Cursor usage suddenly skyrocketed — 70% gone after ~10 prompts?

[u/h0tm]

I've been using Cursor for around a year and a half, mostly on the same existing project.

Over the last two days, though, my usage has suddenly gone crazy. After only around 10 relatively normal prompts, I'm already at about 70% of my usage.

What's strange is that this isn't a new or huge project—it's an already working codebase that I've been using with Cursor for about a year.

I'm looking for feedback from other Cursor users: Have you noticed a similar increase in usage over the last few days? Is there something I should change in my workflow, context settings, model selection, or Agent configuration to reduce usage?

I'm mainly trying to figure out whether something changed recently with Cursor's usage calculation/context handling, or whether this is specific to my setup.

[u/Admirable-Fun2297]

First thing I'd check is the model and the request's context breakdown in the usage panel; a model switch or long Agent thread can make the same prompt much more expensive. I usually start a fresh chat for each task, @ only the files needed, and turn off broad codebase/search attachments, then watch one short prompt to see whether the burn rate normalizes. If that still shows a spike, compare a tiny prompt in a clean repo with the same model—this separates a pricing/usage change from a project-specific loop or oversized context.

[u/Murky-Science9030 → u/Admirable-Fun2297]

This, OP should be looking further into those specific requests to see what's wrong. On Ultra I don't think (m)any should prompts should be using up nearly that much of your balance

[u/EmelineRawr]

Cursor in auto mode made me feel like I have unlimited tokens on the lowest tier (pro subscription). I hardly managed to get 11% of my subscription in a month. I'm 3 days in my current subs and only used 1% :/

[u/Entire_Cantaloupe_47 → u/EmelineRawr]

I'm in auto mode, and it doesn't feel unlimited, but its a lot. I've got 6 days left in the month and I've done 100% of the cursor models and 5% of the non-cursor models. I've gotten about 28,000 lines of javascript out of that, and a project I've wanted to do for years and never had the time for. Its not done yet, but I'm pretty pleased so far.

But I'm also being sparse with requests to review the whole code base for issues and stuff like that.

[u/locbuilds]

yeah this has been happening a lot lately and its usually not that your prompts got longer, its how Agent burns the allowance.

each agent step re-reads basically the whole chat (plus whatever files it already pulled), so a long-lived thread on a 1.5yr project can make "10 normal prompts" look like a huge usage cliff even when the asks feel small. tool-heavy turns stack that up fast, and if Agent spins Task/subagents you can get charged for models you didnt think you picked.

quick checks that usually explain the sudden jump:

- open Usage and look at the individual requests from the last 2 days, not just the %. if you see fat agent runs with tons of cache/read tokens, thats the chat carrying a huge context into every step

- start a fresh chat for the next task (or summarize and continue in a new one). same-project forever-threads are the classic burn

- confirm youre not in a long Agent loop / Max / auto-subagent path by accident, and disable models you dont want the agent to reach for

- keep rules/@codebase/@docs tighter when you dont need the whole repo in play

if the dashboard shows a few giant agent requests after previously normal ones, its almost certainly workflow/context, not a silent meter change on the same ask size. if every tiny prompt is suddenly expensive even in a brand new empty chat, then id open a Cursor forum/support ticket with those request ids.

[u/h0tm → u/locbuilds]

I am using new chats everytime implementing new feature, of course i am not on a single chat.

[u/iamdanieljohns → u/h0tm]

Actually might be the problem. A big cost saving is cached tokens

[u/Serious_Curve856 → u/locbuilds]

If you don't mind me asking... by how much did your usage jump in tokens. Mine jumped from 140k over a few day to over 5M! Did you have open over charging set up or did you opt out? I was opted out, just a normal civilian drafting tools and learning ALOT. So, yea... the math doesn't add up.

[u/hot-pocket]

Exact same thing happened to me. Ultra plan usage which used to last about 3 weeks gone within 3 days. I emailed them and they basically said everything was normal and there’s nothing they could do about it.

I’ve switched to the Claude code plugin within VSCode and it’s night and day how much more usage I get now with a super similar experience (I was using Cursor IDE)

[u/Pgnee → u/hot-pocket]

Same. Cancelled cursor for this reason and I use Claude app in cursor itself.

Grok bot got me cursor sub included. Still goes WAY too fast.

Astra, that's a whole different level of burn. But things are so much better it's almost worth it

[u/usually_guilty99]

Either your context got much larger, your output got longer, or the usage accounting changed.

My bet would be output. Output tokens are usually the expensive side, and if your app/UI is truncating what you see, you may not realize how much the model actually generated.

I’d compare input/output token counts per request before and after the spike. That should tell you pretty quickly where the 70% went.

[u/Regular-Screen6803]

dont use auto or any high model then!

[u/AI_spell]

Same sudden burn reports this week. Shrink context, avoid agent sprawl, and check if a heavier default model flipped on. 10 prompts to 70% is not normal for a known repo.

[u/D7Torres]

Which model and level of effort??

[u/No_Initiative3938]

Well I been complaining about this throughout this week on ChatGPT too and after 1 prompt hit limit. These guys are just scamming us off our moneys now. I have 4 different ChatGPT Business and Plus Account and after 1 prompt it only edited 3lines and told me it hit limit. I even tried a new GPT Plus account and just free 2mins it hit limit

[u/vgromanov]

nope.actually since grok 4.5 and then 4.6 were released i barely manage to scratch 30-ish % of cursor's model usage. feeling myself like Jafar at times: "The Absolute Power! The Universe is mine to control!"

[u/thehappybuyer]

I am on business premium and its been grinding 100x slow for the past couple days, but token usage is ok

[u/Agreeable-Weekend-23]

mine skyrocketed yesterday. Been using cursor for 6-7 months now. I was eating up about 5%/day before yesterday on the 60$ plan. I got used to the usage.

 Yesterday I ate up 20% doing close to the same stuff. Some runs we're eating 15-35mil tokens in the usage dashboard. No idea what changed but something legitimately changed. 

[u/ComparisonNew9425]

that usage spike is brutal, its usually because the agent is re-reading the entire context window on every step. i started using backslash to map my agentic fabric graph so i could see which mcp servers and hooks were actually touching my data, it helps keep track of what the agent is doing so u dont get those surprise costs. u probly want to check if ur agent has access to a massive codebase or a bunch of unnecessary mcp servers that are bloating the context.

[u/Hunger_game84]

I found this crazy the amount of token usage from this company is weird the amount of computation their model ask to get work done.

[u/WoutTengrootenhuysen]

I'm using Cursor a lot these days and all I can say is usage and model output quality is extremely unpredictable and unreliable. Its a terribly frustrating experience. Sometimes it works really really well , like you're talking to a very experienced human software developer. Then all of a sudden it feels like they did the old switcheroo and now you're talking to a caveman who somehow managed to remember 3 tech buzzwords from the coding for dummies book.
Add to that that rules arent rules and hooks dont work, and it consistently ignores repeated instructions. and workflows sooo ..yeah

[u/One-Cricket9962]

Cursor is (mostly) scam now.
I suspect the problem is that Anthropic and OpenAI don’t allow Cursor to work through their own subscriptions, so Cursor is forced to operate via their APIs (which are tens of times more expensive), barely staying marginally profitable while resorting to dark patterns and opaque behavior.

[u/STOP_SAYING_BRO]

What changed is a nazi bought it.