Compare Claude Code and Cursor free tiers side by side. Pricing, limits, change history, and risk assessment for developers.

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Claude Code vs Cursor

Side-by-side free tier comparison. Catalogue dates here run to 2026-09-24.

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Verdict

Cursor offers a free tier ("Free"). We are not publishing a free-tier verdict for Claude Code. The page we cite for Claude Code states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02. We are not comparing the two pricing histories.

A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn, a product retired — does not lapse with time. A badge carrying a date states the record it rests on; a badge with no date rests on no record in force.

Claude Code profile → Cursor profile →

Claude Code

Risk
CategoryAI Coding
TierPaid
Verified2026-08-17
Last read2026-09-02
Changes1 recorded
Agentic coding tool by Anthropic: it reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and works with development tools, in the terminal, IDEs, a desktop app and the browser. No free plan: "Claude Code is included in all paid plans", and Claude's Free plan does not include it. Pro is $20/month billed monthly ($17/month billed annually), Max is $100/month (5x) or $200/month (20x), Team Standard seats are $25/seat billed monthly ($20 billed annually), and Enterprise is "$20 per seat per month plus usage billed at API rates". Plan usage is shared with Claude chat. At the limit, paid plans can turn on usage credits billed at standard API rates, or use an Anthropic API key billed pay-as-you-go.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

Cursor

Riskstable
CategoryAI Coding
TierFree
Verified2026-09-24
Last read2026-09-24
Changes1 recorded
AI-powered code editor built on VS Code. Hobby is the free plan: no credit card required, limited Agent requests, access to Composer — cursor.com/pricing states no completion or request figure for it. Individual paid plans: Pro $20/month, Pro+ $60/month (3x Pro's Agent limits), Ultra $200/month (20x). Teams is $40/user/month for a Standard seat or $120/user/month for a Premium seat (5x Standard's Agent limits). Enterprise is custom-priced with pooled usage, invoice/PO billing and SCIM. Cursor renders only the selected tier's price in the page body.

Pricing Change History

Claude Code

restricted effective 2026-04-04 medium impact
No longer in force (2026-05-13). From noon Pacific on 2026-04-04, Claude subscription limits stopped covering third-party harnesses such as OpenClaw. That usage had to be paid for as extra usage, billed separately from the subscription. No longer in force from 2026-05-13, when Anthropic let third-party apps draw on Claude subscriptions again. The separate Agent SDK credit it announced for 2026-06-15 was paused that day: "For now, nothing has changed: Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, and third-party app usage still draw from your subscription's usage limits." Source ↗

Cursor

restructured effective 2025-06-16 medium impact
Cursor moved Pro from 500 requests a month to usage-based pricing and introduced a $200/month Ultra tier. Source ↗

Watch Both Vendors for Pricing Changes

We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.

curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=Claude%20Code curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=Claude%20Code curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=Cursor curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=Cursor

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