Cost comparison
Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: cost comparison in 2026
Cursor and GitHub Copilot are both billed per assigned seat, but the price shapes differ: Cursor Teams is $40 per seat per month with a $120 Premium tier for heavy agent users, while GitHub Copilot Business is a flat $19 per seat. The headline price rarely decides the real bill — on either tool the money leaks through seats you pay for but nobody uses, and through users parked on a tier above their actual usage.
Prices verified against official vendor pages — Cursor on 2026-06-12, GitHub Copilot on 2026-06-12. Waste figures are estimates from your own inputs.
Plans and per-seat prices, side by side
VENDORCursor
| Plan | Price / seat / mo |
|---|---|
| HobbyIndividuals | $0 |
| ProIndividuals | $20 |
| UltraIndividual power users | $200 |
| Teams StandardTeams and organizations | $40$32/seat/month billed annually |
| Teams PremiumHeavy agent users on team plans | $120$96/seat/month billed annually |
| EnterpriseLarge organizations | Custom |
GitHub Copilot
| Plan | Price / seat / mo |
|---|---|
| Copilot FreeIndividuals | $0 |
| Copilot ProIndividuals | $10 |
| Copilot Pro+Individuals (premium models) | $39 |
| Copilot BusinessTeams and organizations | $19 |
| Copilot EnterpriseGitHub Enterprise Cloud orgs | $39 |
Which is cheaper — and where the real cost hides
Per seat, GitHub Copilot Business ($19) is roughly half of Cursor Teams Standard ($40), and Cursor’s $120 Premium seat only makes sense for developers who run agents all day. But whichever you pick, the cost driver is utilization: both bill every assigned seat in full whether or not the developer is active, and both add a layer that hides waste — Cursor through Standard-vs-Premium over-tiering, Copilot through pooled AI-credit overage. DevSpend reconciles seats purchased vs assigned vs active for each, so you compare them on what you’d actually spend, not the sticker price.
Estimate your spend on both
The calculator below is prefilled with a typical setup for each — together about $980/month with an estimated $255/month lost to inactive seats. Swap in your own seats and prices — nothing is saved until you create a free workspace.
Tool inputs
Seats, price, active estimate, and usage/API spend. Nothing is saved yet.
Active is your best estimate of seats in real use — the gap to assigned seats is your recoverable waste. Active can’t exceed seats, so it’s capped automatically.
Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: cost FAQ
Is GitHub Copilot cheaper than Cursor?
Per seat, yes: GitHub Copilot Business is $19 per user per month versus Cursor Teams Standard at $40. Cursor’s Premium seat is $120 (for heavy agent users) and Copilot Enterprise is $39. The total bill depends on how many seats are actually used, not just the per-seat price.
What is the difference between Cursor and GitHub Copilot pricing?
Cursor Teams has two seat types — Standard ($40) and Premium ($120) — each with included Cursor-model and third-party-model usage pools. GitHub Copilot Business is a flat $19 seat with $19 of pooled AI Credits, and Enterprise is $39. Both bill per assigned seat per month.
Which has more seat-waste risk, Cursor or Copilot?
Both bill every assigned seat regardless of activity, so idle seats waste money on either. Cursor adds over-tiering risk (a Premium seat assigned to a light user burns ~$80/month of headroom), while Copilot adds AI-credit overage that pools across the org and hides which users drive it.
How do I track spend across both Cursor and GitHub Copilot?
A DevSpend AI workspace tracks seats purchased, assigned, and active for each vendor side by side, with the dollars attached to the gap — so you can see total AI-tool spend and reclaimable waste across both in one place.
Track both in one free workspace
Up to 5 subscriptions, waste number always visible. Need unlimited tracking or a print-ready reclaim report? See Pro — $39/mo.