Is Cursor Free? The Honest Answer in 2026
Short version: yes. Cursor, the AI code editor, has a genuine free plan called Hobby. It asks for no credit card, and it gives you real access to the two things Cursor is known for: the Agent that edits your codebase from plain-English instructions, and Cursor Tab, the fast autocomplete. If you just want to try an agentic editor on a side project or your own learning, you can install it and start today without paying anything.
That is the good news, and it is real. But there is a catch that most "is Cursor free" articles get wrong, because they invent a number. Cursor does not publish the exact limits of the free tier. The pricing page says "Limited Agent requests" and "Limited Tab completions" and stops there. So this breakdown does something different: it tells you what free actually covers, why the limits are deliberately fuzzy, and how to tell when you have outgrown them and need the $20 a month Individual plan.
The honest bottom line: Cursor's free Hobby plan is real and useful: no credit card, with limited Agent requests and limited Tab completions. But Cursor does not publish the exact free caps, and heavy Agent use burns through the included usage fast. To go further you need Individual ($20/mo) or Teams ($40/user/mo). Verify current limits at cursor.com/pricing.
The Short Answer: Yes, There Is a Real Free Tier
Cursor sells four plans, and the bottom one is genuinely free. The Hobby plan costs nothing per month and does not require a credit card to sign up. It includes a limited number of Agent requests and a limited number of Tab completions. That is not a stripped demo: the Agent can search your codebase, edit files, and run terminal commands, and Tab gives you the predictive autocomplete that makes Cursor feel different from a plain editor. For a free product, that is a meaningful amount of the core experience.
This is what makes the free tier worth taking seriously. You do not have to pay to find out whether an agent-native editor fits how you work. You can install Cursor, point it at a repository, describe a change in plain English, and watch the Agent carry it out, all on the Hobby plan.
The catch is not a missing feature. It is that the free allowance is capped and, importantly, Cursor does not tell you the exact size of that cap. The pricing page lists "Limited Agent requests" and "Limited Tab completions" without numbers. So the honest framing is this: free is real, free is useful, and free has a ceiling you will discover by hitting it rather than by reading it. The rest of this breakdown is about that ceiling.
What the Free Hobby Tier Actually Gets You
Here is the concrete picture, because "free" can mean anything from a locked trial to a usable product. Cursor's Hobby tier leans toward usable: you get the editor and the headline capabilities, just metered. Here is what is in and what is out.
A practical note on what "limited" feels like in daily use: if you mostly write code yourself and lean on Tab to finish lines, the free completions stretch a long way. If instead you hand whole tasks to the Agent and let it work across many files, you consume the free allowance much faster, because each agent run does more work behind the scenes. The free tier serves the first style of work better than the second, and that distinction matters more than any headline number.
The Catch That Matters: The Free Limits Are Unspecified
This is the part to read carefully, because it is where most write-ups go wrong. Cursor does not publish the exact size of the free Hobby allowance. The pricing page describes it as "Limited Agent requests" and "Limited Tab completions," and that is the full extent of the official numbers. If an article tells you the free tier gives you a precise count of requests or completions, treat that figure with suspicion: it is not coming from Cursor's own pricing page, and Cursor has changed how it meters usage before.
That sounds like a complaint, but it is mostly a planning instruction. Here is what the unspecified cap means for you in practice.
What free is good for is unchanged by all this: trying the editor, learning the Agent and Tab, working on personal or low-volume projects, and deciding whether you like Cursor enough to pay. That is a genuinely valuable free tier. It just is not a published, countable allowance, and any article that hands you a confident number is filling a gap that Cursor itself left open.
Why "Free" Runs Out: The Usage-Based Model
To understand why the free tier ends when it does, you need to understand how Cursor meters everyone, not just free users. Every Cursor plan includes a set amount of model usage. Once that included usage is consumed, paid plans let on-demand usage continue, billed in arrears at the end of the cycle. The free Hobby tier works the same way with one difference that matters: it has no overage to fall back on, so when the included usage is gone, you stop until it resets.
This is the mechanism behind "free ran out so fast." It is not that the cap is unusually small. It is that the meter counts model work, and agentic work is model-intensive. A single Agent task can involve searching the codebase, reading multiple files, planning edits, and applying them, and each of those steps spends from the same included pool. A line of Tab autocomplete costs far less. Two users on the same free plan can have completely different experiences depending on which style they lean into.
The takeaway is not to ration the free tier into uselessness. It is to recognize that "is it free" and "is it free for my workload" are two different questions. For light or occasional use, the included free usage may genuinely be all you need. For all-day agentic work, the free pool is an evaluation budget, not a steady-state plan, and that is exactly the line that pushes people to the paid tier.
