My Cursor Bill Hit $400 Last Month. Here's How I Ditched It for $10

I love building shit. I hate when my dev tools cost more than my AWS bill.

In March, Cursor was my favorite editor. $20/month, 500 premium requests, unlimited basic completions. Fair deal for what I was getting. Then July happened and they fucked everyone over.

The Pricing Disaster No One Talks About

Back in July 2025, Cursor decided to completely fuck over their pricing model with zero warning.

TechCrunch covered it and every developer on Twitter was losing their minds. Developer communities exploded with complaint threads. I remember refreshing my dashboard thinking it was a bug.

The changes hit different people differently:

• Light users: Still paying $20, but confused about what they're actually getting
• Heavy users (like me): Bills jumping to $200-400/month with zero warning
• Teams: Some reported costs hitting $500 in three days

Here's what broke my brain: I couldn't predict my bill anymore. One heavy refactoring session? Maybe $50. Debug a React component with the agent? Could be $40, could be $80. I honestly have no idea how they calculate this shit. Within a few months I was spending more on Cursor than my entire AWS infrastructure.

The Straw That Broke My Back

A few weeks later I was debugging some React component, using their agent to refactor state management. Normal dev work, nothing crazy.

Three days later: got hit with something like $120 in usage charges. For three fucking days of normal coding.

That's when I started researching alternatives seriously. I wasn't the only one getting fucked by this - tons of developers on HN and Reddit were asking the same question: "What now?"

I spent way too much time on Reddit threads and Hacker News discussions comparing everyone's bills. The pattern was always the same - everyone was seeing these random spikes. This comparison on Zapier shows what many of us were thinking about.

What Actually Broke First

It wasn't just the pricing. Cursor started feeling... janky.

The autocomplete got stupider: Around August or September, completions started sucking ass. Suggesting variables that didn't exist, imports from wrong files. Maybe they downgraded models to cut costs? Who the fuck knows - they don't tell you shit.

Agent hallucinations: Their "smart" agents started writing complete garbage. I'd ask it to extract a function, get back TypeScript errors in a JavaScript file. Ask for a simple refactor, get code that wouldn't even compile. This crap never happened before.

Performance went to hell: Large codebases became sluggish as shit. My React app with around 500 components would make Cursor hang for 10-15 seconds on agent requests. Sometimes longer.

The worst part? While all this was happening, GitHub Copilot was getting better, Continue.dev launched with decent context awareness, and I was still paying more per month than my entire AWS bill. Meanwhile, detailed comparisons were showing Copilot catching up fast.

So yeah, enough bitching about Cursor. Here's what actually works:

The Two-Day Migration That Saved My Sanity

I decided to try alternatives over a weekend. Worst case, I'd waste two days. Best case, I'd save hundreds per month.

Day 1: Set up GitHub Copilot ($10/month). Took maybe 20 minutes. Installation guide was actually helpful.
Day 2: Configured Continue.dev for complex tasks. 3 hours total, most of it was figuring out their config file format.

By Sunday night I had a setup that:

• Cost $10/month instead of $200-400
• Had way better autocomplete than Cursor (Copilot's algorithm got much better)
• Better context awareness for large codebases (Continue's indexing is actually good)
• No billing surprises - I know exactly what I'm paying (GitHub pricing is transparent)

The Real Talk on What You Lose

I'm not gonna bullshit you. There are some things Cursor did better:

The integrated chat was smoother: Having everything in one interface was nice. Now I use Continue for complex tasks and Copilot for quick completions. It's two tools instead of one, which is annoying.

Agent workflows were more polished: Cursor's agents had a decent UI. Aider (what I use now for big refactors) is command-line only. Works better, but looks like shit.

Zero-config setup: Cursor just worked out of the box. My current setup took me 4 hours to configure properly and I still have weird issues sometimes.

But here's the thing: I wasted more mental cycles checking my Cursor usage than I've spent maintaining my entire new setup. The anxiety of "oh shit, did that refactor just cost me $50?" killed my productivity more than learning new tools ever did.

So what are your actual options? Let me break down the three setups that work, with real numbers and honest trade-offs.

Here's exactly what I did to escape Cursor's pricing hell. No theory, no marketing bullshit - just working commands and real gotchas. Follow this and you'll cut your AI coding bill by 90% tomorrow.

The 20-Minute GitHub Copilot Setup

This gets you 90% of Cursor's functionality in 20 minutes.

Step 1: Install the extensions (2 minutes)
First, grab them from the VS Code marketplace:

code --install-extension GitHub.copilot
code --install-extension GitHub.copilot-chat

Step 2: Sign in and test (5 minutes)

• Open VS Code
• Cmd+Shift+P → "GitHub Copilot: Sign In"
• Write a function, see if completions appear
• If not, restart VS Code (this trips up half the people I know)
• Check the setup guide if you're stuck

Step 3: Fix the keybindings (10 minutes)
The default keybindings suck. Open your keybindings.json and add this:

[
  {
    "key": "cmd+k",
    "command": "github.copilot.generate",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly"
  },
  {
    "key": "cmd+shift+l",
    "command": "workbench.panel.chat.view.copilot.focus"
  }
]

Step 4: Test it (3 minutes)

• Open a file you're working on
• Cmd+K should trigger inline generation
• Cmd+Shift+L should open chat
• If the chat doesn't know about your codebase, that's normal - we'll fix that next

What you get: Perfect autocomplete, basic chat, $10/month fixed cost.
What you lose: Codebase-aware chat, agents for big refactors.

