GitHub Copilot pricing in 2026 explained: Free, Pro, Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise plans, AI credits, hidden costs, and which plan to pick.
GitHub Copilot pricing runs from free to $100 a month for individuals, and $19 to $39 per seat for teams. That range is wider than it looks, because since June 1, 2026 the sticker price is only half the story. GitHub replaced “premium requests” with GitHub AI Credits, and what you actually pay now depends on which AI models you use and how hard you push them.
This guide explains every plan, what a credit buys in real tasks, where the hidden costs sit, and which plan fits which kind of developer.
1-GitHub Copilot Pricing at a Glance
| Plan | Price per month | Monthly AI credits | Best for |
| Free | $0 | Small allowance (GitHub doesn’t publish the number) | Trying Copilot out |
| Student | Free | Allowance included | Verified students |
| Pro | $10 | 1,500 (about $15 of usage) | Most individual developers |
| Pro+ | $39 | 7,000 (about $70 of usage) | Daily agent and premium-model users |
| Max | $100 | 20,000 (about $200 of usage) | Heavy agent workflows |
| Business | $19 per user | Pooled across the organization | Teams |
| Enterprise | $39 per user | Pooled, higher usage | Large organizations |
Three things to know about GitHub Copilot pricing before reading further:
- One AI credit equals $0.01.
- Inline code completions and next-edit suggestions are unlimited on paid plans and use zero credits.
- Chat, agents, the CLI and code review draw from your credit allowance.
1.1-What Changed? GitHub Copilot’s Move to Usage-Based Billing
- From Premium Requests to AI Credits
The previous GitHub Copilot pricing model counted “premium requests” until May 2026. Each interaction with a premium model used one request, multiplied by a model-specific factor. A one-line question and a long agent session could cost you the same.
Under the current GitHub Copilot pricing system, introduced on June 1, 2026, Copilot measures the tokens (the chunks of text) going in and out of the model, converts them to dollars at each model’s published rate, and deducts the result from your credits.
- Why GitHub Made the Change
GitHub’s own explanation is simple: Copilot is no longer just an autocomplete tool. It now runs multi-step coding sessions across whole repositories, and those sessions cost far more to run than a chat question. Charging the same for both was no longer sustainable.
For you, the practical upshot is that light users are barely affected, and heavy agent users now pay in proportion to what they consume.
- What Stayed the Same
- Base plan prices did not change.
- Completions and next-edit suggestions stay unlimited on paid plans.
- What Got Worse
This change affects how GitHub Copilot pricing works when you hit your limit. The old fallback is gone. Previously, if you ran out of premium requests, Copilot dropped you to a cheaper model and you kept working. Now, when your credits run out, you either pay for more or wait for the monthly reset.
- What About Annual Subscribers?
If you bought an annual Pro or Pro+ plan before the change, you stay on the old premium-request system until the plan expires, though model multipliers went up on June 1. Your options are to ride it out, convert to a monthly plan and receive prorated credits for the unused portion, or let it lapse to Free. Check your Billing Overview page for what applies to your account.
2-GitHub Copilot Pricing for Individuals
- Copilot Free ($0)
Free gives you up to 2,000 code completions a month, access to a limited set of models, Copilot CLI, and a small credit allowance. GitHub doesn’t publish the exact number of free credits, so don’t build a workflow around them.
It works well for a weekend project or for deciding whether AI assistance suits you. If you code daily, you’ll feel the ceiling within a week or two.
Copilot Student (Free)
Verified students get unlimited completions and a credit allowance at no cost. The catch is that third-party agents (such as Claude Code and Codex inside Copilot) are excluded, and model choice is limited to automatic selection.
If you qualify, start here. Eligibility rules vary by country, so check GitHub’s verification page rather than assuming.
- Copilot Pro ($10 per month)
For many individuals, GitHub Copilot pricing starts with Pro, the plan most people should consider first. You get unlimited completions and next-edit suggestions, Copilot Chat, the cloud agent, code review, model selection, and 1,500 credits a month (1,000 base plus a 500 flex allotment).
Because 1,500 credits equals $15 of model usage, you’re getting about 1.5x your subscription back in usable credit. Base credits are spent first, then the flex portion.
- Copilot Pro+ ($39 per month)
Pro+ includes everything in Pro, plus access to premium models such as Anthropic’s Opus line, audit logs, and 7,000 credits (about 3,900 base plus 3,100 flex, per GitHub’s plan page).
It makes sense if you reach for Copilot’s agent mode daily, work on large codebases, or bill clients for your time, where saving an hour a week pays for the plan many times over.
