So, here’s what I understand of the new pricing structure:
Pro users get unlmited use of any models non-max mode
Max mode is only usage based, I get no credits per month and must pay token based
Pro users will hit some as yet published rate limit and get throttled/stopped, the only way to know is to actually hit it
By paying 10x for Ultra I get the same as Pro but my rate limit is 20x Pro, however, we don’t know what that rate limit so I don’t know what the value is
If I get slowed down my rate limit as a pro user, the only way to deal with it is to pay 10x as much
Ultra users still have to pay usage based fees for Max mode and also get no credit
Teams users are basically the same as Pro users
Background tasks are only available in max mode, so whether you are a Pro user, teams user or Ultra user, you still pay the same amount extra
My god, I have brought my whole company to Cursor but now I’m looking for a way out. Max mode is so much better and now we lose our credits for it. I don’t know why anyone would choose Ultra, high end users would want to use Max mode all the time but get no extra credit on Ultra. It’s really not clear the benefit because you can’t figure out if you’ve hit your rate limit or not, when you will and what limit it will be?
Is there something I am missing or misunderstanding? A smart thing would have been to give the Ultra users unlimited Max mode.
I wasn’t looking at Claude Code but now I will need to explore it. This pricing is really very confusing and not very good.
I hope the team at Cursor is reading this. I’m a founder too, and Cursor has been immensely valuable to me—I couldn’t imagine launching my venture without it.
That’s why the new Pro plan feels like the rug is being pulled out from under me. I’ve been hit by rate limits before, and it simply didn’t work for my needs, so I enabled usage-based pricing. I understand that the new unlimited Pro plan may work well for many users, but for others, the ability to stick with usage-based pricing is essential.
I did notice the hidden “Opt out” button, but its placement and wording suggest this is likely a temporary option while you’re testing the waters. I sincerely hope you’ll reconsider and make it a permanent choice.
This also raises the obvious question: why not just upgrade to Ultra? For most of us, the $200/month price tag is simply not feasible—and even if it were, we wouldn’t use enough to justify the cost. At the end of the day, this feels like a billing strategy. If you’re not losing money on usage-based plans, please continue offering them—perhaps even at a slightly higher cost if needed. But don’t take away the flexibility that made Cursor so usable in the first place.
My understanding of the issue above is not correct. Max mode, backgroudn agents, etc are all covered in the rate limit (i.e. you don’t pay any extra). So far, I have not hit a rate limit and I’m using o3 in max mode all day. I’m pretty sure with this much usage of max mode I would have already burned through the 500 credits. I don’t know if they haven’t implemented the rate limits yet but so far it seems generous. Run it and see when you hit the limits. I suspect the reason they don’t want to post the limits is because they are very generous.
@GZeusChrist Could you please be more specific what you are doing? how you are using cursor? and what you mean with 'chewed through my subscription` if there is no monthly limit on the requests.
Best would be if you open a thread for your specific usage case and file a bug report with details so the case can be analyzed.
I’ve used this in the same way I have previous months. I noticed around 5 days before my subscription is renewed I would start using extra credits, but around 5-6 USD.
I’m 10 days in and I’ve already spent 20 USD. Same type of usage, but suddenly i’m 40 USD down.
No warnings, no indication. I mean, even showing my usage on the side-bar to know when I’m being hit by usage fees would help.
Instead, I find out this morning that had I gone to bed and worked this morning I might have saved 5 USD
This is opaque pricing to the max. Not a good look Cursor.
You can turn off usage based pricing to see when you reach limits.
On current usage based requests you can mouse over the cost and see how the amount is separated into input tokens, output tokens, cache write and cache read which could help you optimize the usage and reduce cost.
I have turned off usage based now. I think the UX of Cursor and the sidebar could be updated to give more clarity before making these request outside of usage to let us make informed decisions.
