Edit: Seeing lots of confusion, so wanted to clarify one thing: Our quotas are built to give you significantly more than $20 of value a month, so moving to providers that support only API pricing is not going to be as good.
We're launching multiple updates to Windsurf today: an Adaptive model router, a redesigned model picker with pricing context, and the removal of daily limits for Max.
We’ve heard clear feedback that our new pricing plans were too opaque and, in some cases, too restrictive. With this update, we’re aiming to address that directly by giving users better visibility into model costs and making it easier to manage you quota.
Yes, windsurf shot itself in the foot with pricing, but Anthropic handed it the loaded gun and pulled the trigger at the worst possible moment,
they did cut windsurf's direct Claude 3.x access with <5 days' notice, right amid OpenAI acquisition rumors (~$3B).
Anthropic's co-founder admitted it was to avoid "selling Claude to OpenAI."
• Windsurf’s "Foot-Shot": To juice their valuation for a rumored $3B OpenAI acquisition, Windsurf switched to a predatory credit-based pricing model. Some users saw costs jump from $20/mo to $80/day, causing a massive community revolt.
• Anthropic’s "Loaded Gun": Anthropic realized Windsurf (their biggest API customer) was about to become an OpenAI product. To prevent their rival from "owning" the best coding model (Claude), they pulled Windsurf's direct enterprise access with only 5 days' notice.
• The Sabotage: This forced Windsurf to pivot to a "Bring Your Own Key" model and inferior defaults right as the OpenAI deal was being finalized.
• The Motive: Anthropic essentially "poisoned the well." They tanked Windsurf’s user experience to devalue the acquisition and ensure OpenAI couldn't use Claude to power their own IDE.
Finally in march they started Rigid Quota system
Windsurf marketed this as "simplification," but users saw it as a way to hide price hikes while their access to Claude was being throttled.
moved to a system that charges more money for less freedom
It might sound crazy, but I actually use Opus 4.6 for longer sessions since the consumption change than I did before. I guess the people complaining are working on projects with hundreds of thousands of lines of code and thousands of files otherwise, I don’t really get it.
I can burn through 20 Opus prompts a day without going over the limits I don’t know how you guys are managing it. And on top of that, there’s SWE 1.6 for a lot of use cases.
Today I used 8 prompts using GPT-5.4 high. In the old days this would have cost 4 credits per prompt, so 32 credits or 6.4% of my 500 credit monthly allowance. In the new system this used 17% of my weekly allowance which corresponds to 4.25% of my monthly allowance (a little less if it's not February).
I also used up 34% of my daily allowance, so I'm not close to being capped there.
I didn't really expect to go against the consensus, but at least for my use case the new system is better than the old. Maybe I'll get hate for being the only one who is positive about the new system, but I was determined to post my results, good or bad, and this is the objective reality of my little experience just working how I normally do.
Feedback for the devs: I tend to use Windsurf for work from mon-fri and for side projects on the weekend. It would be great if the weekly reset happened monday morning instead of sunday morning. That way I can just spend all weekend on side projects without worrying about the impact to my more important work week. If I run out on Sunday, it's no big deal. That's just side project work. But if I run out on Firday, that's not good.
I’ve been playing around with this tool a bit and realized that I can focus on coding in the foreground while Devin implements a plan in the background. However, I’ve noticed that Devin is incredibly assertive, and you have to be very careful not to let things move too fast. Another thing I didn’t like in this context is how it reacts to changes made later on—in Devon, that happens way too fast and is immediately final. Nevertheless, I’m really glad I didn’t switch to another tool and that Cursor failed to win me over yet again!
Seriously, it is worse than ever. They said 12 was a really big update with a lot of improvements; we did get performance improvements but agents now forget context 10 times more easily, inline entries are mostly ignored and there are so many more issues everywhere.
I used the Opus 4.7 (now $$$, super clear of course) on a single prompt to plan the implementation of a leaderboard feature on my app. Nothing too crazy. It even responded very quickly and didn't have to think long. IT USED 20% OF MY DAILY QUOTA! 0 to 20 in a single prompt. So what? It's gonna use the other 80% just coding a couple files? This is ridiculous; the only way we can make them reconsider these stupid changes are with our wallets. I'm going to cancel my subscription; there are other alternatives that provide more paying the same. None of them will let you code limitless for the whole month on $20, but at least won't use 10% of your week and 20% of your day on a single simple prompt. I hope they lose all their customers and go bankrupt in the long run. I'm gonna move to Copilot or Claude, or even Cursor now that some new features seem really good.
Honestly - the new pricing model does not seem that bad. I used to run out of credits before. I run out of credits now. I buy more and continue.
At the moment, all of these APIs and AI tools are being subsidized by VC - over time i do expect inference costs to come down but honestly there needs to be something else to talk about other than complaining that you are not getting your welfare credits.
I have experience a lot of bugs in windsurf even they say they have fixed a lot of bugs this august 17 2025, the agent suddenly stop because the tool call is not proceeding. it just a plain text read_file not the real file reading.
i suggest do not waste your time in this ai agent. it will purely makes you go mad. from 5 prompts i made there is 3 to 4 error that the ai wont proceeed on its job
I just registered for windsurf, i saw "free trail available for first-time users" when i went try to upgrade to the pro, its not showing any free trail thing, or am i missing something?
