AI cost comparison
Cursor vs Claude Code cost
Claude Code bundles Claude usage into Pro and Max. Cursor does not: on Premium and above, Claude costs its API list price on top of the plan, while Cursor's own Grok and Composer models come out of a weekly pool. Enter your sessions to see both bills side by side.
Your inputs
Result
Claude Sonnet 5.5 in Cursor costs $180 a month; Claude Code on Max 5x is $100
The same 420 sessions are worth $150 at API prices. In Cursor you pay that on top of the plan; Claude Pro and Max include it within their usage limits.
- Cost per session on Claude Sonnet 5.5
- $0.36
- Claude Code on the API
- $150 a month
- Claude Code on Pro or Max
- $20 to $200 a monthflat, within usage limits
- Cursor Premium with Claude Sonnet 5.5
- $180 a month
- Cursor Premium with Grok 4.7
- $30 a monthinside the weekly pool; $0.79 a session past it
Worked examples
Each row is the calculator run on the inputs shown, with every other input at its default.
| Developer | Model | Sessions a day | Claude Code on API | Cursor Premium + Claude |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light user | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 3 | $11.24 a month | $41.24 a month |
| Daily user | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 10 | $74.91 a month | $105 a month |
| All-day agent work | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 20 | $150 a month | $180 a month |
| All-day on Opus 5.5 | Claude Opus 5.5 | 20 | $300 a month | $330 a month |
| Quick tasks on Haiku 5.5 | Claude Haiku 5.5 | 40 | $10.06 a month | $40.06 a month |
How it is calculated
Both tools run the same Claude models at the same API list prices; what differs is what the plan includes.
Claude Pro and Max include Claude Code within usage limits that reset every five hours and weekly. Cursor's plans include a weekly pool for Cursor's own models (Grok 4.7, 4.6, 4.5 and Composer 2.5); Claude, GPT and Gemini bill at API list price from prepaid credit on Premium and above.
A session is Anthropic's example Claude Code session, raised by 30% for the Claude 4.7 and later tokenizer. Grok uses a different tokenizer; the calculator assumes the same token counts for it. Teams seats in Cursor add $0.25 per million tokens on Claude requests, which is not included here.
Questions
Is Cursor or Claude Code cheaper?
For heavy Claude use, Claude Code on a Max plan is usually cheaper, because Max includes Claude usage while Cursor bills Claude at API price on top of its plan. If you are happy with Cursor's own Grok and Composer models, Cursor Premium at $30 can be cheaper as long as your work fits its weekly pool.
Can I use Claude in Cursor?
Yes, on Premium, Super, Ultra and Teams. Claude is billed at Anthropic's API list price from your prepaid Cursor credit, from the first request. Plus and Free do not include third-party models.
How much does Claude Code cost per month?
Pro is $20 and Max $100 or $200, with usage limits. On the API, Anthropic reports an average of $150 to $250 per developer per month across enterprise deployments.
Do Cursor and Claude Code charge the same per token for Claude?
Yes. Cursor lists Claude Sonnet 5.5 at $2 input, $2.50 cache write, $0.10 cache read and $10 output per million tokens, the same as Anthropic's API.
Sources
- Cursor docs: Models and pricing, checked 2026-10-29
- Anthropic: Claude plans and pricing, checked 2026-10-29
- Anthropic: Claude API pricing, checked 2026-10-29
- Claude Code docs: Manage costs effectively, checked 2026-10-29. Example session and average cost per developer
Prices and plans change. This page was last checked on 2026-10-29. The data is open: ai-plans.json, llm-prices.json (CC BY 4.0).