Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: which costs less per month?

What are Cursor and GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is GitHub's AI coding assistant, sold as a per-seat subscription that plugs into VS Code, JetBrains, and other editors. Paid plans add cloud agents, code review, and access to third-party agents. Cursor is an AI-first code editor built by Anysphere, sold as a monthly subscription with its own agent, Composer, cloud agents, and a CLI.

Both are tools a developer or a team pays for monthly, which is why the cursor vs github copilot comparison gets so much traffic. The short version of this page: at the individual tier Copilot is cheaper, at the top tier Cursor is more expensive, and both now bundle access to the same frontier models, including Claude and GPT.

GitHub Copilot pricing, verified

GitHub lists four individual plans on its official plans page (verified August 10, 2026).

• Free ($0): 2,000 completions per month, access to Haiku 4.5 and GPT-5 mini, Copilot CLI, community support.
• Pro ($10 per user per month): everything in Free plus a cloud agent, code review, unlimited code completion, access to third-party agents (Claude Code and Codex), model selection, and $15 monthly total credits.
• Pro+ ($39 per user per month): everything in Pro plus premium models including Opus, audit logs, 4x+ included usage versus Pro, and $70 monthly total credits.
• Max ($100 per user per month): everything in Pro+ plus priority access to new models, 2.9x+ included usage versus Pro+, and $200 monthly total credits.

GitHub also sells business plans where usage from users without a Copilot license is billed to the organization as GitHub AI Credits.

Cursor pricing, verified

Cursor's pricing page (verified August 10, 2026) shows five tiers for individuals and teams.

• Hobby (free): no credit card required, limited agent requests, access to Composer.
• Pro ($20 per month): extended agent limits, generous limits for Grok and Composer, access to frontier models, MCPs, skills, and hooks, cloud agents, and Bugbot on usage-based billing.
• Pro+ ($60 per month): the tier between Pro and Ultra for heavier individual usage.
• Ultra ($200 per month): the highest individual tier for sustained agent-heavy workflows.
• Teams ($40 per user per month): everything on Individual plus centralized team billing and administration, a team marketplace for internal rules, skills, and plugins, and agentic code reviews.

Cursor's Enterprise tier is custom-priced and adds usage aggregation, SCIM seat management, access controls, and audit logs.

Claude Code and Codex: the other two routes to AI coding

Two more options now appear in most cost comparisons, and both are reachable through the plans above.

Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent. It is not sold as a standalone plan; it ships inside Claude's consumer subscriptions, verified on the Anthropic pricing page August 10, 2026: Pro at $17 per month with annual billing ($200 billed up front) or $20 billed monthly, and Max from $100 per month with 5x or 20x usage options. If a team already pays for Claude, Claude Code adds no marginal seat cost.

OpenAI Codex is available through ChatGPT plans and as an API. The API pricing page (verified August 10, 2026) prices the coding model gpt-5.3-codex at $1.75 per 1M input tokens, $0.175 cached input, and $14.00 per 1M output tokens on the standard tier, doubling to $3.50 / $28.00 in Fast mode.

GitHub Copilot's Pro tier explicitly includes access to both Claude Code and Codex as third-party agents, which makes it a single subscription that touches all four ecosystems.

The honest catch: credits, overage, and per-token math

Sticker prices miss three things that show up on real invoices.

• Copilot's premium models run on credits. The $15 monthly credits on Pro and $70 on Pro+ cap how much premium-model usage is included; heavier usage bills on top. GitHub's own pricing page frames Max as the plan for sustained, high-volume agent workflows.
• Cursor's usage-based items are separate. Bugbot is billed on usage, and the jump from Pro at $20 to Pro+ at $60 is steep for individuals who only occasionally hit agent limits.
• Per-seat versus per-token is the real fork. Copilot and Cursor charge per seat per month. Codex charges per token ($1.75 / $14 per 1M). Claude Code rides a subscription tier. A team that runs agents 8 hours a day may pay less per token; a team with light usage overpays on per-seat plans.

What Databricks found about AI coding costs

Databricks published 'Managing AI Coding Costs at Scale' on August 7, 2026, after seeing agentic coding spend grow at an unsustainable rate internally and in conversations with Stripe, Coinbase, Uber, and Ramp. The post says the spend curve, left unchecked, will eventually overtake revenue, and lays out four cost levers.

• Move to open source and lower-cost models: Databricks benchmarked cheaper models internally and rolled GLM out to its developers after seeing competitive price/performance.
• Dynamic request and task routing: send simple tasks to cheap models and hard tasks to frontier models instead of one model for everything.
• Visibility, tripwires, and budgets: give developers per-task cost visibility and hard budget stops.
• Reduce token overhead: an AI Gateway pattern that trims prompt bloat and caching waste.

Databricks labels the savings numbers in its post as directional, based on an informal survey rather than controlled benchmarks, so treat the percentages as guidance, not measured results.

Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: which should you pick?

The decision is mostly about budget tier and ecosystem, not model quality, because both tools now reach the same frontier models.

• Pick GitHub Copilot Pro at $10/user/mo when cost is the constraint. It is half the price of Cursor Pro and includes Claude Code and Codex access plus $15 monthly credits.
• Pick Cursor Pro at $20/mo when you want the agent-first editor experience (Composer, cloud agents, MCPs) rather than an assistant bolted onto your existing editor.
• Pick Copilot Max at $100 or Cursor Ultra at $200 only for sustained high-volume agent workflows; for most teams Pro is the value tier.
• Teams on GitHub: Copilot's per-seat business pricing with AI Credits for non-licensed users is easier to administer inside GitHub. Teams that want a shared marketplace of internal rules should compare Cursor Teams at $40/user/mo.
• Already paying for Claude? Claude Code is included in Claude Pro and Max, so the marginal cost is zero.

If the team's real problem is runaway spend rather than tool choice, apply Databricks' four levers (cheaper models, routing, budgets, token overhead) before adding seats to any plan.

At a glance

AI coding assistant pricing, verified August 10, 2026 on each vendor's official pricing page

FAQ

Is Cursor cheaper than GitHub Copilot?

No, at the comparable paid tiers Copilot wins: Pro is $10 per user per month versus Cursor Pro at $20 per month. Both have free tiers (Copilot Free with 2,000 completions monthly, Cursor Hobby). At the top, Copilot Max at $100 undercuts Cursor Ultra at $200. All prices verified on the official pages August 10, 2026.

Does GitHub Copilot include Claude Code?

Yes. GitHub's plans page states Copilot Pro includes access to third-party agents, naming Claude Code and Codex explicitly, plus $15 monthly total credits on the standard tier. Premium Claude models such as Opus are included from the Pro+ tier at $39 per user per month.

Is Claude Code free?

No, Claude Code is not a standalone free tool. It ships inside Claude's paid consumer plans: Pro at $17 per month with annual billing or $20 billed monthly, and Max from $100 per month with 5x or 20x usage options, per the Anthropic pricing page verified August 10, 2026.

Related reading

ChatGPT vs Claude pricing, Claude tool profile, Radar index

Sources

• GitHub Copilot plans (official)
• Cursor pricing (official)
• Anthropic pricing (official)
• OpenAI API pricing (official)
• Databricks: Managing AI Coding Costs at Scale
• Hacker News discussion