Just a quick feedback, I’m an independent dev, i was told Cursor is awesome and would help me a lot save time etc so i decided to give it a try. Sadly, i noticed than in less than a week (5 days) i already used 100% of the allocation which is incredibly fast I added 10$ to the on demande, it didn’t even last half a day…. And I didn’t even work that much… It is sadly clearly not sustainable for me. I will cancel my sub and give a try to Claude Code then, no choice. I really enjoyed cursor but the cost is really too high imo.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. I get it, burning through your allocation fast is a nasty surprise, especially at the start.
A few things that can help you control usage:
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Model choice: Different models burn usage at different rates. For example, Opus 4.6 is the most expensive and will drain your allocation much faster than others. If you used Premium routing, Cursor might have auto picked expensive models. Try explicitly selecting cheaper models like cursor-composer-2 or Sonnet 4.6.
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Max mode: If it was on, it can use up usage much faster. Check if it’s enabled by default.
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Usage dashboard: At https://cursor.com/settings you can track where your usage is going and which models are using the most. This helps you see what ate the allocation so quickly.
The Pro plan includes 20 USD in API credits per month. If most of the spend was on expensive models, 10 USD on demand can disappear in just a few long sessions.
You’re not the first user to raise concerns about spend transparency and limits for indie devs.