Pricing
Cursor Student Discount (2026): Is Cursor Free for Students?
Cursor has no student plan or discount as of Oct 27, 2026. What students get on Cursor Free, what Plus ($8) costs, and coding tools with real student deals.
6 min read
Cursor’s students page checked Oct 27, 2026 on cursor.com/students; plans from Cursor’s pricing help (verified Oct 24, 2026, seen unchanged Oct 27). Other student offers checked Oct 21–25, 2026 on each company’s own page. This page has no affiliate links (how we work).
Short answer: Cursor has no student discount. As of Oct 27, 2026, cursor.com/students answers “Does Cursor offer discounts to students?” with: “Anyone can get started with Cursor for free. To upgrade your access, look out for promotions at our on-campus and online events starting this fall. We’re excited to see what you build with Cursor.” No plan, no price, no promo code, no verification. So the Cursor student deal today is the same Free plan everyone gets, plus a promise of event promos.
If a free AI coding tool is what you actually need, GitHub, Kiro, Google and OpenAI all publish real student offers. They’re compared below.
We haven’t tested any of these offers. Everything here comes from each company’s own pages.
The short answer, dated
- Student plan: none. cursor.com/students lists no plan, length, price, eligible schools or verification method (verified Oct 27, 2026; the wording is identical to our Oct 22 check).
- Discount on paid plans: none published. Cursor’s plan lineup has no student tier (pricing help, verified Oct 24, 2026).
- What you can get: Cursor Free at $0, which needs no student status at all.
- “Cursor 1 year free”: not on Cursor’s pages in any of our checks since Oct 22, 2026.
Cursor student offer: what’s on the page now
The students page exists and loads. Its FAQ is the whole offer: start for free, and “look out for promotions at our on-campus and online events starting this fall” (verified Oct 27, 2026). Every check we’ve dated since Oct 22, 2026 shows the same wording; we have no record of an older student deal and won’t guess at one.
So there’s no code to redeem and no student ID to upload; be wary of any site that asks for one in Cursor’s name.
Cursor built a “Students” page whose answer to “do you have a student discount?” is “anyone can start for free”, while GitHub, Kiro, Google and OpenAI publish real student offers. That’s a strange call, and a little sad for the people it’s aimed at.
What students get on Cursor Free
Cursor’s current lineup, verified Oct 24, 2026 on its pricing help page (unchanged on models and pricing docs, Oct 27, 2026). “Prices exclude tax.”
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Plus | $8 | $80 |
| Premium | $30 | $300 |
- Free is listed as “Limited”. Cursor doesn’t publish a number for it, so nobody can tell you exactly how far it goes.
- Plus ($8) runs Cursor’s own models (Grok 4.7, Grok 4.6, Grok 4.5 and Composer 2.5) at “fixed settings (Fast off, medium effort) without Auto, Cloud Agents, Automations, Bugbot, Origin, or third-party models”. No Claude, no GPT.
- Premium ($30) is “4x Plus” and adds those features, “with third-party models at API list price paid from prepaid credit”.
- Legacy plans (Hobby, Pro, Pro+, Ultra) “aren’t available to new customers, but existing subscribers keep them”. Signing up as a student today, you start on the new lineup.
More on Free: Is Cursor free?. Every tier: Cursor pricing.
Cheaper options for students
| Option | Price | Student deal |
|---|---|---|
| Cursor Free | $0 | None needed |
| Cursor Plus | $8/mo | None |
| Copilot Student | Free | Verified students |
| Kiro | Free 1 year | Select universities |
| Google AI Pro | Free 1 year | US college, 18+ |
Sources and dates in the fine print below. For the full tool field, see AI coding tools compared.
The fine print, offer by offer:
- GitHub Copilot Student. “Verified students on GitHub Education get free access to Copilot’s features”, and “GitHub reevaluates your eligibility every month.” It’s its own plan: unlimited code completions, an allowance of AI credits whose size isn’t published, auto model selection only, and it “Excludes third-party agents” (GitHub Docs, verified Oct 25, 2026). Setup steps are in GitHub Copilot for students.
