Cursor switches pay-per-token when your plan limit end. Calls "On-Demand usage"

11 pointsby hardwellvibe5개월 전6 comments

I was a Cursor Pro subscriber. On January 14th, I hit my subscription usage limit. No warning. No "Hey, you've used up your included quota — want to keep going at per-token rates?" Cursor just... kept going. Silently switched me to what they call "On-Demand" billing — meaning every single token I used from that point was billed at API rates. And I had no idea. "On-Demand usage" — who interprets that as post-paid charges? Here's what gets me. I've lived in the US for years. My English is fine. But when I saw "On-Demand usage" in my account, I genuinely thought it meant usage within my subscription plan — as in, I'm using it on demand, whenever I need it. You know, like on-demand streaming. On-demand services. That's what the phrase means in literally every other context. It does not mean that here. In Cursor's world, "On-Demand" means "you are now being charged per token at full API pricing and we will bill you later." If that's not deliberately misleading terminology, it's at minimum terrible UX design. How I blew through $20 in 4 days without knowing The claude-4.5-opus-high-thinking model costs $0.50–$4.00+ per request. I didn't know I was on per-token billing, so I kept using it like normal. Four days. $20 gone. When I was finally blocked, I thought my subscription limit had just run out late. The UI prompted me to "add API usage" for $20, so I did — thinking it was a top-up balance I could draw from. Nope. Cursor support later told me:

"These aren't prepayments or top-ups — they're charges for API usage that already happened."

So I wasn't adding credit. I was raising a spending cap on charges that had already been silently accumulating. The UI gave me zero indication of this. The bill ItemAmountPro subscription~$20On-Demand charge #1 (Jan 18)$20On-Demand charge #2 (Feb 7)$20Total for ~2.5 weeks~$60 The final invoice showed $42.12 in total On-Demand usage. After subtracting the first $20 payment and a $2.12 refund for exceeding the hard limit, I was charged another $20. Support made it worse I emailed asking for a refund. Denied. Fine — I used the tokens, I accept that. But here's what I can't accept: support misrepresented the charges. They told me the Feb 7th charge was for "17 calls to gpt-5.1-codex-max totalling $0.29" with a "$20 minimum charge applied." That made it sound like I was charged $20 for 29 cents of usage. That's not what happened at all. The $20 was the remaining balance of $42.12 across multiple models. Why frame it that way? Either support doesn't understand their own billing, or they were trying to shut down my refund request with a misleading explanation. What Cursor needs to fix

Hard-stop when subscription limit is reached. Don't silently switch to per-token billing. Ask the user. Get explicit consent. This is basic. Rename "On-Demand usage." Nobody interprets this as "post-paid per-token charges." Call it what it is: "Pay-per-use billing" or "Overage charges." Be honest. Make "Add API credit" actually work like credit. If I click a button that says I'm adding $20, I expect a $20 balance. Not a silent spending cap increase on charges I didn't know existed. Train support to explain billing accurately. Don't cherry-pick one line item to make a $20 charge look like a minimum fee issue when it's actually part of a $42 total.

My advice to Cursor users

Check your billing page constantly. The subscription-to-on-demand switch is invisible. Avoid Opus and high-thinking models unless you're actively monitoring costs. One session can cost $10+. When you see "add API usage," understand you're NOT adding a balance. You're raising a spending limit. If you cancel, watch for charges that show up weeks later.

I'm done with Cursor. The tool itself is fine, but the billing system feels designed to extract maximum revenue through confusion rather than transparency.

Anyone else get caught by this? Genuinely curious if this is a widespread issue or if I'm just the lucky one.

7 comments

theorchid5개월 전

With an ultra subscription price of $200, Cursor gives you approximately $500 worth of API requests. But even that limit isn't enough for me. So I switched to Claude Max for $100. But the problem is that I really like Cursor as an IDE, and Claude only provides a terminal or a plugin for VS Code. So I had to use Claude to write a script that proxies all requests from Cursor to the Claude Max subscription, bypassing API requests. Try doing the same for yourself. As a result, you will pay $100 for Claude, and you will have access to approximately $2,000 worth of API requests.

raw_anon_11115개월 전

Codex-CLI is basically unlimited in my day to day use with just my $20 ChatGPT subscription.

bombashell5개월 전

Thats a good advice thanks

gorgmah5개월 전

I use antigravity now, I think they made it a little bit more stable, it crashes less often lately. Limits are quite high. Someone made a proxy tool to use your antigravity token allowance in claude-code, I haven't tried it but worth considering if you want cheaper option for claude-code. Antigravity has per model limits, so you can start by using opus 4.6 then use opus 4.5 then use gemini-3-pro before you have to start paying additional tokens.

theflyestpilot5개월 전

I spent 1500 this month. Crunch time on a project so I went for it.

opus 4.5-4.6 costs of about 250 per day

had requests vary between 5 cents and 45.74 per call...

Hand to God, truly not that many calls per day. Just constant steering.

I essentially gave them my lunch money hand over fist.

opus performance was fantastic.

Though the cost confusion with cursor pricing and well known upcharge is why I'm intending to churn next month to go direct to source with Claude code... without the middle man.

compose 1.5 might keep me from churning now that I'm across the finish line on the project. But 1500usd could have given me Claude code for the year.

Frankly they could be making sh*t up with the cost per call... "Nobody is going to know."

drakenot5개월 전

Claude Code has gotta be way cheaper for this, right?

cindyllm5개월 전