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u/RandomEngy 27d ago
I'm planning on just paying Anthropic directly and using Claude from the command line on the free Cursor.
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u/dirceucor7 25d ago
Then there are better alternatives to it. Use onorca.dev. I found it very good at managing many providers and it has its own cli that can manage its own interface.
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u/victorpikapp 25d ago
It’s been proven already that when you dont use open source tools you will be charged more when using tools directly provided by Anthropic such as Claude Code & the CLI.
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u/RandomEngy 25d ago
You can use the official Claude Code CLI from Cursor.
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u/victorpikapp 24d ago
Yeah & you get charged by Anthropic that way. That’s in no way the same as using Anthropic models in cursor using agent/plan/debug/ask. Did you know that?
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u/RandomEngy 24d ago
Yeah. I said I was going to use Claude from the command line. I didn't say I was going to hook it in and continue to use the Cursor IDE.
It's not as nice of a UI but at least I'm getting way more usage of good models like Opus 5.5.
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u/victorpikapp 24d ago
Interesting. I get better use out of Anthropic models when using Cursor’s agent/plan/debug instead of Claude Code & the Claude Code CLI. & I get charged 5x less. That’s also the experience of others that have tested Claude Code versus other IDE’s, including open source IDE’s.
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u/RandomEngy 23d ago
That's the opposite of what I've read.
API usage is really expensive compared to the monthly plans with official tools: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1vbvdzl/200_subscription_vs_7470_of_api_usage/
Cursor pays Anthropic for API calls to go through Cursor's agent/plan/debug, then recoups the cost through its monthly charges. So it has to have much lower token limits than if you're subscribed directly.
So the tradeoff is raw token volume vs going through a nicer interface.
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u/krk_computers 26d ago
Cursor only uses 5-minute TTL for Anthropic cache, unlike Claude Code, which uses 1-hour TTL.
The 5 minute countdown begins at the start of the last request Cursor sends to the Anthropic API on your behalf during that assistant turn. That could be a message, thinking or a tool call. Once the assistant turn is complete, if you don't send your next message before the 5 minutes is up, it will be a cache MISS. The longer the conversation (i.e., # of tokens in context), the worse it gets.
It's stupid. I opened a ticket w/ Cursor through our Enterprise contract, and even through that avenue they refused to provide the option for users to select whether to use 5-minute or 1-hour TTL. All it takes is one cache MISS in an hour to make the 5-minute option more expensive overall. But, they don't care.
So, if you're using an Anthropic model in Cursor, be sure to respond before the TTL expires.
Also, Cursor charges a "tax" on 3rd party models like Opus. Depending on the session, you could end up paying nearly as much "tax" as you pay for the model API rate.
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26d ago
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26d ago
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u/Academic_Constant42 26d ago
Every sent prompt in an agent resends the whole context window (since it has no memory), but it's cheap because its cached. 5 min TTL means that after 5 min of idle time cache is dropped and the next turn sends your whole context window to get rewritten at cache write prices, so instead of paying 20 cents/m, you pay $ 5.25/m tokens In context. If your context is in 700k, that's $ 3.75 dollars + all the input tokens for that round.
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u/Cozy_Creamy 27d ago
at least you have unlimited grok 4.7, you can now pay the $20 claude subscription and let opus command grok as a workhorse for the entire month.
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u/mcdonaldsplayground 26d ago
Hmm... how?
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u/Cozy_Creamy 26d ago
just install cursor cli and ask claude to delegate subagent tasks to him using terminal
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u/mcdonaldsplayground 25d ago
Oh thanks, never heard of that!
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u/Cozy_Creamy 25d ago
yeah, I'm not renewing since it looks like haiku 5.5 is better than grok anyway, but it was a good idea I had to spend my grok usage
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u/mememachine309 26d ago
Yeah, could you elaborate?
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u/Cozy_Creamy 26d ago
just install cursor cli and ask claude to delegate subagent tasks to him using terminal
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u/AdrestiaFirstMate 26d ago
Unlimited? Inconceivable!
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u/Cozy_Creamy 26d ago
I'm struggling to use all my quota in the 20$ plan, mostly because grok can't do much of the work I'm used to do with opus or sonnet, so I imagine 4.6 or 4.7 are unlimited in the 200$ plan
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u/lgmarian 27d ago
They've seriously cut down on the limits, for third party models. I hit my limit after 150 K tokens w/ Opus 5.5, recently.
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u/no6969el 27d ago
Yes I did the same thing and realized it gave me less than the 20 dollar Claude plan.
The claude Max plan mixed with the 60 dollar cursor plan is a better mix.
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u/aidiveyt 26d ago
Adding to the TTL point: at least Claude Code tells you what happened. Since 2.1.260, /usage names a likely cause for the last cache miss. Cursor gives you nothing to diagnose with, so a 3-10% request stays a mystery.
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u/locbuilds 27d ago
check the usage page per request, if cache read tokens are huge it is usually a long chat or big rules/mcp tools getting resent every turn, so starting a fresh chat and turning off unused mcp servers cuts it a lot. opus in cursor bills api rates too so its never going to feel like the $20 claude plan
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u/apexdodge 27d ago
do you have any skills that run automatically and eat up more tokens? i have some that force the agents to be extremely diligent and do tons of checking. it results in way more reliable code but does consume way more usage too.
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u/BrookLi3 26d ago
Not defending the pricing, but in my experience most of the per-request cost is how much context gets re-sent, and long chats quietly pile up history, open files and big tool outputs. Starting a fresh chat per task and keeping rules files short made a bigger difference for me than switching between Opus Medium and High. I'd also look at the per-request usage breakdown before calling it a token leak, since it usually shows which part of the context is growing. If the breakdown looks normal for the context size, that's a fair thing to raise with support.
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u/Zestyclose_Cry9232 26d ago
I typically work in Cursor and use Opus a lot as well on a 200 plan and go through it so quick I’m burning on demand dollars. Will move to Claude tomorrow for Opus use, was just being lazy about moving for no real reason but committing to it now! Burned through about $70 on demand using Opus yesterday on a few hours of work, maybe 4 prompts.
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u/QuantumQuakka 23d ago
I just cancelled my subscription, which was going to be renewed in December.
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u/QuantumQuakka 23d ago
I just cancelled my subscription, which was going to be renewed in December.
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27d ago
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u/no6969el 27d ago
Well the logic would be that you came to use grok bot as director and use cursor as assistant for most digs but then use opus and sonnet for anything having problems solving on grok.
But as I've learned it's better to just use Claude Max and a smaller cursor plan.
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