How to Get Cursor Pro for Free in 2026 (What Still Works)
Short answer: a new account cannot get Cursor Pro free, verified October 2026. Cursor closed new student-discount sign-ups on June 25, 2026, and its pricing page lists no paid-plan trial. Pro at $20/mo remains a legacy plan for current subscribers. Cursor maps that plan to Premium at $30/mo, not to Plus at $8/mo, which is Grok-only. The Free plan, campus-event credits, and a credits request for graduate students, researchers, and educators are what still cost nothing.
The expensive mistake this year is treating "Pro" as a plan you can still start. Cursor folded new subscriptions into The X Subscription, one subscription for Grok, Cursor, and X, and it left the old plan names on accounts that already had them. If a guide still tells you to upload a student ID for a free year, it is describing an offer Cursor has ended.
Dupple data: Toolradar, our software directory, evaluates 157 AI coding tools as of October 15, 2026, on its AI coding rankings. Cursor is the most cross-shopped name in that set, listed as an alternative to 140 other tools.
Which routes are still free?
| Route | Who qualifies | What you get | Status (Oct 2026) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Anyone | Agent, Chat, and Tab on Cursor models, with a cap Cursor does not number | Open | Pricing |
| Student discount | New students | The old free student year | Closed to new sign-ups on June 25, 2026 | Student discount |
| Existing student rate | People who already redeemed | That rate until the plan expires, then the regular price | Still honored | Student discount |
| Campus events | Undergraduates | Credits and discounts. Cursor publishes no amounts | Events this fall | Students |
| Credits request | Master's students, PhD candidates, researchers, and educators | A request form. No approval terms are published | Form open | Request credits |
| Paid-plan trial | New customers | Nothing listed on the pricing page | Not offered | Pricing |
Every row was read on Cursor's own pages on October 15, 2026. None of them hands a new customer the old Pro plan at no charge. The rest of this guide says who each row actually fits, what Plus leaves out, and what it costs to pay honestly.
Is the Cursor student discount still available?
No, not for a new sign-up. Cursor discontinued new sign-ups for the legacy student discount on June 25, 2026. The student discount help page says the program had become a target for fraud and had held Cursor back from reaching students globally. If you already redeemed it, you keep that rate until the plan expires. The subscription then continues at the regular price unless you cancel. On a legacy Pro plan, that price is the monthly Pro rate in the table below, and the page does not promise a second free year.
Undergraduates get event credits, not a free year
Cursor's students page says anyone can start for free, and that upgrades come from promotions at on-campus and online events this fall. The help page says undergraduates can claim credits and discounts at those events. Neither page publishes an amount, a percentage, or a campus list. The campus newsletter is where Cursor says it will announce events. A .edu login does not turn the offer on by itself, and "this fall" is the only window the page states.
Graduate students, researchers, and educators can request credits
Master's students, PhD candidates, academic researchers, and educators can request credits. Cursor does not say how many credits, which plan they apply to, how long a review takes, or what a denial looks like. Send the form if you are in that group, and do not plan a semester around an approval you have not received.
What does the Cursor free plan include?
The Free plan costs nothing and includes Agent, Chat, and Tab completions with Cursor models, which the billing help names as Grok and Composer. Cursor's pricing page calls the same tier limited agent requests and limited chat requests. Cursor does not publish a numeric cap, so a blog that states one is adding a figure Cursor has not.
Free includes Agent. It does not include cloud agents and automations, code hosting via Origin, AI code reviews via Bugbot, or third-party models. Hobby, the old free plan, is closed to new customers and still matches Free for people who have it. Moving a Hobby account onto The X Subscription is permanent, so stay on Hobby unless you want a paid tier. Free is enough for learning the editor. It runs out when you need a background agent, a pull-request review, or a model other than Grok or Composer.
Does Cursor have a free trial?
Cursor's pricing page lists no free trial for any paid plan, and it states no trial length. Guides that promise a 14-day Pro trial are repeating a claim that page does not make. Past the Free plan, a new customer buys The X Subscription on a major credit or debit card.
A reseller login is not a trial. The pricing FAQ says subscriptions bought from anyone but X Subscription Corp may be suspended. The Free plan is the no-card option, and paying for Plus in case a trial appears is how people land on the Grok-only tier.
How much does Cursor cost in 2026?
