Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: plans, prices and usage compared
Cursor's plans run from free to $200 a month; GitHub Copilot's from free to $39. How each one measures usage, what the multipliers mean, and which fits how you code.
GitHub Copilot is the cheaper entry point: Copilot Pro costs $10 a month and Pro+ $39, with unlimited inline suggestions on both. Cursor’s paid plans run from $8 to $200 a month and scale a shared AI usage pool, from Plus up to 50 times Plus on Ultra. The two measure usage differently: Copilot in dollar-valued AI credits, Cursor as multiples of a weekly allowance.
The plans
| Plan | Price a month | Usage, as the pricing page states it |
|---|---|---|
| Cursor Free | $0 | Limited agent requests |
| Cursor Plus | $8 | Shared AI usage pool |
| Cursor Premium | $30 | 4x usage compared to Plus |
| Cursor Super | $100 | 15x usage compared to Plus |
| Cursor Ultra | $200 | 50x usage compared to Plus |
| GitHub Copilot Free | $0 | Limited chat and agent usage; 2,000 inline suggestions a month |
| GitHub Copilot Pro | $10 | $10 a month of base AI credits plus a $5 flex allotment; unlimited inline suggestions |
| GitHub Copilot Pro+ | $39 | $39 a month of base AI credits plus a $31 flex allotment; unlimited inline suggestions |
Cursor’s page says the allowance refreshes weekly and that prices exclude taxes. GitHub measures usage in AI Credits, where one credit is worth $0.01.
Reading the numbers
Cursor: usage per dollar rises with each tier
Taking Plus as one unit of usage for $8, Premium gives 4 units for $30, Super 15 for $100 and Ultra 50 for $200. Per unit, that is $8 on Plus, $7.50 on Premium, about $6.67 on Super and $4 on Ultra. Ultra costs half as much per unit of usage as Plus, but only if you use most of it.
Copilot: credits you can count
Copilot Pro includes $10 of base credits and a $5 flex allotment, $15 in total. Pro+ includes $39 and $31, $70 in total. Because the credits are valued in dollars, you can see in advance what each plan buys. How far they go depends on the models and features you use them on.
Inline suggestions versus agent work
Coding assistants do two different jobs. Inline suggestions complete the line or block you are typing; Copilot’s paid plans make these unlimited, and its free plan includes 2,000 a month. Agent work, where the assistant reads files, plans changes and edits code across a project, is what consumes the usage pools and credits on both products. If you mostly want completions, Copilot Pro at $10 covers them without limits. If you hand whole tasks to an agent every day, usage, not the base price, decides the cost.
How they compare with paying the API directly
Agent tools send large prompts: instructions, tool definitions and project files on every step. On the API, a coding agent request with 40,000 tokens of context, 70% of it cached, and 2,000 tokens of output costs about $0.047 on Claude Sonnet 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol at standard prices. Our prompt caching guide shows the arithmetic. At 100 such requests a working day, that is roughly $100 to $140 a month, which is the range where the $100 and $200 tiers of coding plans start to make sense.
Which to choose
- Mostly autocomplete, some chat: GitHub Copilot Pro, $10.
- You live in GitHub and want more agent usage: Copilot Pro+, $39, with $70 of credits.
- You want an AI-first editor and code a few hours a week: Cursor Plus, $8.
- You run agents all day: Cursor Super or Ultra, where usage per dollar is best, or the API if you want to pay only for what you use.
Compare these plans with API pricing for your own usage in the subscription or API tool.
Sources
- Cursor, pricing.
- GitHub, Copilot plans.
- Anthropic, API pricing; OpenAI, API pricing.
All pages read on October 26, 2026.
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