Cursor, a widely popular AI programming environment, is developed by Anysphere. Recently, the company faced significant user dissatisfaction due to unclear communication about the price adjustment of its Pro plan, which costs $20 per month. This led to some users accidentally incurring additional fees. Anysphere CEO Michael Truell publicly apologized on Friday, acknowledging that the company's handling of the pricing announcement was "not good" and the communication was "not clear enough."

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Controversy Over Pricing Model Changes

According to reports, the controversy originated from an update to Cursor Pro scheduled for June 16. Previously, Pro users could receive 500 fast responses from advanced AI models such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, followed by unlimited responses at a slower speed. However, the new plan allows subscribers to get a monthly usage value of $20, with charges based on API rates. Users can use selected AI models within Cursor to perform programming tasks until reaching the $20 limit, after which they need to purchase additional credit to continue using the service. In the new plan, only Cursor's "Auto Mode" (which routes requests to AI models based on capacity) offers unlimited usage for Pro users.

Within a few weeks after the update, many Pro users complained on social media that their request quotas were quickly exhausted under the new plan, especially when using the Anthropic Claude model (widely popular for programming), where just a few prompts could deplete the quota. Some users also mentioned that they were unexpectedly charged extra fees because they did not fully understand the mechanism that would charge them if they exceeded the $20 limit without setting a spending cap.

Anysphere Promises Refunds and Explains the Reasons for the Adjustment

Anysphere stated it plans to refund all users who were unexpectedly charged and promised to clearly communicate future price changes. Truell explained in a blog post that the pricing adjustment was due to the fact that "new models consume more tokens per request when handling long-term tasks," meaning that some of the latest AI models have higher operational costs, especially when completing complex, multi-step tasks that require substantial time and computing resources. Cursor previously bore these costs under the old Pro plan, but now these costs have been shifted to users.

Notably, although the prices of many AI models have decreased, the most advanced models remain expensive. For example, Anthropic's recently launched Claude Opus4 model costs $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens, even exceeding Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro released in April. Additionally, OpenAI and Anthropic have recently started charging enterprise customers for "priority" access to AI models, further increasing the cost of AI coding tools.

Intensifying Competition in the AI Coding Tool Market

Cursor, one of the most successful AI products in the market, has an annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceeding $500 million, mainly from the Pro plan subscriptions. However, Cursor is facing intense competition from the AI providers it relies on. Anthropic's recently launched AI programming tool, Claude Code, is highly favored by enterprises, and its ARR has reportedly increased to $4 billion, potentially taking over some of Cursor's users. Last week, Cursor actively responded by hiring two employees from Anthropic who had previously worked on the development of Claude Code.

Despite the pressure, Cursor still needs to maintain cooperation with the most advanced model providers, at least until its self-developed models become more competitive. To this end, Anysphere has recently entered into multi-year agreements with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI, and launched a high-rate-limit Cursor Ultra plan priced at $200 per month. Jared Kaplan, co-founder of Anthropic, also expressed willingness to establish a long-term partnership with Cursor in an interview in June.

However, it is foreseeable that the cost and collaboration pressures between Cursor and AI model developers will continue to increase.