Cursor makes its biggest India push so far ahead of SpaceX acquisition at local prices

Just weeks before the closing of its expected acquisition by SpaceX, AI coding startup Cursor is making its biggest push into India yet, launching its first country-specific subscription as the company bets on one of the world’s biggest engineering markets to fuel its next phase of growth.

On Monday, the startup launched Cursor Start, a ₹649-a-month (about $7) subscription designed specifically for India — and priced much lower than Cursor’s $20-a-month Pro subscription.

This move reflects the growing importance of India in the Cursor business. The startup says that India is already the world’s third largest market and home to its highest energy users, and its users in the country have more than tripled in the past year.

That scale, combined with India’s deep pool of software engineering talent, made it the first market where Cursor chose to do localized pricing, Simon Green, Cursor’s head of Asia-Pacific and Japan, told TechCrunch. “We felt we had an opportunity there to scale the commercial model and drive scale,” Green said. “The country’s technological prowess and existing engineering talent make it a natural fit.”

India has emerged as one of the largest software engineering destinations in the world. Earlier this year, GitHub said the country has more than 27 million developers in its territory, second only to the US, with more than 2 million joining in 2026 alone.

Cursor Start includes access to Cursor Composer 2.5 and Grok 4.5 models, with higher usage limits than the free tier, along with cloud agents, its iOS app, plugins, Model Context Protocol support, hooks, and capabilities. The startup said the program is aimed at developers who need AI-assisted coding capacity beyond what the free tier offers without upgrading to its full Pro subscription.

The lower-priced system is intended to expand reach rather than replace Cursor’s flagship, Green said. Unlike the $20-a-month Pro subscription, Start doesn’t include access to frontier AI models from providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, or advanced features including Bugbot, Auto Mode, Automation, and the Cursor SDK.

The system is billed in Indian rupees and supports payments through credit and debit cards and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Green told TechCrunch that Cursor will implement multiple checks to ensure that India-only subscriptions are only available to individual users in the country, including measures to prevent people from accessing the program through private networks (VPNs).

Cursor is not alone in aggregating its prices in India. OpenAI and Anthropic have also launched India-specific programs in the past year as global AI companies compete for users in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.

While Cursor Start is limited to India at first, Green told TechCrunch that the startup may expand its pricing to other markets if the model is successful.

“We will continue to do everything we can to drive demand forward and provide service to those customers who use it,” said Green. “Now, if this model proves that we can take it to other markets, maybe we will. But I think it would be crazy to say that we can’t do it elsewhere.”

OpenAI provides one example of this strategy, having launched sub-$5 ChatGPT Go in India before expanding its low-cost subscription to other markets.

In addition to the local pricing strategy, Cursor is also expanding its presence in India with new hires. Green told TechCrunch that the startup recently hired its first salesperson in India and expects another lead to join in Delhi. The company is also building its government affairs office, as well as three customer service centers, as it expands its presence in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Cursor’s business push is still in its early stages in India, Green said, where adoption so far has been largely driven by individual developers, startups and universities. He said Cursor sees significant opportunities in sectors including banks and large corporations as it expands its local sales efforts.

Green said, India-specific pricing is designed to be commercially sustainable rather than a loss leader. He said the low-cost system works because it’s built around Cursor’s AI models, which carry lower operating costs than relying heavily on third-party models.

Cursor’s India expansion comes a little over a month after Elon Musk’s SpaceX agreed to acquire the AI ​​coding startup in an all-stock deal worth $60 billion, following SpaceX’s initial public offering. The acquisition is expected to close in Q3. However, SpaceX has partnered with Cursor since April to develop the next generation of “coding and experience AI.”

Green said Cursor will continue to operate independently until the transaction closes and that the company’s India expansion plans had already begun before the deal. Once the acquisition closes, however, Green said SpaceX’s presence in India through Starlink could help Cursor grow faster by lowering commercial and operational barriers.