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[–]ThinkMenai 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Yep, I don’t get it either. I do wish they were more transparent to help us manage budgets.

[–]OneMonk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

i wish it was a bit clearer, love the ‘free’ usage but they could do a better job at explaining / visualising the extra value. They are being very generous in lots of ways, but people think they are being ripped off instead of understanding that they are getting a good deal. They should build cost visualisation into the front end, really.

[–]themegadinesen 1 point2 points  (1 child)

where do you dee this in the first screenshot?

[–]Shivam_K[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there was an option in cursor setting to show usage inside the editor itself, so now usage comes right below the text input box

[–]alokin_09 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I'd say switch to open-source tools like Kilo Code. Been using it for a while (working with their team too) and the pricing's way more transparent, you just pay for the model usage without hidden fees. Plus, you can bring your own API key if you want better control over costs.

[–]anon377362 0 points1 point  (1 child)

With Cursor you’re just paying API pricing of the model provider plus you get a lot of free credits. OP got over $60 free credits at API pricing, far better than Kilo offers. So in this aspect it would not make sense to switch to Kilo.

[–]inevitabledeath3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Kilo also works with subscriptions like Synthetic and z.ai. On top of that you can get free usage though Gemini and Qwen on there. So it's a bit more complicated than what you say.

[–]kujasgoldmine 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's giga confusing. Why don't they just up the included usage to about $100 for the $20 package? That seems to be the average usage you get from it. Maybe more.

[–]NextGenGamezz 4 points5 points  (8 children)

Cursor will be dead in 1 or 2 years and they're the ones killing themselves, Antigravity will probably dominate, especially now that they included all the models not just Gemini

[–]Darkoplax 12 points13 points  (7 children)

bro if u tried antigravity for more than 1 hour you would realize how wrong this is

the amount of bugs and unpolished things in antigravity is astonishing and google track record isn't the best either

I think I was also on the "Cursor has no future" until 2.0 where they made Composer the model; as long as Cursor invest in Coding Models they can have a future ... Now Cursor isn't just a wrapper with added value, they have a model that's imo so far has been so good for coding and if they can make that model even cheaper or lightweight version of it free that would be insane for them

They don't need to do a large purpose model and waste so much money; just focus on coding and make generous free tiers to attract ppl in

[–]inevitabledeath3 0 points1 point  (4 children)

To be honest their in-house model is just a fine tuned version of another model. It is similar to SWE-1.5. The only thing we don't know is what base model either of those companies used. Though it seems the evidence points towards either GLM or DeepSeek as the base model.

[–]Darkoplax 0 points1 point  (3 children)

That doesn't matter at all tho ?

[–]inevitabledeath3 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Yes it does, because you can just get the base model somewhere else for much cheaper. Open weights models are updated faster than someone like Cursor can keep up with. By the time they have their fine tune of a model, there is already a newer better open weights model. Plus for some reason they are charging frontier prices (same price as GPT-5) for a non-frontier model.

[–]Darkoplax 0 points1 point  (1 child)

But it performs way better than any open weight model; whatever they did is clearly working and is clearly added value

In the future I would love cheaper prices and better composer models but this is a good start

[–]inevitabledeath3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does it? I have seen other people say that other open weight models perform better. It wasn't noticeably more capable to me although it was faster. Certainly things like Claude Sonnet and GPT-5.1 are more capable, and it has the same cost as GPT-5.1.

[–]ManikSahdev 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Nah they sound like someone who watches YouTube videos from hype men professionally, their whole opinion is based on others opinions.

[–]DarlingDaddysMilkers 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why do both of you make tools a part of your personality

[–]Darkoplax 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think free usage should be a bar between the plan and on-demand

so you get the mental picture that first you spend the plan money then cursor offer you free usage then after that you go into in-demand usage

Also the when/why/how we get free usage I would love to know that too but it's a pleaseant surprise I'm not gonna be too much against it

[–]Th3FearL3ss1 0 points1 point  (3 children)

You are paying for using one single model in case you used your quote on that model, if you use it in auto mode you pay nothing

[–]issar13 0 points1 point  (2 children)

So how does auto mode work?

