Windsurf vs Cursor: what every plan costs, and what a seat does not include
Windsurf and Cursor are both AI coding editors sold by the seat. On 2026-09-09 both list Pro at $20 a month for an individual. Cursor also lists Pro+ at $60 and Ultra at $200, read from cursor.com/pricing. Windsurf lists Max at $200 and no $60 middle tier. Those Windsurf figures were read from windsurf.com/pricing, which redirected to devin.ai/pricing, on 2026-09-09.
The sticker price is not the whole bill on either product. Cursor's own pricing page says every plan includes a set amount of model usage. On-demand usage past that amount continues and is billed in arrears. Windsurf's live pricing page says each paid plan includes a usage allowance that refreshes on a daily and weekly basis. Quota varies by model, task, and reasoning. Extra usage on a paid Windsurf plan is purchased at API pricing.
That structure is what a per-seat editor charge looks like once agents do the typing. Empyre prices a different unit and appears further down for that contrast, not as a substitute for an editor.
Cursor plans, as published on 2026-09-09
| Plan | Price | What the page says it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby | Free | The tinkerer. No credit card, limited Agent requests, access to Composer. |
| Pro | $20 / mo | Individual use. Extended Agent limits, frontier models, MCPs, cloud agents. |
| Pro+ | $60 / mo | Cursor recommends it for daily agent users. |
| Ultra | $200 / mo | Cursor recommends it for agent power users. |
| Teams | $40 / user / mo | Centralized billing and administration, shared team context. |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Invoicing, pooled usage, advanced security. Listed as Custom, not a dollar amount. |
Windsurf plans, as published on 2026-09-09
| Plan | Price | What the page says it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Light quota for coding with agents, and limited model availability. Unlimited inline edits and unlimited Tab completions. |
| Pro | $20 / mo | Increased quotas, including OpenAI, Claude and Gemini frontier models. Full model availability. Free SWE 1.7 and leading open-source models. Devin Cloud agents. Extra usage at API pricing. |
| Max | $200 / mo | Everything in Pro, plus significantly higher quotas. |
| Teams | $80 / mo for the team plan, plus $40 / mo per full developer seat | Collaboration, centralized billing and admin analytics. Priority support. |
| Enterprise | Let's talk | Quoted. The page lists SSO and a dedicated deploy option. It does not print a price. |
Where the compare table disagrees with the live pricing page
Windsurf's live pricing page on 2026-09-09 prices Teams at $80 a month for the team plan plus $40 a month per full developer seat. That URL is windsurf.com/pricing, which redirected to devin.ai/pricing.
The compare table at windsurf.com/compare/windsurf-vs-cursor, fetched on 2026-09-09, lists Teams at $40 per user per month for both products. That compare page has no as-of date. Its footer is copyright 2025.
The live pricing page is the figure used in the table above. The compare table's $40-only Teams line is named so a stale figure is visible as stale.
The same compare table lists Free as a two-week Pro trial on both sides. Cursor's own pricing page lists a free Hobby plan. Windsurf's live pricing page lists Free at $0.
The compare table also labels Cursor's $200 plan as Max with 20x usage. Cursor's own pricing page names that tier Ultra.
Cursor's FAQ says all prices are exclusive of any applicable taxes. Windsurf's live pricing page did not state whether its prices include tax.
Windsurf vs Cursor, on the numbers that both publish
| Windsurf | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit being sold | A seat in an editor | A seat in an editor |
| Free tier | $0, light quota, unlimited Tab | Hobby, no credit card |
| Entry paid price | $20 / mo Pro | $20 / mo Pro |
| Middle individual tier | None listed | Pro+ at $60 / mo |
| Power-user individual tier | Max at $200 / mo | Ultra at $200 / mo |
| Teams | $80 / mo team plan + $40 / mo per full developer seat | $40 / user / mo |
| Usage model | Daily and weekly quota, not credits | Included model usage per plan |
| Past the allowance | Extra usage at API pricing | On-demand usage, billed in arrears |
Why the monthly price is a floor, not a ceiling
A seat used to be a predictable line item. An editor cost the same whether you opened it twice a week or lived in it, because what you paid for was the software rather than the work.
Model usage broke that on both products. Cursor states it plainly: each plan includes an amount of usage, and past it you keep going on demand and are billed afterwards.
Windsurf states a different mechanism with the same shape. Paid plans include a quota that refreshes daily and weekly. The quota varies by model, task, and reasoning. Past it, extra usage is bought at API pricing.
