Is Cursor Worth Its Controversial New Price? A Founder’s Honest Review

A deep dive into the AI code editor’s powerful features, confusing pricing, and whether it’s still the king for solo developers.

My journey to Cursor started where many developers find themselves: hitting the limits of general-purpose AIs like ChatGPT for a serious project. While ChatGPT is great for isolated functions or CSS snippets, it starts to fall apart when you need an AI that understands the entire context of your application. I needed a partner that could read my entire codebase, manage multiple files, and help me build, not just answer questions.

This is the story of my first real month with Cursor, the AI-first code editor that promises to be that partner.

The Honeymoon Phase: The Free Trial

I started with Cursor’s 15-day free Pro trial. The initial experience was magical. The ability to highlight a block of code and simply ask the AI to “refactor this to use async/await” or “find the bug in this component” felt like a superpower. It understood my file structure, and for small projects, it was a dream.

However, as I started loading in a larger, more complex SaaS project, I began to notice a slowdown. The AI struggled to process the large codebase, and the performance lag became a bottleneck. This is what pushed me to make a decision: it was time to go Pro.

Going Pro: A 10-Hour, $10 Coding Sprint

I upgraded to the $20/month plan, which, under Cursor’s new pricing model, gives you a $20 credit for AI usage. On my very first day, I put it to the test with an intense, 10-hour coding session.

The difference was night and day. The performance was snappy, and the AI felt like a true pair programmer. It wrote code, refactored components, and debugged issues almost continuously. By the end of the day, I checked my usage: I had spent $10.08.

On one hand, getting what felt like a full day of a junior developer’s work for just $10 is an incredible deal. The productivity boost was undeniable. On the other hand, a thought lingered: if I code like this every day, this isn’t a $20/month tool; it’s a $200-$300/month tool.

The Elephant in the Room: Cursor’s Pricing Controversy

This brings us to the biggest issue with Cursor right now: its pricing. In August 2025, Cursor shifted from a simple request-based limit to a more complex, usage-based credit system. This caused a stir in the community, with many independent developers and those from regions with lower purchasing power finding the new model too expensive and unpredictable.

The Cursor team explained that as the AI models they use (like Claude 3 Sonnet and the upcoming GPT-5) become more powerful, they also become more expensive to run. They argue that the new system provides more overall value, even if it means heavy users of advanced models get fewer “requests” than before. While I understand their reasoning, for a bootstrapped founder, the unpredictability of the cost is a major concern.

The Verdict and My Path Forward

So, is Cursor worth it? My answer is nuanced.

• For short, intense sprints on complex projects? Absolutely. The value is immense.
• As an “always-on” daily driver for a bootstrapped founder? The cost can be a major, unpredictable variable.

For this reason, my plan is to use my remaining ~$10 of credit on Cursor to finish my current sprint. After that, I will be pausing my subscription and switching to claude-code. Based on community feedback, it’s built on a similar architecture, but many developers report that it’s more token-efficient and that the Claude AI model is generally superior for coding tasks.

Cursor is a phenomenal piece of technology that genuinely feels like the future of software development. However, its current pricing model forces founders like me to be more strategic, using it as a specialized “power tool” rather than an everyday hammer.

My experience with Cursor is just one piece of the larger “vibe coding” puzzle. This new development paradigm requires a different mindset and a new set of strategies. To help other founders navigate this, I’ve compiled all my findings into a comprehensive Vibe Coding Playbook on my blog, Shub. It’s a practical guide to the principles and rules of building software with AI agents.

Ultimately, Cursor is a phenomenal piece of technology that genuinely feels like the future of software development. However, its current pricing model forces developers to be more strategic, using it as a specialized “power tool” rather than an everyday hammer.