The 3-Hour Continue.dev Setup (For Better Chat)

Copilot's chat sucks for large codebases. Continue.dev fixes this, but setup is more involved.

Step 1: Install Continue (2 minutes)
Get it from the marketplace:

code --install-extension Continue.continue

Step 2: Basic config (30 minutes)
Create ~/.continue/config.json. Start simple:

{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "Claude 3.5 Sonnet",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620",
      "apiKey": "your-key-here"
    }
  ]
}

Get your Anthropic API key from their console. You'll pay per usage - runs me about $15/month based on how much I use Continue. Check their pricing page for current rates.

Step 3: Codebase indexing (2 hours)
This is where Continue shines. It can actually understand your entire codebase.

{
  "contextProviders": [
    {
      "name": "codebase",
      "params": {
        "nRetrieve": 25,
        "nFinal": 5
      }
    }
  ]
}

The first indexing takes forever on large codebases. My React app took like 45 minutes, but I've heard people say it took 2+ hours. No idea why the variation. Go get coffee, maybe lunch, maybe dinner.

Step 4: Test codebase awareness (30 minutes)

• Ask Continue: "How does authentication work in this app?"
• It should reference specific files and functions
• If it gives generic answers, the indexing isn't working

**Common gotcha: Indexing fails silently on files with syntax errors. I spent like an hour wondering why it wasn't working before I realized I had broken TypeScript files. Fix your linting first or you'll waste time like I did. Also had issues with files that were too big - apparently there's some limit but I couldn't figure out what it was. The troubleshooting docs might help.

What Breaks and How to Fix It

Copilot completions suddenly suck: Restart VS Code. I know it's dumb as shit but this fixes like 80% of problems.

Continue can't see your codebase: Check the indexing. Look for .continue/index folder in your project. If it's empty, indexing fucked up. This happened to me twice - once because of the syntax errors I mentioned, once because I ran out of disk space like an idiot. Sometimes it just fails for no reason and you have to delete the index and start over.

Huge API bills from Continue: Set usage limits in your config or you'll get burned:

{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "Claude 3.5 Sonnet",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620",
      "apiKey": "your-key",
      "requestOptions": {
        "maxTokens": 4096
      }
    }
  ]
}

Performance issues with large repos: Exclude heavy directories:

{
  "contextProviders": [
    {
      "name": "codebase",
      "params": {
        "ignore": ["node_modules", "dist", "build", ".git"]
      }
    }
  ]
}

The Nuclear Option: Canceling Cursor

When you're ready to pull the trigger:

1. Cancel the subscription: You have to email them. No self-service cancellation. Annoying but not surprising.

2. Export your settings: If you customized keybindings or settings, back them up first:

   # Cursor settings are usually here:
   cp -r ~/.cursor/User/settings.json ~/cursor-backup/
   cp -r ~/.cursor/User/keybindings.json ~/cursor-backup/
   

3. Uninstall cleanly:

   # macOS
   rm -rf /Applications/Cursor.app
   rm -rf ~/.cursor
   
   # Linux
   sudo rm /usr/bin/cursor
   rm -rf ~/.cursor
   

Don't look back. The first few days feel weird - muscle memory takes time to rewire. By week two you'll wonder why you kept paying Cursor's insane bills for so long.

Real Problems You'll Hit (And How I Fixed Them)

Week 1: Muscle memory is a bitch

• I kept pressing Cmd+L expecting Cursor's chat
• Fix: Remap Continue to the same keybinding
• Or just suffer through it - takes about 5 days to adjust

Week 2: Missing the integrated agents

• Copilot + Continue doesn't have agents that "just work"
• Fix: Install Aider (pip install aider-chat) for big refactors
• Check the Aider documentation for usage patterns
• Not as smooth as Cursor, but does better work once you learn it

Week 3: API costs from Continue

• My first Continue bill was like $67 because I didn't set limits like an idiot
• Fix: Set maxTokens in your config (see above) and actually pay attention
• Monitor usage in your Anthropic API dashboard or you'll get screwed. I check mine maybe weekly now, sometimes I forget.

Month 2: Team asks "can we go back?"

• Some developers will bitch about change no matter what
• Fix: Show them the cost savings. My team shut up when I showed them we saved $3,000 in two months
• Keep Cursor available for critical deadlines only

Month 3: Production deployment disaster

• Had a critical bug during a Friday deploy, Continue's context actually saved our ass
• Could reference the entire codebase to track down a weird state management issue
• Cursor never had context that good - took us 20 minutes instead of 2 hours

The honest truth: You'll be 10-15% less productive for 2-3 weeks. Then you'll be faster than you ever were with Cursor, and paying a tenth of the cost. Adaptation takes time but the savings are immediate.