New customers choose a plan on The X Subscription. Current subscribers can stay on legacy Cursor plans, which keep their price and features until they switch or cancel. Prices below exclude tax. They were read on October 15, 2026 from Cursor's billing help and the pricing page.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Comparable legacy plan | What you actually get for coding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | None listed | Hobby | Agent, Chat, and Tab. Usage is limited, with no number published |
| Plus | $8/mo | $80/yr | Start, India only | Grok models only, at fixed settings. No Auto, cloud agents, Bugbot, Origin, or third-party models |
| Premium | $30/mo | $300/yr | Pro at $20/mo | 4x Plus usage, plus cloud agents, Bugbot, and Origin. Third-party models are billed extra |
| Super | $100/mo | $1,000/yr | Pro+ at $60/mo | 15x Plus usage, and priority model access at peak times |
| Ultra | $200/mo | $2,000/yr | Ultra | 50x Plus usage, and earliest access to products and models |
| Teams | $30, $100, or $200 per seat/mo | Not listed | Teams Standard and Teams Premium, existing subscribers | Usage matches the seat's tier. Adds admin, SSO, and shared billing |
| Enterprise | No public price | Contact sales | None listed | Pooled usage, SCIM, audit logs, and invoice billing |
On our arithmetic from those list prices, twelve monthly Plus payments come to $96, which is $16 more than the annual price in the table. Twelve monthly Premium payments come to $360. A year of legacy Pro comes to $240, so the annual Premium price is $60 above that year, and annual Plus is $160 below it. The cheaper bill is the Grok-only plan. It is not the plan Cursor lines up with Pro.
Two billing details change the real cost. The included pool refreshes weekly and is shared across Cursor and Grok, so a heavy Grok day spends the coding allowance. Third-party models are not included in the monthly price. Cursor's pricing page does not list a top-off price: you wait for the weekly refresh, or you buy one at the rate the dashboard shows that day.
Cursor recommends Premium for new AI users, Super for daily agent users, and Ultra for power users. It recommends Plus for social creators with limited AI usage.
Does Plus replace Cursor Pro?
No. Cursor's comparison table maps legacy Pro to Premium, and it maps Plus to Start, an India-only plan at ₹649/mo, tax inclusive, priced in rupees. People who already have Pro can move from Pro to Pro+ without joining The X Subscription.
Plus runs Grok at fixed settings, with Fast off and effort at medium, and without Auto. On individual plans, Auto's Cost mode bills as a Cursor-model request from the weekly pool. Plus also excludes cloud agents, automations, Bugbot, Origin, and third-party models. Premium adds them, then charges third-party models at API list price from prepaid credit.
Legacy plans include two monthly pools, one for Cursor models and one for other models, plus on-demand usage after the included requests. Comparable means the counterpart Cursor names, which is a different pool from the old "other models" allowance. If you used Pro for Claude or GPT inside the editor, those models become a separate charge on Premium.
Buy Plus when Grok and Composer are enough. Buy Premium when you want the feature set Cursor associates with Pro, and budget extra for any other model. A lower Plus price is a bad reason for someone already on legacy Pro to switch.
What if you already pay for Pro?
Stay unless a Premium feature is worth leaving the legacy price. Switching is optional: the old plan, price, and features continue until you change or cancel. If you switch, Cursor cancels the subscription with a prorated refund, you pick an X Subscription plan, and the change is permanent. Legacy billing is at cursor.com/dashboard/billing. The X Subscription is at grok.com/dashboard/billing.
Annual billing is the published discount on new plans. On a legacy plan the dashboard can move you to yearly billing, and you cannot return to monthly until that period ends. No coupon sits on the switch.
Student-discount holders keep the redeemed rate until expiry. A legacy Pro plan then continues at its regular monthly price unless you cancel at least 24 hours before renewal. Switching away for the prorated refund means giving up a plan Cursor will not sell again, and a new signup cannot join the old rate.
What does not work
Cursor's pricing page and billing help do not list a promo code, a referral discount, or a grant for open-source maintainers. The pricing FAQ says subscriptions bought from anyone but X Subscription Corp are unauthorized and may be suspended. A shared login hands a stranger your repository context, and survey pages that promise Pro are not on cursor.com.
Grok API access, which paid plans include, is billed at standard model rates and does not draw from the Cursor usage pool or turn on Bugbot and cloud agents. India-only Start is a real legacy plan. Cursor limits it to India, so it is not a cheaper Plus for a US reader. If the route is not the Free plan, an event, or the credits form, it is not a free Cursor Pro.
What are the free alternatives to Cursor?
These are other editors and agents with a free tier of their own. They do not add a Cursor plan to your account. If the job is AI in the editor without a Cursor invoice, two vendor-published options are concrete.
GitHub Copilot Free is limited to 2,000 completions per month, and GitHub's plans page also caps it at 50 chat requests, including Copilot Edits. GitHub's plan docs say Copilot Free and Copilot Student can use models only through auto model selection, and that Free is for individual developers who do not already get Copilot through an organization. Copilot Pro is $10 a month. Verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects may get that Pro plan free, and GitHub reevaluates eligibility every month. Verified students get Copilot Student, which is free access to Copilot's features, not a Cursor seat. Teachers and maintainers start from GitHub's teacher and maintainer page.
