ChatGPT + Codex vs Cursor: plan limits and pricing

Both start at the same price. ChatGPT + Codex Go is $8/mo; Cursor Plus is $8/mo. Prices from the vendors' pricing pages, checked 2026-10-30.

ChatGPT + Codex Go: Codex, GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout; no message figures published (no number published). Cursor Plus: Annual price, $80/yr.

ChatGPT + Codex: Per the vendor, the number of Codex messages depends on the model, task size and complexity, and whether work runs locally or in the cloud. Plus and Standard Business get local-message estimates per five-hour period, given as a range per model; these are "not fixed message limits", and the usage dashboard shows current limits and reset times. Cloud tasks may use more of the allowance than local messages. Local messages and cloud chats share the plan's usage allowance, and weekly limits may also apply. Pro plans currently have no five-hour limit. ChatGPT Work shares the same pricing, credits and usage limits as Codex. Fast mode uses included usage at 2.5x (2x on purchased credits). Ultrafast uses 8x (6x on credits). Image generation uses limits about 3-5x faster. After reaching limits, Plus/Pro users and flexible-pricing workspaces can buy credits, which are billed per 1M tokens per model. Enterprise/Edu with flexible pricing have no fixed rate limits. Cursor: Cursor is sold as part of The X Subscription (Grok, Cursor and X). Every paid plan includes one weekly pool of usage for Cursor models (Grok 4.7, Grok 4.6, Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5), shared across Agent in the editor, CLI, Cloud Agents, Grok Bot and the Grok apps; different models draw from the pool at different rates and unused usage does not roll over. Tiers are expressed as multiples of the Plus pool (Plus = Base, Premium 4x, Super 15x, Ultra 50x); Cursor publishes no request or credit counts. Third-party models (Claude, GPT, Gemini) are not in the pool: on Premium and above they are billed at API list price from the first request out of prepaid credit; Free and Plus cannot use them. Prepaid credit (manual top-ups or Auto Top-up) also pays for Cursor-model usage beyond the weekly pool at the same per-model rates; credit expires 365 days after purchase and a monthly additional usage limit can cap spend. Teams and Enterprise pay an extra Cursor Token Rate of $0.25 per million tokens on eligible third-party requests (including BYOK). Grok API usage is billed separately and does not draw from the pool.

ChatGPT + Codex Free is free: Codex, GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout; no message figures published; Codex (ChatGPT pricing page), Limited; Image generation in Codex, Not available; Codex Cloud, Not included. Cursor Free is free: AI usage, Limited agent requests; Limited Chat requests; Third-party models, Not available.

ChatGPT + Codex: five-hour window, week. Cursor: week. The figure inside each window is listed per plan on this page, or marked "not published" where the vendor gives none.