Hi @steeb Thanks for the post. I understand why a 12M token line is alarming at first glance. That number isn’t a single call. The Total on a usage row is the sum of every LLM call the agent made while working on that one message: reading files, running tools, applying edits, and thinking in between. In your screenshot roughly 95% of it (11.37M) is Cache Read, which is context the provider had already processed and is re-reading rather than processing fresh. Cache reads are billed at a small fraction of the input rate, so a large cache read number means caching is doing its job, not that you’re paying full price for repeated work. Without it, that same session would have cost considerably more.
This isn’t something you’ve misconfigured. What tends to move the number over time is session length and model choice. A single message now often triggers ten or more calls autonomously, so longer chats and the newer premium thinking models push per-request totals up even when the change you asked for is small.
Colin’s explanation here covers the mechanics in more depth: Why does Cursor consume an absurd amount of cache read tokens? - #24 by Colin
Three things that help in practice:
-
Start a fresh chat for each new task. Every follow-up in a long thread carries the whole prior conversation forward.
-
Check the Cursor Context Usage Display by clicking on the circle icon in the bottom right (the circle indicator). This can help expose unexpected items in your context and help you reduce token usage.
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Check which model you’re on. The newest thinking models are priced higher per token than the ones you may have been using earlier this year.
If a particular request still looks off after that, I’m glad to take a closer look. Send over a few Request IDs from the sessions that surprised you and I’ll check what those calls actually did. One caveat: with Privacy Mode on, we don’t retain request data, so the IDs need to come from requests made after you switch it off, so I can see details about the request.
To disable Privacy Mode:
- Open Cursor Settings with
Cmd+Shift+Jon macOS orCtrl+Shift+Jon Windows/Linux. - Go to
General. - Turn
Privacy Modeoff / switch toShare Data.
To get the Request ID:
- Open the relevant conversation in the Chat sidebar.
- Click the
...menu. - Select
Copy Request ID.