Cursor announced on Oct 26 (UTC) that DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is now available in Cursor and can be turned on under Cursor Settings > Models. Cursor says every effort level sits on the CursorBench cost frontier, from $0.60 to $0.98 per task, with no model scoring higher at those prices. The official CursorBench 4.0 leaderboard lists DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 at 47.7% on Max ($0.98 per task), 46.3% on Medium ($0.80), 45.6% on High ($0.77) and 44.9% on Low ($0.60). The top score on the board, Opus 5.5 Max, is 57.8% but costs $13.43 per task.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Four effort levels on the official CursorBench 4.0 board: Max 47.7% at $0.98, Medium 46.3% at $0.80, High 45.6% at $0.77, Low 44.9% at $0.60; Max ranks 17th overall
- ✓Value: Max at 47.7% nearly ties Sonnet 5.5 High (47.8%, $1.20) for about 18% less; Opus 5.5 Max scores about 10 points higher but costs $13.43 per task, roughly 13.7x more
- ✓Nearest rivals on price: Haiku 5.5 Max at 48.4% for $1.12 and Haiku 5.5 Extra High at 44.3% for $0.56, bracketing DeepSeek's price range
- ✓The trade-off is tokens and steps: Max averages about 537K tokens and 187 steps per task, versus about 37K tokens and 41 steps for Sonnet 5.5 High, so expect longer runs
- ✓Turn it on under Cursor Settings > Models; a counterintuitive detail is that Medium (46.3%) scores slightly above High (45.6%) for only $0.03 more
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Background
For agent work in Cursor, the real cost is often the model spend on each long task rather than the subscription. Frontier closed models score highest, but Opus 5.5 Max costs $13.43 per task on CursorBench 4.0. DeepSeek released V4.1-Flash-1017 on Oct 17 as MIT-licensed open weights with a low-priced API. Cursor's official account has now added it to Cursor and published a cost-versus-score comparison on its own benchmark, giving developers an official cheap-but-capable option.
How it works
Cursor offers four effort levels, Low, Medium, High and Max; higher levels give the model more budget for reasoning and tool calls. CursorBench 4.0 evaluates agents on ambiguous, multi-file tasks taken from real Cursor sessions, and version 4.0 added long-horizon problems on editing, refactoring, investigation, intent understanding, managing jobs and design adherence. The cost frontier means no other model scores higher at the same cost per task, and Cursor says all four DeepSeek levels sit on it.
Benchmarks
All figures are from Cursor's official CursorBench 4.0 leaderboard (vendor-reported). DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017: Max 47.7% ($0.98 per task, about 537K tokens and 187 steps), Medium 46.3% ($0.80), High 45.6% ($0.77), Low 44.9% ($0.60). For comparison: Opus 5.5 Max 57.8% ($13.43), Sonnet 5.5 High 47.8% ($1.20), Haiku 5.5 Max 48.4% ($1.12), Haiku 5.5 Extra High 44.3% ($0.56). Its absolute score is not top tier; its edge is the best score at its price.
Getting started
Turn on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash under Cursor Settings > Models. Start with Medium, which scores slightly above High for only $0.03 more, and move to Max for harder tasks. It uses far more tokens and steps per task than Sonnet 5.5, so long runs will be slower. For critical, high-stakes changes you can still switch back to a top model such as Opus 5.5.
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