- Copilot Max ($100 per month)
At the top end of individual GitHub Copilot pricing, Max is built for people running agents for hours at a time. It offers 20,000 credits (10,000 base plus 10,000 flex), the highest individual limits, and priority access to new models and features.
At the time of writing, Max has been offered as an upgrade for people who already hold a Copilot plan rather than as a first sign-up option. Confirm availability on GitHub’s plans page.
2.1-GitHub Copilot Pricing for Teams and Businesses
- Copilot Business ($19 per user per month)
For teams comparing GitHub Copilot pricing, Business adds what companies actually need: access and budget controls, governance policies, a broad model catalog, support for third-party agents, plus IP indemnity and data privacy protections. Each seat comes with about $19 of monthly credits.
- Copilot Enterprise ($39 per user per month)
At $39 per user, GitHub Copilot pricing for Enterprise includes everything in Business, plus priority access to new models and roughly double the included usage per seat. It’s aimed at organizations that need larger credit pools and higher limits across many teams.
In practice, choose Business unless you have a clear reason for the extra usage or enterprise-level administration.
- Pooled Credits and Budget Controls
These two features matter more than the headline price for teams:
- Pooled credits. Unused credit from light users isn’t wasted. It’s shared across the organization, so one developer who barely touches chat effectively funds another who lives in agent mode.
- Budgets. Admins can set limits at the enterprise, cost-center and individual level. When the pool runs out, you decide whether to cap spending or allow extra usage at published rates.
GitHub ran promotional credit boosts for Business and Enterprise from June through August 2026. Those have ended, so don’t budget around them.
2.2-How GitHub AI Credits Shape GitHub Copilot Pricing
- What a Credit Is Worth
This simple conversion makes GitHub Copilot pricing easier to compare: one credit is exactly one cent. Pro’s 1,500 credits is therefore $15 of usage on a $10 plan.
- Base Credits vs Flex Allotment
Paid plans contain two pools. Base credits are fixed and come with the subscription. The flex allotment is extra usage that GitHub can adjust as models and pricing change. Base credits are used first, and the flex pool follows automatically.
In other words, treat the flex portion as a bonus that can change, not a promise.
- What Uses Credits (and What Doesn’t)
Uses credits: Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, the cloud agent, Copilot Spaces, Spark, third-party coding agents, and code review.
Doesn’t use credits (paid plans): inline completions and next-edit suggestions.
That split is why many developers on Pro never run out. If you mostly accept inline suggestions, credits barely move.
- What Happens When You Run Out?
You have three choices:
- Upgrade to a higher plan.
- Set an extra-usage budget. Additional usage costs the same $0.01 per credit, so a $10 budget buys 1,000 more credits.
- Wait for the monthly reset.
Setting a budget deliberately is better than being surprised, so decide what you’re willing to spend before you need it.
3–How AI Model Choice Changes GitHub Copilot Pricing
When comparing GitHub Copilot pricing across models, remember that credits are consumed according to each model’s per-token price. These are published rates per million tokens (MTok) from a recent snapshot. Rates change, so confirm on GitHub’s page.
| Model | Input per MTok | Output per MTok | Tier |
| GPT-5 mini | $0.25 | $2.00 | Lightweight |
| Gemini 3 Flash | $0.50 | $3.00 | Lightweight |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1.00 | $5.00 | Versatile |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | $2.00 | $12.00 | Powerful |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | $5.00 | $25.00 | Powerful |
| GPT-5.5 | $5.00 | $30.00 | Powerful |
3.1-What That Looks Like in Real Tasks
To see how GitHub Copilot pricing plays out in practice, consider two worked examples. They’re estimates and ignore caching discounts, so real bills will usually be lower.
Example 1: A normal chat question. You paste a function and ask why it fails: about 3,000 tokens in and 1,000 tokens out.
- On Claude Opus 4.8: about $0.04, or 4 credits.
- On GPT-5 mini: about $0.003, or less than 1 credit.
Either way, a Pro plan covers hundreds of questions like this.
Example 2: A long agent session. This shows how GitHub Copilot pricing can add up when you ask an agent to refactor a module, run tests and fix failures. Say it processes 2 million input tokens and writes 100,000 output tokens across many steps.
- On Claude Opus 4.8: about $12.50, or 1,250 credits. That’s most of a Pro month in one session.
- On Gemini 3.1 Pro: about $5.20, or 520 credits.
- On GPT-5 mini: about $0.70, or 70 credits.
The same task can cost 18 times more on one model than another. That is why GitHub Copilot pricing depends heavily on which model you pick, not just your plan.
3.2–Picking a Model Without Overspending
- Use a lightweight model for explanations, small edits, and boilerplate.
