance drop, but your main question is separate. First-party models (Grok 4.5, Composer) shouldn’t touch credits or API as long as there’s room in the included First-party pool. We need to verify that at the individual event level.
I’ll take your three Request IDs and pass them to the team so they can confirm which pool each one was billed to:
About post #12 (you selected Grok, but GPT 5.6 Sol kept running in the background, even after switching to Auto), this looks like a separate issue where the model change inside a session isn’t being picked up. To debug that cleanly, can you share your Cursor version and OS? It might be best to move that into a separate thread so we don’t mix it with the pool attribution question.
