Codex vs Cursor: full Codex is $20, Cursor $30 with no GPT-6

What do Codex and Cursor cost at each tier?

Codex costs $0, $8, $20, $100, $200 or $500 a month, and Cursor costs $0, $8, $30, $100 or $200. OpenAI sells Codex inside ChatGPT, so you pay for a ChatGPT plan. Cursor sells its own plans. We read every row on 8 November 2026 from OpenAI's Codex pricing page, Cursor's pricing page and Cursor's pricing docs. US prices, before tax:

Plus is the cheapest plan with all of Codex in it. Free and Go get one small model in one app. If you want any OpenAI model in Cursor, the cheapest way in is Premium, because Cursor says that on Plus it's "Only Grok models." That's a $10 gap. Cursor's yearly prices work out to $6.67, $25, $83.33 and $166.67 a month, which is the same as getting two of the twelve months for free if you know you'll keep it for a year. OpenAI's page shows its Plus and Pro prices by the month only.

Which models do Codex and Cursor include?

Codex includes OpenAI's GPT-6 and GPT-5.6 models, and Cursor includes only Grok and its own Composer. That's the real split. Everything else that you run in Cursor is billed to you per token. Cursor's pricing docs say "Third-party models like Claude, GPT, and Gemini aren't part of the included pool." The pool covers Grok 4.7, 4.6 and 4.5 plus Composer 2.5, and it refreshes weekly.

Cursor also doesn't carry OpenAI's newest models. Its model list, read on 8 November 2026, stops at GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna. There's no GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6 Sol or GPT-6.1 Sol. Codex runs all of them. On OpenAI's API price list, GPT-6.1 Sol costs $2 in and $10 out per million tokens, half of GPT-5.6 Sol's $4 and $20. So the best OpenAI model you can buy in Cursor costs twice as much per token as GPT-6.1 Sol in Codex. And that's the sale price. Cursor marks the GPT-5.6 Sol rate "Promotional pricing through November 21, 2026," and OpenAI's list runs its own promotion until 30 November.

The rates match exactly where both sell a model. Codex credits for GPT-5.6 Sol are 100 in and 500 out per million tokens, at 25 credits a dollar (how we got 25). That's $4 and $20, the same as Cursor's line. So the drawn gap below is the plan fee, not the token price:

The Plus line is flat only while you stay inside its 5-hour and weekly limits. OpenAI calls its ranges estimates. It has no weekly number. When you go past them, you can buy credits at the same 25 a dollar, or you can move up to Pro, where there's no 5-hour limit at all.

What does a typical month of Codex or Cursor cost?

A month of 100 typical GPT-5.6 Sol tasks costs $38 to $90 in Cursor Premium and $20 in Codex on Plus, if Plus's windows hold. OpenAI's pricing page says "A typical GPT-5.6 Sol task may use 2-15 credits." Here's the arithmetic, at OpenAI's and Cursor's rates on 8 November 2026:

Cursor only wins this month if you swap GPT for Grok or Composer. Those come out of the plan's pool, so if you're on Premium and you use Grok 4.7 for all of it, you pay the $30 and nothing more until the weekly pool runs out, and then it refills the next week. Cursor doesn't publish the pool in dollars. So we can't say how many tasks it covers. The API key row has a catch too. OpenAI says an API key gets "No cloud-based features (GitHub code review, Slack, etc.)"

What is each one best at?

Codex is best at taking a task off your hands, and Cursor is best at helping you while you edit. OpenAI built Codex so that you can give it a job, let it run in the cloud, and then come back to look at what it did. Plus includes "Cloud-based integrations like automatic code review and Slack integration," per its pricing page. You can start a task from your phone on iOS. OpenAI's tagline for Plus is "Power a few focused coding sessions each week."

Cursor is an editor first. Its docs call Tab "Cursor's AI-powered autocomplete," and it suggests the next edit as you type. Cursor's weekly pool covers its editor Agent, the Cursor CLI and Cloud Agents, so you can hand off tasks there too. And Cursor runs models from Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, Moonshot and others beside OpenAI, all at API list price. Codex runs only OpenAI's models. For how Codex scores against Claude's agent on the same tests, see Claude Code vs Codex.

Can you use Codex inside Cursor?

Yes. The Codex extension installs in Cursor, and it bills your ChatGPT plan, not Cursor's. OpenAI's IDE docs list Visual Studio Code, Cursor and Windsurf, and say "VS Code and compatible editors use the Codex extension." Sign in with ChatGPT and Codex draws from your Plus or Pro limits.

That makes the cheapest pairing Cursor Free plus ChatGPT Plus, at $20 a month. It's what we'd try first. You get Cursor's editor, and you get GPT-6.1 Sol through Codex in the same window. Add Cursor Plus for Grok and it's $28. Cursor Premium plus ChatGPT Plus is $50, or $45 with Cursor billed yearly. Claude works the same way, since Claude Code also installs in Cursor, as Cursor vs Claude Code explains.

Who should pick Codex and who should pick Cursor?

Pick Codex if you want OpenAI's newest models, cloud tasks and code review for $20. Pick Cursor if you want an editor with autocomplete and a choice of labs. Here are the rules we'd use, from the prices above:

Codex loses if you want models from more than one lab, since it runs only OpenAI's. Cursor loses on OpenAI's models: it lacks GPT-6 and charges list price for GPT-5.6 on top of $30.

What do Codex and Cursor cost for a team?

A Codex seat costs $20 a month billed annually, and a Cursor seat costs at least $30. OpenAI's Business pricing adds a $25 monthly option. Cursor's docs say "Plus isn't available for teams," and each seat gets the same weekly usage as the matching personal plan. For ten developers, here's the base bill:

Cursor's $0.25 Cursor Token Rate applies to eligible third-party requests on Teams and Enterprise. It doesn't apply to Cursor's own models. Ten developers sending 40 million GPT tokens each would add $100 a month in token fees alone (400 million × $0.25 per million), before the model's own price.

What do Codex and Cursor cost next to the rest of your AI stack?

A common stack of Cursor Premium, ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro costs $70 a month, or $840 a year. Claude Pro is $20 monthly on Anthropic's pricing page, read 8 November 2026. Two of those plans include an agent: Plus has Codex and Claude Pro has Claude Code. If you use both agents, every line earns its place, and you can't cut much.

Whizi, which publishes this page, helps with a different bill. It's a chat app with Claude, GPT and Gemini in one place, plus pictures, video and music. Whizi Pro costs $29.99 a month for 2,500 credits. It has no coding agent, no editor and no API, so it can't do what Codex or Cursor does for you. Keep Cursor for the editor work. If you pay for ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro only to chat, one Whizi plan can cover that chat and leave Cursor alone.