Every silent change to Cursor pricing since 2024
Cursor has changed its pricing model six times in the last 24 months. Some changes were announced in a launch post; others showed up only as a different number on the billing page. Here’s the complete archive, in order.
Every entry below has at least one primary source - the original announcement post, a Wayback Machine snapshot, or a reader-submitted billing screenshot. Where the change happened silently, we say so.
Pro tier launches at $20/mo
Original Pro tier ships with 500 fast premium requests per month, “unlimited” slow requests, and access to all available models. The word “unlimited” lasts roughly 14 months.
Business tier added at $40/mo
New top tier introduces SSO, admin dashboard, and centralized billing. No changes to Pro - yet. By our framework, this is a signal: enterprise tier launches almost always precede a Pro-tier squeeze within 60 to 90 days.
“Fast” request count cut from 500 to 400
The Pro tier’s fast request allotment quietly drops to 400/mo, with no changelog post. Spotted by users comparing billing screenshots. Cursor confirmed in a Discord reply but did not publish a notice.
Model routing introduced - “auto” mode defaults to cheaper model
A new “auto” routing mode silently launches as the default. Users on Pro who had previously been hitting Claude Opus by default were now being routed to a smaller model unless they explicitly selected one. Quality complaints spike in the Cursor subreddit within a week.
This is the classic “quality nerf” pattern: the model name on the UI doesn’t change, but what runs underneath does.
“Unlimited slow” removed from Pro
The word “unlimited” is removed from the pricing page. Replaced with “fair use slow requests.” Effective cap, per support replies, is roughly 2,000/mo - though no number is documented publicly.
Ultra tier added at $200/mo
A new Ultra tier appears, offering “20x more usage” than Pro. By our heuristic, this is the strongest possible signal that Pro is about to get squeezed again - the 4x price jump only makes sense if Pro becomes less attractive.
It did. Six weeks later.
Pro fast requests drop to 250
From 400 to 250. Announced in a small update post that didn’t make the changelog feed. Users get an email titled “updates to your plan” with the new number two-thirds of the way down the body copy.
The pattern
Two years, six changes, every one of them either silent or buried. The Pro tier in May 2026 has 50% of the fast requests it had at launch, no more “unlimited” anything, and a routing system that may or may not be sending you to the model you think it is.
If you’re paying Cursor today, the question worth asking is not “will this change again” - it’s “when, and have I tried Windsurf yet?”
What we’re watching next
Two signals are showing on our dashboard right now: a recent funding round and a steady increase in model-routing complaints on r/cursor. By our framework, the next change is likely within 90 days. We’ll catch it when it ships. Subscribe to the feed if you want the receipt the moment it does.