Cursor vs Claude Code: Cursor pricing in 2026, and what Claude costs in each
Cursor's Plus, Premium, Super and Ultra plans, what they include, and why Claude in Cursor is billed separately — compared with Claude Code on a Claude plan or an API key.
Cursor is an editor with AI built in; Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal and IDEs. People compare them because both are where they spend their coding-agent budget. Here is how that budget works in each, from the vendors' pages as of November 4, 2026.
Cursor pricing
cursor.com/pricing lists:
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Free | $0 a month |
| Plus | $8 a month |
| Premium | $30 a month |
| Super | $100 a month |
| Ultra | $200 a month |
| Teams | $30 per user a month |
Each tier includes a pool of AI usage shared across Cursor and Grok, larger on higher tiers. The detail that matters if you want Claude or GPT: Cursor says Plus includes Grok models only, and Premium and above include generous Grok usage "but do not include an allowance for third-party models". Third-party models are available in Cursor at API list price, billed separately from the monthly price.
So for a Claude user, a Cursor plan is a seat, and Claude is pay-per-use on top.
Claude Code pricing
Claude Code is included in Claude Pro ($20 a month, or $17 billed annually), Max ($100) and Ultra ($200), with 5-hour and weekly limits shared with the Claude apps, or billed per token on an API key (claude.com/pricing). The full breakdown is in Claude Code pricing.
What Claude costs either way
On an API key, Claude is billed at its list price whether you call it from Claude Code or anywhere else:
| Model | Input / 1M | Cached / 1M | Output / 1M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $4 | $0.2 | $20 | 1M |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2 | $0.1 | $10 | 1M |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | $0.1 | $0.01 | $0.5 | 1M |
A Token Plan turns that into a fixed monthly amount: $20 for $60 of usage, $100 for $300, with no 5-hour or weekly windows. It works in Claude Code and in any other tool that takes an API key.
Which to pick
- Cursor if you want the editor and mostly use its included models.
- Claude Code on a Claude plan if you live in Claude and the windows don't get in your way.
- Claude Code on an API key or a Token Plan if you want Claude without windows, or Claude plus GPT, Gemini, Kimi and GLM on one bill.
Prices on this page come from the model catalog and were current on November 12, 2026.