- Kiro. “Eligible university students get 1,000 credits per month free for one year”, with “No credit card required”. Select universities, 18+, SheerID verification, no rollover or add-ons, then “automatically downgraded to the Kiro free tier” (Kiro students, verified Oct 22, 2026). Free tier details: Is Kiro free?.
- Google AI Pro, which powers Antigravity. Free for a year for “eligible U.S. college students ages 18+”, redeem by December 31, 2026, then $19.99 a month unless you cancel, with eligibility re-verified each year (Google, verified Oct 25, 2026). One catch: Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 in Antigravity are “non-trial subscriptions only”, and Google doesn’t say whether the student year counts as a trial (Antigravity models, verified Oct 26, 2026).
- OpenAI Codex. “Verified university students in the United States and Canada can claim $100 in ChatGPT credits to use in Codex. One offer per student.” Credits expire 12 months after the grant (OpenAI, verified Oct 21, 2026).
- App builders. Lovable gives students 50% off its 100-credit Pro plan for up to 12 months (Lovable students, verified Oct 25, 2026); Bolt’s answer is in Bolt student discount, and Anthropic’s is in Claude student discount.
Outside the US? Google’s and OpenAI’s offers name their countries. GitHub’s and Kiro’s quoted text doesn’t, but Kiro’s is select universities only. Check each page.
Here’s what I’d do
Want Cursor specifically? Start on Free. It’s $0 and needs no verification.
Can verify with GitHub Education? Claim Copilot Student first. Free, unlimited completions.
At a listed university? Kiro’s 1,000 credits a month for a year matches the credits on its $20 Pro plan.
US college student? Take Google AI Pro’s free year for Antigravity, and set a reminder before it auto-charges $19.99.
Thinking about Cursor Plus at $8? Only if Grok and Composer are enough for you, because Plus has no Claude or GPT. Spend the free offers first. More tools: Cursor alternatives.
Related reading: Cursor Pro vs Pro+, Cursor Pro vs Claude Pro, GitHub Copilot cost, Antigravity pricing and the Cursor price tracker.
Comparing student deals? See the Antigravity student discount for Google’s offer.
If Cursor says “Too many free trial accounts used on this machine”, see Cursor’s free trial error before you try anything else.
Checking other coding tools too? The Devin student discount covers what Devin Desktop offers students.
FAQ
Is Cursor free for students? Cursor Free is $0 for everyone, but there’s no special student plan or discount as of Oct 27, 2026.
Does Cursor have a student plan? No, cursor.com/students only says to look out for promotions at on-campus and online events.
What’s the cheapest Cursor plan for students? Free at $0; the cheapest paid plan is Plus at $8 a month or $80 a year, with Cursor’s own models only.
How do I verify as a student on Cursor? You can’t, because Cursor publishes no student offer or verification process.
Which AI coding tools are free for students? GitHub Copilot Student is free for verified students, Kiro gives eligible students 1,000 credits a month for a year, and Google AI Pro is free for a year for US college students.
Sources
- Cursor students page (FAQ quote, no plan or verification listed): https://cursor.com/students (verified 2026-10-27)
- Cursor pricing help (Free, Plus $8/$80, Premium $30/$300, Plus model and feature limits, legacy plans): https://cursor.com/help/account-and-billing/pricing (verified 2026-10-24)
- Cursor models and pricing docs (lineup seen unchanged): https://cursor.com/docs/models-and-pricing (verified 2026-10-27)
- GitHub Docs, Copilot plans (Copilot Student column): https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/get-started/plans (verified 2026-10-25)
- GitHub Docs, Copilot for students setup (free access, monthly eligibility check): https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/copilot-on-github/set-up-copilot/enable-copilot/set-up-for-students (verified 2026-10-25)
- Kiro students: https://kiro.dev/students/ (verified 2026-10-22)
- Google AI Pro student offer: https://gemini.google/students/ (verified 2026-10-25)
- Antigravity models (non-trial note): https://antigravity.google/docs/models (verified 2026-10-26)
- OpenAI Codex student credits: https://developers.openai.com/community/students (verified 2026-10-21)
- Lovable students: https://lovable.dev/students (verified 2026-10-25)