Cursor Free Plan: What Hobby Offers and How to Use It

👁 119 reads

Cursor’s free plan is called Hobby: a full editor with no credit card required, limited agent requests, and access to the Composer model. Cursor doesn’t specify exactly how many requests Hobby includes. The free 7-day Pro trial disappeared in January 2026, and the free year of Pro for students ended on June 25, 2026. Below, we break down what’s left and how to make the most of it. For a full description of the editor, see our Cursor guide.

What the Hobby Plan Includes

We checked on October 3, 2026 on Cursor’s pricing page and help center. Hobby includes:

• the full application for Windows, macOS, and Linux with import of settings and extensions from VS Code;
• agent, chat, and code completion (Tab) in limited capacity; the help center states that in Hobby these work with the Auto model;
• access to Composer, Cursor’s own model;
• a smaller set of models than paid plans;
• Privacy Mode, which guarantees your code isn’t used for training models; works on every plan.

Hobby is not time-limited and is not a student plan. Anyone can use it.

Hobby vs Pro

The Cloud Agents and MCP entries come from the pricing page, where Pro has a note “Everything in Hobby, plus” and lists them there. The help center doesn’t state this explicitly.

What Are the Limits in Hobby

Cursor only writes about “limited” usage and doesn’t give a number. Online, you’ll find values like “2000 completions and 50 premium requests,” but these come from a 2025 pricing page that’s no longer on the site. We’re not listing them as current.

What’s certain from the documentation:

• you can check your usage status in the panel at cursor.com, Spending tab;
• usage renews monthly, and unused portions don’t roll over to the next month;
• after exhausting the limit, the editor shows a notification and suggests upgrading to a higher plan;
• the editor, extensions, and manual work continue without restrictions.

Pro Trial: It’s Gone

Until the end of 2025, new accounts received a week of Pro for free. On January 13, 2026, a user asked on the Cursor forum if the trial had disappeared. A day later, a Cursor employee replied: “You’re right that we’ve removed the 7-day Pro trial,” and added that the free plan is for trying the product. The pricing page as of October 3 doesn’t mention a trial period. Some sites write about one-time promotions with a trial when creating an account, but we haven’t confirmed this.

Cursor for Students: Free Year Closed

From May 2025, students could get a year of Pro free after verification through SheerID. According to Cursor’s help center, Cursor closed new signups on June 25, 2026, because the program “became a target for fraud.” What this means:

• those who already activated the discount keep it until the end of the period, then pay the regular 20 USD monthly unless they cancel;
• undergraduate students will receive credits and discounts at campus and online events starting fall 2026;
• graduate students, doctoral candidates, researchers, and instructors can apply for credits through Cursor’s form.

Cursor’s site doesn’t list countries where events take place. For most students, the realistic options today are Hobby or the form for graduate and doctoral studies.

How Much It Costs When Hobby Isn’t Enough

On Cursor’s site, prices are in dollars, before tax. You can also buy a plan in the Cursor iPhone app. We checked app purchase prices on October 3, 2026:

Annual payment is only available on the website. Details on billing and usage pools are in our article How Much Cursor Costs.

How Not to Exceed the Hobby Limit

• One task, one conversation. A long conversation carries the entire history, so each subsequent command costs more.
• Point to files. Instead of “find the bug in the project,” point to a file with @ and describe the symptom. The agent reads less.
• Start with Ask or Plan mode. A question without file changes and a plan before code save on corrections.
• Rules instead of repetition. Save project conventions and response language in AGENTS.md or in Rules so you don’t paste them in every message. We show how to do this in our Cursor Step by Step tutorial.
• Minor changes manually. Rename a variable or fix a typo yourself; save the agent for tasks that save real time.
• Check the Spending tab after a few tasks to know how much is left until the end of the month.

Free Alternatives

If Hobby isn’t enough and you don’t want to pay, these tools have free plans. We checked prices and limits on October 3, 2026 on their sites.

A full comparison with paid plan prices is in our article Cursor Alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cursor completely free?

The editor is. AI features in the Hobby plan work in limited capacity, and full limits, all models, and cloud agents require the Pro plan at 20 USD monthly.

Does Cursor Pro have a free trial?

No. Cursor removed the 7-day Pro trial in January 2026. The Hobby plan is for trying the editor.

Can a student get Cursor Pro for free?

Not through the old program, as signups closed on June 25, 2026. Graduate and doctoral students can apply for credits through Cursor’s form.

Google · Your sourcesQuantslant higher in your Google - one clickAdd to preferred sources →

Sources

• Cursor: pricing
• Cursor: plans in help center
• Cursor: usage and limits
• Cursor: models and billing
• Cursor: end of student discount
• Cursor forum: Pro trial removal
• App Store: Cursor
• GitHub Copilot: plans
• Zed: pricing

Checked October 3, 2026.