AI-powered coding assistant startup Windsurf announced significant price cuts on Monday, highlighting substantial savings for customers amid growing competition with industry rival Cursor. The changes include abandoning the previously complex “flow action credits” billing system, which charged developers for background AI tasks, and reducing costs substantially across its team and enterprise offerings. Specifically, team plan pricing has dropped from $35 to $30 per user per month, while individual monthly subscriptions are now set at $15, compared to Cursor’s $20 monthly fee.
Rob Hou, the product marketing lead at Windsurf, publicly emphasized that this new pricing position makes Windsurf the “most affordable” option available among AI coding tools. Hou attributed these savings to the company’s more efficient GPU usage, and took a jab at Cursor’s pricing structure, describing it as “confusing.”
These aggressive pricing moves come amid reports that OpenAI is currently exploring a potential $3 billion acquisition of Windsurf. Cursor’s creator, Anysphere, is in parallel discussions to raise funds at a $10 billion valuation. Despite being the smaller business, with approximately $100 million in annual recurring revenue compared to Cursor’s $300 million, Windsurf has recently bolstered its partnership with OpenAI. Earlier this month, Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan appeared in OpenAI’s launch video for its latest API models.
As part of its pricing overhaul announcement, Windsurf also announced a limited-time benefit—offering customers an additional week of free, unrestricted access to OpenAI’s latest models, GPT-4.1 and o4-mini.
The critical question now is whether Cursor will respond by adjusting its prices, potentially leading to an intensified pricing war that could pressure profitability margins at both companies. Windsurf did not offer further comment on the acquisition rumors but emphasized their commitment, established “from the very beginning,” to consistently pass savings onto their users.
Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, declined to provide comment on the story.
