Cursor kicks out Indians from its 1-year free plan for students

The viral AI coding tool Cursor has silently excluded India from its complimentary one-year Pro subscription plan for students, without any official notification. Reports indicated that the offer was originally accessible to students in India, but Cursor has now removed it without giving any reason. It goes without saying that the action has triggered a surge of backlash online.

At the present moment, Cursor is providing a complimentary 12-month Pro subscription to students around the world. The initiative was launched just recently, providing students with the opportunity to access 500 rapid requests monthly for AI models like GPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and Grok-3. Registration necessitates an email or proof of enrollment for validation. Payment information is also requested, but there is no charge for the initial year. Normal fees, as outlined in the pricing plan, will take effect afterward unless it is terminated.

However, many Indian students who have been trying to register lately are surprised to find their country missing from the eligibility list. Forum posts on Cursor’s website show users expressing frustration, calling it unfair and pointing out India’s massive contribution to the global tech ecosystem. One user wrote, “Omitting India is a mistake,” while another added, “Injustice is done to Indian students many were still trying to get in.”

While there hasn’t been an official comment from Cursor regarding this issue, users are guessing that the alteration might result from abuses like account reselling or spam, prompting Cursor to eliminate the free scheme for users in India. Cursor initially featured India but seems to have discreetly excluded it afterwards, potentially as a response to address the misuse of the free plan.

Cursor has been created by the American technology startup Anysphere. It is developed on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code and accommodates various large language models, including its own, along with those from OpenAI and Amazon-supported Anthropic. Cursor recently surpassed a million daily users and increased its annual recurring revenue from $100 million in January to $200 million in April. Anysphere has been gliding.

Established in 2022 by four graduates from MIT, the company recently completed a funding round of $900 million led by Thrive Capital. It is currently valued at nearly $9 billion. The rise has been so meteoric than even OpenAI apparently was eying to buy it. The decision to exclude India from its student plan, however, has raised eyebrows at a time when the company is seeing explosive global growth.