When You Need to Pay: Individual, Teams, Enterprise
If the free ceiling is in your way, paying is the way past it. Here is how the four plans line up, so you can see what the jump from free buys you. Exact figures change, so the prices below are the published entry points as of June 9, 2026; confirm the current numbers on Cursor's pricing page before you subscribe.
The practical decision is simpler than the grid suggests. For most individuals who outgrow free, the Individual plan at $20 a month is the answer: it adds extended Agent limits, access to frontier models from providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI, MCPs and skills and hooks, Cloud agents, and Bugbot code review on usage-based billing. Teams at $40 per user a month is for groups that need centralized admin, single sign-on, team-wide privacy mode, and shared context. Enterprise is custom and adds pooled usage, SCIM provisioning, granular access controls, and audit logs. One detail worth knowing across all of them: the Individual tier itself contains Pro, Pro+, and Ultra options, but only the $20 entry price is published, so check the page for the higher rungs rather than trusting a number from elsewhere.
Why You Should Read the Current Page: The 2025 Pricing Reset
There is a specific reason this article refuses to quote a fixed free number, and it is worth knowing the history. In July 2025, Cursor changed how it metered the paid Pro plan. The older, widely-repeated figure was that $20 Pro included a set count of requests, often cited as five hundred. Cursor replaced that with a usage-metered cap.
The change drew complaints, mainly because some users saw charges they had not expected from the new metered model. Cursor rolled the change back and issued refunds. The episode is the clearest possible argument for checking the live pricing page rather than trusting any number you remember or read secondhand, including the old five-hundred-request figure, which no longer describes how the plan works.
Practitioner note: If you see "Cursor gives you 500 requests" anywhere, treat it as outdated. That figure was changed in July 2025 and then rolled back, and it was about the paid Pro plan, not the free tier. The reliable approach is to open cursor.com/pricing and read what the included usage and limits are today.
None of this is a reason to avoid Cursor. It is a reason to verify rather than assume. Pricing and usage models for fast-moving AI tools change more often than the articles describing them get updated, so the date stamp on any number matters as much as the number itself. The figures in this breakdown are accurate as of June 9, 2026, and the pricing page is the place to confirm them before you commit.
Who the Free Tier Is Right For
Pulling it together, the free Hobby plan is an easy yes for some people and an evaluation budget for others. Here is the honest sorting.
So is Cursor free? Yes, and the free tier is real enough to evaluate the editor properly. Just match the plan to your workload rather than to the headline. If your use is light or you are still deciding, free is genuinely enough. The moment Cursor becomes your daily driver for agentic work, you are in paid territory, and the honest move is to read the current pricing page and pick the plan that fits, rather than stretch a free allowance the vendor never quantified.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Cursor free?
Yes. Cursor has a genuine free plan called Hobby. It requires no credit card and includes limited Agent requests and limited Tab completions. The important caveat is that Cursor does not publish the exact numeric limits of the free tier, so plan on hitting a cap rather than counting on a fixed number.
How many free requests do you get with Cursor?
Cursor does not publish a specific number. The pricing page lists the Hobby tier as having limited Agent requests and limited Tab completions without stating counts. Older figures such as a 500-request Pro cap were changed in July 2025 and then rolled back, so any fixed number you read elsewhere may be out of date. Check the current limits at cursor.com/pricing.
What do you get when you pay for Cursor?
The Individual plan at $20 per month adds extended Agent limits, access to frontier models, MCPs and skills and hooks, Cloud agents, and Bugbot on usage-based billing. The Teams plan at $40 per user per month adds centralized admin, single sign-on, team-wide privacy mode, and agentic code reviews. Enterprise is custom and adds pooled usage and access controls.
Why does the Cursor free tier run out so fast?
Every Cursor plan includes a set amount of model usage. Once that included usage is consumed, on-demand usage continues and is billed in arrears on paid plans, but the free Hobby tier has no overage to fall back on. Agent-heavy work consumes the included usage much faster than light Tab-completion work, which is why heavy users reach the free cap quickly.
Who is the free Cursor plan actually good for?
The free Hobby tier fits light or occasional users and anyone evaluating Cursor before committing. If you use the Agent all day, work in a team, or need frontier models and Cloud agents, you will need the $20 per month Individual plan or the Teams plan.
Was there really a Cursor pricing controversy?
Yes. In July 2025 Cursor changed the Pro plan from a fixed request count to a usage-metered cap. Some users saw unexpected charges, the company rolled the change back and issued refunds. It is the main reason to verify current limits on the live pricing page rather than trusting older numbers.