One screenshot, $200.
Just yesterday, user @notjazii woke up to find $200 added to his Cursor account. All he did was send his Claude cancellation screenshot to someone at Cursor.
He posted: I didn't do anything, submitted a cancellation screenshot, $200 credited.
That $200 allows him to almost freely use Grok 4.6.
A Claude cancellation screenshot became hard currency overnight.
A Post That "Might Get Me Hated"
It all started the day before. On August 17th, Cursor engineer Lauren (@poteto) publicly posted on X. The post was extremely straightforward:
"I might get hate for this post, but if you're thinking of switching to Cursor with Grok Bot, DM me your email and a screenshot of you canceling your other subscriptions, and I'll give you a free month of Ultra."
Ultra is the most expensive tier in Cursor's personal plan, $200 per month, including large allowances for Grok 4.6, Composer, and other proprietary models, plus $400 worth of third-party model usage.
In other words, they're giving away the top-tier plan.
The result: the comments section exploded. A huge number of users immediately started taking action.
Soon, another developer, @spcxGOD, also shared a screenshot of receiving credits: about $180, for the same reason of canceling a Claude subscription.
Thousands of DMs Gone Unanswered
Don't get too excited yet, though.
Large numbers of people sent their emails and screenshots, and then... nothing.
User @alexkelerman said he DMed but was ignored. Many others replied "same."
Some advised everyone to be patient, saying the person was just processing them one by one. Others put it out there: If I really get a free Ultra, I'll promote Cursor like crazy.
Queueing was just the first hurdle. Something even more disheartening came up: some discovered that only X Premium members were eligible to send her a private message. Those without verification couldn't even find the entry point, and some couldn't even reply to the original post.
User @play_loh directly called it out: Not getting the free Ultra? That's called a scam.
Because there were simply too many DMs, Lauren later set up a bot specifically to handle them in bulk.
The most pointed comment came from user mishka. He said: An army of bots couldn't finish processing a few thousand DMs in 16 hours. That's not a great advertisement for Grok Bot.
This isn't surprising, though. This wasn't an official Cursor-organized campaign, just the personal action of an employee, Lauren.
But the money was indeed sent out, and quite a few people received it.
Why a Screenshot is Worth $200
On August 14th, SpaceX completed the acquisition of Cursor for $60 billion. Cursor officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of SpaceX, merged into the SpaceX AI team.
Musk stated in an internal meeting: Before September, AI revenue will exceed the revenue of all other SpaceX businesses combined.
But the problem is, Musk hasn't been able to surpass Claude Code in the AI coding track.
The successful acquisition of Cursor gave Musk a chance to overtake. Millions of developers open this window every day.
Now, Cursor is leveraging this momentum to continue its offensive against Claude Code.
That $200-worth cancellation screenshot is more like a voucher to lure you into migrating. You move your projects, shortcuts, and workflow habits over today; they're betting you'll pay for the second month yourself.
The script of internet platforms fighting subsidy wars has finally made its way to the AI coding tools circle.
And that's probably the most important takeaway from this. For the first time, developer loyalty has a public price tag: $200, redeemable with a screenshot.
References:
https://x.com/notjazii/status/2089636713413128233
https://x.com/poteto/status/2089369732554404153
https://x.com/Daniel_Farinax/status/2089390969900990541
https://cursor.com/help/account-and-billing/pricing
https://cursor.com/docs/models-and-pricing
This article is from the WeChat public account "New Zhiyuan", author: ASI启示录
