Cursor cost tracker
Pulse tracks your Cursor Pro subscription cost, foreground time in the Cursor app, and cost per active hour — today, in v1.0. Cursor token-level tracking (the local Cursor state-DB parser) ships with Pulse Pro in Q3 2026.
Last updated · 2026-05-15
Status: Cursor subscription tracking + activity tracking are available now in pulse v1.0. Token-level usage parsing (per-request cost, per-model breakdown) ships with Pro in Q3 2026 — the parser code exists at providers/cursor_parser.py but isn't wired into the dashboard yet.
What works today (v1.0, free local app)
- Subscription cost tracking. Add Cursor Pro at $20/mo (or whatever you pay). Multi-currency. Renewal alerts. Auto-detect from email receipts (if you import them).
- Foreground time tracking. Link the Cursor subscription to
Cursor.exe(orcursoron macOS/Linux). Pulse measures how many hours you spent in Cursor with the window in focus, idle-aware (5-min threshold). - Cost per active hour. $20/mo ÷ 24 hours of focused Cursor time = $0.83/hour. See it for every subscription side-by-side.
- Cancellation savings. If you cancel Cursor and switch to Claude Code, pulse counts the cumulative $/month saved from cancellation date forward.
What ships in Q3 2026 (Pro)
- Per-request cost breakdown from Cursor's local state DB. Cursor stores recent requests + response IDs locally; the parser reads them and joins against published OpenAI / Anthropic rates.
- Per-model breakdown — how much of your Cursor usage hits gpt-4o vs Sonnet vs Claude
- Dashboard usage (when paste-cookie supplied) — pulls daily usage from cursor.com's dashboard API
- Cross-tool ROI — Claude Code + Cursor + Copilot combined ROI score
Cursor vs Claude Code vs Copilot — cost per hour rough math
Same fake data as the interactive demo (developer persona):
| Tool | Monthly cost | Active hours / mo | Cost / active hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Max (via Claude Code) | $200 | 92 hr | $2.17 |
| Cursor Pro | $20 | 60 hr | $0.33 |
| GitHub Copilot | $10 | 48 hr | $0.21 |
Numbers are illustrative. Real usage varies wildly. Pulse computes these from your actual foreground time on your machine.
Privacy guarantees (because Cursor IDE has access to your code)
Pulse never reads your code. It reads:
- Subscription metadata you enter manually
- The Cursor process name (
Cursor.exeor similar) when the window is in focus - Window titles only if you opted in (off by default; the brief case for turning this off is open project paths in titles)
- Future: Cursor's local request-ID state-DB rows (request count + token estimates, never prompt content)
Pulse is MIT-licensed — see tracker.py and providers/cursor_parser.py to audit exactly what's read.
Install + start tracking today
- Download pulse for Windows (mac/Linux from source)
- Onboarding asks if you want to enable activity tracking — turn it on if you want cost-per-hour numbers for Cursor
- Subscriptions tab → Add subscription → "Cursor Pro" → $20/mo
- Subscriptions tab → Edit Cursor row → linked app:
Cursor.exe - Cost-per-hour shows up after your first hour in Cursor
⬇ Download pulse · ▶ Interactive demo · 📐 Cost-per-hour math · ⚖ Compared to alternatives