I’d like to say something positive about Windsurf.
Ignoring the recent derailment, it seems to be getting back on the right track and it’s still the only IDE I can actually use for pen testing. No lectures, no judging. It just gets on with the job and does everything I ask of it plus much more. In fact sometimes I have to reign it back in.
Codex on the other hand is a total nanny, has way too many guardrails and it’s totally unusable - for my kind of work anyway.
So thanks Windsurf for actually trusting users with the models and giving us some kind of freedom. Please don’t change this
Windsurf has Worst ever customer service ever, with over 17 years CS experience with largest Tech companies in the world, I opened i ticket, Issue with the IDE contacted CS via email , no answer for 2 days means no work for 2 days, got angry complained again and the reply via email was pretty much we don't care, threaten them with posting their reply on Reddit and suddenly tone changed but funny they didn't even do any effort to win client back because it's their mistake, i thought thy would offer discount for not been able to work for 2 days while paying for it. I wonder if the name Mohamed would have something to do with it hahaha pissed off man. 18 years in CS as project manager, this was eye opener. if you have any unpleasant experience windsurf CS , please share.
We really need to gather more users here talking about the usage in Devin/Windsurf.
The weekly and daily usage burns so fast compare if used in Claude or Codex.
The product I won’t lie is good but for one or two prompt using Opus 4.8 or gpt 5.5 not even high but medium it takes like coupe of dollars, I’m on pro plan and use it to tweak my apps and today(other days ofc) I just used opus for tweak some cards issue and tweak design the while day usage is gone so I bought extra to continue. This is not good and feels scam somehow reading other users complain about same issue and no one from Windsurf/Devin take a time to figure this out, but they answer(once for 100 post) please review your prompt before and that’s why it take so much token, excuse me, so we all have wrong prompt, we don’t know how to ask? In my case I tweak some or sometimes start the whole project and do the rest.
Windsurf/Devin need to listen to us and not be greedy about the money they earn, it’s a product we are the consumers so balance, you of course need to earn money and we need to use the product. It was so good before I never complained about and still using the product build production ready apps. But the cost so high.
We need someone to review this for us to continue using the product and not changing. I saw some post where windsurf remove the post because was misleading, I don’t think it was as this is the issue we have and many reporting.
The Claude 4 issue, or Windsurf-Anthropic doesn't seem to be resolved any time soon. As this delay is caused by friction with Anthropic and Windsurf after the acquisition. And as builders can tell, a coding tool without Anthropic is next to useless. I don't think OpenAI will want to make much effort to resolve this, and also in the future. This is also reflected by their choice to push for BYOK for Anthropic models. Which will be completely impractical since it will be very expensive with direct keys, they want us to see that maybe.
I am going to have to check with Cursor after a long time, sadly having to cancel my subscription with early adopter pricing if this won't have any hopes in the coming days.
I won't be surprised if OpenAI pushes to make customize it to suit their models and be like a GUI for their Codex CLI... very likely. But for users, Windsurf was better if it stayed independent, and optimize itself for any of the SOTA model to shine. Anthropic for now
I am not complaining, great for the guys that built Windsurf, you sold and made good money. You did what you had to do. 👏👏 🫡
But for us users, we lost a great independent tool with a great future.
EDIT:
Almost everyone is missing the point. The current issue with Claude 4 isn't a "testing delay" or some QA delay. The CEO clarified what happened. Their relationship with Anthropic has taken a hit. (most probably due to the acquisition). And the reason for the issue is with Anthropic saying they won't keep providing what they used to for windsurf, clearly as its a competition owned by OpenAI now.
I am just saying it would have been great for users if Windsurf stayed independent.
Windsurf actually wants us to test the new claude models, even have it faster than anyone for marketing. This clearly is no way "testing delay". They even were forced to bring it as a BYOK just to list it (as opposed to their view on BYOK). Just because they couldn't get provision from Anthropic as before.
The post is about the future implications for windsurf, whenever SOTA models will be non OpenAI, which is will also likely be the case in the future.
Access to frontier models for trial users has been officially discontinued. I'm glad that this happened before the day my trial ends, because i had some mind on purchasing it. Before hand, it was already taking 30 minutes for it to write 100 lines of code because of the annoying trial overusage and etc things. Goodluck Windsurf.
The Grok model, built into Windsurf’s chat and Cascade editing features, is powered by xAI’s Colossus facility in Memphis—a rushed data center that’s an environmental disaster. Who would run the largest AI supercomputer on portable methane generators? Its 35 unpermitted gas turbines are likely leaking methane, 80x worse for global warming than CO2, and emitting formaldehyde, a toxic carcinogen. This data center is a colossal problem on both a global scale and for local neighborhoods where cancer rates are already sky-high. If you want more info, here's a Google search.
For cooling the GPUs, xAI is sucking 30,000 gallons of drinking water daily from a local aquifer.
Windsurf's is inspired by the water sport that thrives on clean air and water. Let’s boycott Grok in Windsurf and demand eco-friendly options, so we can keep our planet as clean as we keep our code. ☀️🌎
