Cursor just joined The X Subscription. Here's what actually changes for you

On October 12, Cursor folded into something called The X Subscription: one monthly plan, from $8 to $200, that covers Cursor, Grok, and X Premium under a single bill. If you're happy using Grok's models for your coding work, this is a genuinely good deal. If you lean on Claude or GPT inside Cursor, read the fine print before you touch that upgrade button.

I spent the day going through xAI's pricing page, Cursor's own posts, and a pile of coverage to figure out what's actually different versus what's just repackaged marketing. Here's the breakdown.

The short version

If you're new to Cursor, you now buy it as part of The X Subscription: five tiers that bundle Cursor, Grok (xAI's chatbot and coding models), and X Premium into one bill, with a single usage pool shared across all three.

The good part: Cursor says paid plans get at least twice the coding usage on Grok models compared with the equivalent old Cursor plan. The catch: those plans no longer include an allowance for models from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google. You can still pick Claude or GPT inside Cursor, but you're paying API list prices for them on top of your monthly fee, and that bill arrives separately.

How we got here

This didn't come out of nowhere. SpaceX agreed to buy Cursor's parent company, Anysphere, in an all-stock deal worth $60 billion, announced June 16, 2026 (we covered the original deal here). The acquisition closed on August 14. That same day, Cursor said it would join the @SpaceXAI team to help build out Grok Build, Grok Bot, the Grok API, and Cursor itself.

The supply of outside models got shakier fast after that. On August 28, OpenAI said it plans to end its contract providing models to Cursor, effective November 12, 2026, pointing to a change-of-control clause and doubts about whether a Musk-owned company would stick to its usage terms. So if you're one of the people running Grok Build alongside GPT models in Cursor, mark that date now.

Then on October 12, Cursor announced the bundle. And honestly, once you know OpenAI was already walking out the door, the timing makes a lot more sense.

Cursor has also been here before. In June 2025 it moved its $20 Pro plan from fixed fast-request allotments to usage billed at API rates, and CEO Michael Truell publicly apologized a few weeks later for how badly the rollout was explained, including offering refunds for surprise charges. This time, third-party models are once again billed at API rates. Cursor seems to have learned to put the warning in bold this time, at least.

The new plans

Here are the five tiers, straight from xAI's pricing page. Usage is measured against Plus, and allowances refresh weekly, so one heavy coding day won't torch your whole month.

Prices are before tax. Annual billing is cheaper across the board: Plus runs $80 a year, Premium $300, Super $1,000, and Ultra $2,000. Team plans charge the same per-seat rates as the individual tiers ($30, $100, $200) with added SSO and admin controls, and Enterprise pricing is custom.

For context, xAI's own comparison says Premium bundles what SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+ used to cost separately: $90 a month. At $30, that's a real discount if you were already paying for two or three of those products.

The catch: other companies' models now cost extra

This is the part of the announcement that's easy to skim past. Cursor says third-party models move to API pricing on the new plans "to make room for more Grok usage." Translation: Grok got cheaper to use, and everything else got more expensive to keep around.

In plain terms:

• Plus only works with Grok models inside Cursor. No Claude, no GPT, no Gemini.
• Premium, Super, and Ultra include generous Grok usage but no allowance for third-party models. Claude, GPT, and the rest stay available at API list price, billed separately through top-ups. You can set spending caps so this doesn't run away from you.
• If you already pay for Cursor, nothing forces your hand. Existing subscribers keep their plan, price, and included third-party usage until they actively switch over. New bundle subscribers pay API rates from their very first request.

So the headline price is only half the story. If most of your Cursor work runs on Grok models already, the bundle is a straightforward win. If you mostly reach for Claude or GPT, add your expected API spend to the plan price before you compare anything.

Who comes out ahead, and who should think twice

This is my read of the published terms, not a hands-on week with the new plans, so treat it as a starting point rather than gospel.

Likely to come out ahead

• Anyone already paying for Grok or X Premium who also uses Cursor. One bill replaces several, and that $90-versus-$30 comparison from xAI is a real number, not a marketing stretch.
• Developers who are fine working with Grok models day to day. They get double the coding usage for the same tier price.
• Light users. Plus at $8 is well below Cursor's old $20 Pro price, as long as Grok's models cover what you need.

Worth a second look before switching

• Anyone who relies on Claude, GPT, or Gemini inside Cursor for daily work. Those models are now pay-as-you-go on top of the plan, and that adds up fast on a big codebase. Claude Opus 5 alone isn't cheap at API rates if you're running it constantly.
• Anyone who wants a predictable monthly bill. API-priced usage scales with how much you actually use, and Cursor's 2025 pricing mess is a pretty good preview of how fast that can surprise you.
• Anyone who'd rather not tie their coding tool to an X account. These plans are sold as an X bundle, and X features show up in every tier, even the ones aimed squarely at developers.

What to do this week

1. Do nothing if you're happy. Current Cursor subscribers keep their plan. There's no deadline forcing a decision here.
2. Check which models you actually use. Grok-heavy work favors the new plans without much thought. Claude- or GPT-heavy work needs a real cost estimate first, not a guess.
3. If you switch, match the tier to your habits. Premium covers casual coding and chat. Super makes sense once you're running agents daily. Ultra is for people who want first access to everything and don't mind paying for it.
4. Set a spending cap on third-party models so a long debugging session doesn't turn into a surprise charge.
5. Mark November 12 if you use OpenAI models in Cursor. That's when OpenAI says its contract ends, separate from anything in this bundle.
6. Buy only from the official pricing page. Cursor has said plainly that it doesn't authorize resellers, and accounts bought elsewhere can get suspended.

If you want the roadmap context behind why Grok is getting this much investment right now, our piece on Grok 4.6 and the Composer 3 leak out of Cursor are both worth a read.

My honest take: this is a smart move for xAI and a fine deal for Grok loyalists. It's a worse deal than it looks for anyone who built their workflow around Anthropic or OpenAI models in Cursor, because the subscription price no longer tells you what you'll actually pay. Do the math on your own usage before you click upgrade.

Watch

Sources

I read xAI's pricing page and Cursor's own posts directly. Some secondary details, including the exact annual prices and Team-plan terms, came from news coverage and may shift slightly as the rollout continues.