So a heavy month and a quiet month cost different amounts. If a fixed number matters to your budgeting, plan against the plan price plus what your own past months of extra usage came to.
Four questions that decide the plan, in order
Each one is answerable before spending anything, and each one moves you between the tiers above:
Do you already have a repository and an engineer in it?
Both products are editors. They make the person at the keyboard faster. They do not create the company around the repo.
How often does an agent do the work rather than you?
Cursor's own recommendation splits on exactly this. Pro+ is named for daily agent users and Ultra for agent power users. Windsurf splits the same way with Pro and Max, and lists no $60 step between them.
Does anyone else need to see the bill?
Cursor Teams at $40 per user exists for centralized billing. Windsurf Teams, on the live pricing page, is $80 for the team plan plus $40 per full developer seat.
Do you need an invoice rather than a card?
Cursor's page says self-serve plans take cards, and that invoicing is the Enterprise conversation. Windsurf's Enterprise row is Let's talk. That one requirement moves an otherwise small team off the price list.
What a seat does not include
An editor subscription buys help writing code. It does not buy the deployment, the sign-in, the payment path, the customer mail, the legal pages, or the person who notices in week six that nothing has shipped.
Those were never Cursor's job and it does not claim them. They were never Windsurf's job either. Both are the right tool for a working engineer.
A $20 seat that removes hours of typing is cheap for that job. The gap only matters if the reason you are typing at all is that there is no engineer. What you want then is a product with customers, not a codebase.
Two different things being priced
| An editor seat (Windsurf or Cursor) | Empyre | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit being sold | A seat in an editor | A company being built and operated |
| Who does the work | You, assisted | Eight agents, each on its own schedule |
| Free tier | A limited editor seat, no card | A build and a deploy, no card |
| Entry paid price | $20 / mo | $49 / mo |
| What the paid tier buys | Included model usage or quota | A monthly AI spend budget the CFO agent gates before work runs |
| Past the allowance | Extra usage, billed or bought at API pricing | Work stops until the cycle turns over, or credits are topped up |
Where Empyre's version of this costs more, and where it stops
Empyre's paid plans are $49, $149 and $299 a month, and half of each is the AI spend budget the agents work inside: $25, $75 and $150 respectively. Building and deploying a first company is free and takes no card.
The honest limit belongs in the same paragraph as the price. Empyre has 44 signups, 4 companies created and 1 company live, measured on 2026-09-04. Three of the four paying customers have never reached a working product, and 34 of the 44 accounts never finished onboarding.
The comparison is therefore not that one number is smaller. A $20 editor seat reliably does what it says. A $49 plan that operates a business is a larger claim, held by a platform with one live generated company to point at. That difference in certainty is part of the price.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Windsurf or Cursor?
Individual Pro is $20 a month on both, read on 2026-09-09. Cursor then has Pro+ at $60. Windsurf has no listed plan between $20 and $200. Teams is not the same shape. Cursor lists $40 per user per month. Windsurf's live pricing page, at devin.ai/pricing via windsurf.com/pricing, lists $80 for the team plan plus $40 per full developer seat. The compare table, fetched on 2026-09-09, still lists Teams at $40 per user per month.
Does Windsurf have a free plan?
Yes. Windsurf's live pricing page lists Free at $0, read on 2026-09-09 from windsurf.com/pricing, which redirected to devin.ai/pricing. It includes a light quota for coding with agents, and limited model availability. Inline edits and Tab completions are unlimited.
Does Cursor have a free plan?
Yes. The Hobby plan is free, needs no credit card, and comes with limited Agent requests and access to Composer, per Cursor's pricing page on 2026-09-09.
Does Cursor charge extra beyond the plan price?
It can. Cursor's page says every plan includes a set amount of model usage, and that on-demand usage past that amount continues and is billed in arrears. Prices are exclusive of tax.
Does Windsurf charge extra beyond the plan price?
It can. Windsurf's live pricing page says each paid plan includes a usage allowance that refreshes daily and weekly. Quota varies by model, task, and reasoning. If you go beyond the included usage on a paid plan, extra usage is purchased at API pricing.
Is Windsurf the same product as Devin?
windsurf.com/pricing redirected to devin.ai/pricing on 2026-09-09. The list prices on that page are the figures used here. A second, separate Windsurf price list was not published at that URL.
Is Windsurf or Cursor a substitute for an AI business platform?
They are not. Both make an engineer faster inside a repository. A platform like Empyre exists for the case where there is no engineer, and the missing pieces are deployment, sign-in, payments and everything after launch.
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