AI coding assistant pricing has converged around a few common price points, which makes head-to-head comparisons easier than they used to be -- but the number on the pricing page still isn't the whole picture, since most of these plans meter usage once you're past the included pool.
Cursor vs GitHub Copilot price 2026
Cursor's individual plans run Pro at $20/month, Pro+ at $60/month, and Ultra at $200/month, each including a usage pool plus the option to pull from other models at their API rate once you're past it. GitHub Copilot is cheaper at the entry tier -- Pro is $10/month, Pro+ is $39/month -- but GitHub has been shifting the whole product toward usage-based billing since June 2026, so the sticker price is increasingly just a starting point rather than a full monthly cap.
GitHub Copilot Pro vs Pro+ difference
The jump from Copilot Pro ($10) to Pro+ ($39) is roughly 4x the price, which tracks with a meaningfully larger usage allowance and access to more capable models for the heavier tier. Whether that's worth it depends entirely on how much you code with AI assistance day to day -- light users often find Pro plenty, while people running AI-assisted workflows most of the day tend to hit Pro's ceiling quickly.
Windsurf vs Cursor pricing
Windsurf's individual Pro plan matches Cursor Pro exactly at $20/month, with a Teams plan at $40/month per seat (as of July 2026). Worth knowing: Codeium, which used to be a separate AI coding assistant, rebranded into Windsurf and is no longer sold as its own product -- if you're comparing "Codeium vs X" pricing from an older article, you're actually looking at Windsurf's numbers now.
Cheapest AI coding assistant: is entry price the right comparison?
By sticker price alone, GitHub Copilot Pro at $10/month is the cheapest entry point of the three. But since Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf all meter usage differently once you exceed the base allowance, the actual cheapest option for you depends on your usage volume and which models you prefer -- not just the number on the pricing page.
Try the AI Coding Assistant Cost Comparison →
Sources: Tech Insider, "Windsurf vs Cursor vs Copilot: $200 vs $39 Gap [2026]"; NxCode, "AI Coding Tools Pricing Comparison 2026"; daily.dev, "Cursor vs VS Code vs Windsurf: 2026 Comparison"; GetAIPerks, "Claude Code Pricing vs Cursor vs Windsurf vs Copilot (2026 Analysis)" — pricing cross-checked across multiple sources as of 2026-09-27.