Gemini CLI is Google's open-source terminal agent. Its README lists 60 requests a minute and 1,000 requests a day with a personal Google account, described there as Gemini 3 in a mix of Flash and Pro. The quota page, updated June 18, 2026, agrees on 1,000 requests a day for a Google account, and it sets an unpaid API key at 250 requests a day on Flash only. Demand can still hold requests back. The per-minute figure is the README's. The quota page states the daily caps.
Copilot Free fits inline completions in an IDE you already use. Gemini CLI fits a terminal agent with a daily cap. Neither one is Cursor's Tab, agent, or Bugbot. Claude Code vs Cursor and Cursor vs Windsurf compare the editors. Best Cursor alternatives and best free AI coding assistants cover the wider field, and Toolradar's Cursor page collects pricing and alternatives.
If none of this covers you
Use Free until the unpublished cap blocks a real task, then pay for Premium if you need the feature set Cursor associates with Pro, or Plus if Grok models are enough. Annual billing is the only new-plan discount on the pricing pages. For another assistant's free year, see how to get Claude Pro for free, how to get ChatGPT Plus for free, how to get Gemini Pro for free, and how to get Perplexity Pro for free. How to use AI for coding and best AI coding assistant compare workflows. AI tool discounts tracks other discounts, and best free AI tools is the wider free list.
Methodology
Every Cursor route and price above was read on cursor.com on October 15, 2026: the pricing page, the billing and plans help page, the student discount help page, and the students page. Yearly totals such as a year of legacy Pro, twelve months of Plus, and twelve months of Premium are our arithmetic from those list prices, not a second price Cursor prints. Copilot limits come from GitHub's plans page and plan docs. Gemini CLI limits come from the project's README and quota page. The Toolradar counts come from its AI coding rankings on the same day. Cursor can change or end any of this, so open the linked page before you pay or apply.
FAQ
Can I still get Cursor Pro for free in 2026?
Not as a new signup. Cursor closed the student discount to new sign-ups on June 25, 2026, and the pricing page lists no paid-plan trial. What still costs nothing is the Free plan, undergraduate credits at campus events this fall, and a credits request for master's students, PhD candidates, researchers, and educators. Existing student-discount holders keep their rate until that plan expires.
Is the Cursor student discount still available?
Only if you already redeemed it. New sign-ups stopped on June 25, 2026. Undergraduates can still look for credits at on-campus and online events, and Cursor does not publish the amounts. Graduate students, researchers, and educators can submit a credits request, with no approval terms on the page.
Does Cursor have a free trial?
The pricing page does not list a trial for Plus, Premium, Super, Ultra, or Teams. A 14-day Pro trial shows up in third-party guides and not on Cursor's pricing page. The Free plan is the no-card option, and Cursor does not publish how many agent or chat requests it includes.
How much does Cursor Pro cost now?
Legacy Pro is $20 a month for existing subscribers, which is $240 over a year on our arithmetic. New customers cannot buy Pro. Cursor maps it to Premium at $30/mo, or $300 a year. Plus is $8/mo, or $80 a year, and it includes Grok models only. Prices exclude tax, as of October 2026.
Is Plus the replacement for Cursor Pro?
No. Cursor's billing help maps legacy Pro to Premium, and it maps Plus to the India-only Start plan. Plus leaves out Auto, cloud agents, Bugbot, Origin, and third-party models. Premium adds them, then bills third-party models separately at API list price.
What are free alternatives to paying for Cursor?
GitHub Copilot Free includes 2,000 completions per month and 50 chat requests. Copilot Pro is $10 a month, and verified teachers and popular open-source maintainers may get it free. Verified students get Copilot Student rather than a Cursor plan. Gemini CLI's README lists 60 requests a minute and 1,000 a day with a personal Google account. An unpaid Gemini API key is 250 requests a day on Flash only.
What happens after a Cursor student discount year ends?
The subscription continues at the regular price unless you cancel. On a legacy Pro plan, Cursor's help page sets that price at $20 a month. Cancel at least 24 hours before renewal if you do not want the next charge. Switching from that legacy plan onto The X Subscription is permanent.
Cite this: Dupple, "How to Get Cursor Pro for Free in 2026 (What Still Works)", October 2026.
The free Cursor Pro year is over for new students, and Plus is a Grok-only plan beside it. Keep a legacy Pro plan if you have one, use the Free plan or a campus credit if you qualify, and otherwise compare Premium's bill with Copilot or Gemini CLI before you pay. Start a Dupple X trial →
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