Continue vs Cursor — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Continue starts at Free. Cursor starts at $20/mo. Continue is $20/mo cheaper on the entry tier than Cursor.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Continue (Per Seat) — Continue bills on a fixed plan, so the listed price is what you pay regardless of volume.
- Cursor (Hybrid) — Cursor is hybrid: a fixed subscription from $20/mo plus metered usage on top (Pro). Your real bill moves with volume, not seat count.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Open-source AI code assistant that runs as an extension in VS Code, JetBrains, and other editors. Individual use is free (BYOK for LLM). Continue for Teams costs $10/user/mo and adds shared prompts, custom AI blocks, and analytics. Enterprise adds SSO, on-prem, and custom integrations. Positioned as the open-source alternative to GitHub Copilot with full customization of models and prompts.
AI-first code editor built on VS Code, and the reference product in the AI-coding category. Every paid plan includes a credit pool equal to the subscription price, consumed by AI operations at underlying LLM token cost. Pricing: Hobby free, Pro $20/mo, Pro+ $60/mo, Ultra $200/mo, Teams $40/user/mo, Enterprise custom. Annual billing ~20% off. Powers Anysphere's growth to $500M+ ARR.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Continue monthly | Continue annual | Cursor monthly | Cursor annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | — / Hobby | — | — | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | — / Pro | — | — | $20 | $16 |
| Mid tier | — / Pro+ | — | — | $60 | $48 |
| Pro / power | — / Ultra | — | — | $200 | $160 |
| Teams | — / Teams | — | — | $40 | $32 |
| Enterprise | — / Enterprise | — | — | Custom | Custom |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Continue is worth it if… developers and teams that want to customize their AI coding stack — choose your own model, write custom prompts, share blocks across the team. Individual tier is free with BYOK; Teams ($10/user/mo) is the cheapest way to standardize prompts across a team.
Cursor is worth it if… developers who want an AI-native editor where autocomplete, chat, and agent-mode Composer feel like extensions of the IDE — not bolted on. The credit-pool model is the interesting pricing innovation: your $20 subscription IS your $20 of AI usage, so heavy Claude Opus users burn faster than lighter GPT-5 mini users.
Bottom line: Choose based on how you want to pay — Continue is per seat, Cursor is hybrid.
Choose Continue over Cursor if…
Choose Continue if…
- You want fixed-price predictability (per seat, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Continue is built for: developers and teams that want to customize their AI coding stack — choose your own model, write custom prompts, share blocks across the team.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Cursor if…
- You want the most mature agentic editor with the deepest model line-up.
- You're a developer who lives in the editor and wants long-context, multi-file edits.
- You want predictable seat pricing with usage-based headroom when you need it.
At a glance
| Continue | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Entry price | Free | $20/mo |
| Enterprise available | No | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Seat | Hybrid |
| Last verified | September 20, 2026 | September 10, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 20, 2026. Tracked daily.