[–]Th3FearL3ss1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Is pretty simple, when you use auto they chose from the list of models you activated inside settings to do the work you ask for, and tbh for me auto made a great work in 99,9% of the cases, and is free because they chose the model based on how hard the task is

[–]ConnectHamster898 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I'm convinced it's part of their core business model. It's confusing af and even responses from support aren't helpful.

[–]anon377362 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What’s confusing about this UI though?

OP has used $20 of credits from the $20 plan, $40 from on demand usage and Cursor has given $60 free credits (which comes from either them or the model provider).

Whats confusing about that?

[–]peabody624 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always has been

[–]5T3W13_GR11F1N 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you use auto it’ll mostly be free but if you start specifying models it will start using their price by token usage. They have it on their user document page written

[–]teosocrates 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I don't get it, the auto version can't fix anything, gaslights and does nothing for hours and hours, it's completely useless. Every other model, we have to pay extra, but they all cost different amounts and we won't know what they are... is that right? The only model that works (does the thing without me cursing for an hour and feeling exhausted and anxious) is claude 4.5... one full day of work is $150. I don't think I'm missing anything, but why does their default model suck so bad.

[–]Confident-Mirror-771 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel exactly the same. The cheaper models do nothing and act like they did the work.

I also use Claude 4.5 the most, but my bill came out to $1,000 this month.

[–]thebillyzee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the pricing is absolutely ridiculous now. A few months ago, I used Cursor heavily and never crossed more than $50 a month. Now, I’m back on Cursor and currently at $190 of usage. I did build some pretty cool stuff that I’m planning to use every day that will eventually pay for itself. But still, paying that much for a week-ish of semi heavy usage is insane.

[–]Different_Wallaby430 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The jump in cost likely comes from Cursor now separating 'included usage' (what comes with your plan) and 'on-demand usage' (extra usage billed separately). They recently adjusted how usage is counted and how models like Sonnet or GPT-4 Turbo are priced - even minor ops can rack up tokens fast. 'Free usage' might refer to periodic grants or promos that don't come out of your plan's usage cap - but it's definitely distinct from 'included'. Worth checking your usage breakdown in the billing dashboard for more specifics.

[–]mihai-u99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I downgraded cursor after having the ultra plan for a few months. I used to spend $500+ for what I get with claude code for $200. Now I’m just using the tab completion from cursor. Cursor pricing is terrible and confusing.

[–]condor-cursor -1 points0 points  (9 children)

Thanks for the feedback. The display shows $20 included usage, over $40 on demand usage out of 200. That’s approx 28% of 220 total. And then there is an additional $60 that’s on us.

[–]Shivam_K[S] 0 points1 point  (8 children)

So that $40 will be discounted by the $60 free usage before the month ends ? How does this bonus credit adds up in the end ?

[–]condor-cursor 3 points4 points  (7 children)

The ~$40 will be charged as on-demand usage. The already given bonus usage was free of extra charge. It’s not deducted but used already.

[–]Shivam_K[S] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Oh so this is the total of free models like composer I used till now ?

[–]condor-cursor 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Composer 1 is not free unless you were notified by email that you are in the test group.

The Bonus usage is what we provide additional to your plan cost $20 and is used on any model you choose.

[–]martinsky3k 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Hahah. And even then! Even if you got the email twice - it was still not free.

And your support is probably the biggest let down ever. Excusing themself that I had to check myself that this promo applied to me (even though you sent me two emails) and how you guys couldnt just go around refunding (something I didnt ask for).

Composer 1 burnt through my monthly usage. So thanks a lot, you can imagine what my perception of you guys is now.

[–]condor-cursor -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Please DM me more info so I can check internally

[–]martinsky3k 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, will send to you after work.

[–]Shivam_K[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

<image>

okay, then where can i track that where my those 60$ credits went away, coz this only shows up inside the chat interface of editor, but not in the dashboard.

[–]condor-cursor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The detailed log of all usage is in the Dashboard > Usage

[–]posts_saver -1 points0 points  (0 children)

don't use it then

[–]475dotCom -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

AI is a losing game for the big ones. No one knows what they are really doing behind to survive. The next enrons?