- Switch to a powerful model for architecture decisions, hard bugs, and multi-file refactors.
- Don’t leave a top-tier model selected by default, which is how most surprise bills start.
3.3-Hidden and Indirect Costs in GitHub Copilot Pricing
When estimating GitHub Copilot pricing for a team, remember that the subscription isn’t the whole bill.
- GitHub Actions minutes. Copilot code review now consumes Actions minutes on top of AI credits, billed at standard Actions rates.
- More pull requests, more CI. AI-assisted teams ship more commits. Each one can trigger tests, linting and deployments, which raises Actions and storage usage.
- Admin time. Assigning seats, enforcing policies, and handling joiners and leavers takes real hours.
- Security review. AI-written code still needs review. Budget for it, especially in regulated industries.
- Training. Developers who haven’t been shown how to prompt well tend to waste credits and ship more rework.
A useful rule of thumb: when calculating GitHub Copilot pricing for a team, track Copilot, Actions and review time together. Looking at seat price alone understates the real cost.
4-Which GitHub Copilot Pricing Plan Should You Choose?
- If You’re a Student or Beginner
Start with Student if you’re eligible, otherwise Free. Upgrade to Pro only when you hit the limits regularly.
- If You’re a Solo Developer or Freelancer
For solo developers and freelancers comparing GitHub Copilot pricing, choose Pro. Watch your credit usage for a month. If you’re running out before the month ends and the extra usage budget keeps getting used, compare that overage to the $29 gap between Pro and Pro+. Past roughly $29 of monthly overage, Pro+ is the cheaper route.
- If You Run AI Agents Most of the Day
Choose Pro+, or Max if you routinely run long autonomous sessions on premium models. Remember that heavy use of the most expensive models can burn through even Pro+ allowances quickly, so model choice still matters.
- If You Manage a Team
Choose Business, set a budget before rollout, and review usage after the first month. Move to Enterprise only if you need its higher included usage or enterprise-level administration.
4.1-How to Control and Reduce Your Copilot Costs
- Set budgets and alerts early. Decide your extra-usage ceiling now, not after the bill arrives.
- Match the model to the job. This single habit cuts more spend than anything else on this list.
- Audit seats monthly. A paid seat nobody uses is pure waste. Reassign or remove it.
- Track spend by team or cost center. Teams that see their own numbers use credits more carefully.
- Watch for spikes. A sudden jump can mean a runaway automated workflow or one developer defaulting to a premium model. Investigate before assuming it’s justified.
- Forecast. Base next quarter’s budget on actual usage plus planned headcount and agent adoption, not on seat prices.
5-GitHub Copilot Pricing vs Alternatives
Copilot’s main pricing advantage is that completions don’t consume credits, and the model catalog spans several providers under one subscription. Alternatives such as Cursor or Claude Code use their own plans and usage limits, and those change frequently, so compare current prices side by side before switching. If you’re deciding between tools, count what you’d actually use each month, not the headline price.
5.1-GitHub Copilot Worth It in 2026
For most developers, GitHub Copilot pricing on Pro is easy to justify: $10 gets you unlimited completions plus about $15 of agent and chat usage. If it saves you even 30 minutes a month, it has paid for itself.
It’s less clear-cut at the top. Max is only good value if you genuinely use that much agent time. If you only occasionally run big sessions, paying a small extra-usage budget on Pro or Pro+ is cheaper than a plan you won’t fill.
The honest caveat is that usage-based billing rewards discipline. Developers who choose models carefully get more for their money than those who leave the strongest model on all day.
Final Verdict
Overall, GitHub Copilot pricing is easiest to manage when you start small. Choose Free or Student if you’re learning, Pro if you code regularly, and only move up when your own usage data shows you need to. For teams, Business with a clear budget beats Enterprise unless you have a specific reason to upgrade.
The biggest takeaway from the 2026 billing change is that your model choice now matters as much as your plan. Pick lightweight models for routine work, save the premium ones for hard problems, and Copilot stays one of the better-value tools in a developer’s stack
Frequently Asked Questions
1-How much does GitHub Copilot cost per month?
GitHub Copilot pricing per month is $0 (Free), $10 (Pro), $39 (Pro+) and $100 (Max) for individual plans. Business is $19 per user and Enterprise is $39 per user. Students can access Copilot free.
2-Is GitHub Copilot free?
Yes, in limited form. Copilot Free includes up to 2,000 completions a month, limited models and a small credit allowance. Verified students get a free Student plan with unlimited completions.
3-Do code completions use AI credits?
No. On paid plans, inline completions and next-edit suggestions are unlimited and use no credits. Chat, agents, the CLI and code review do.
4-What happens if I run out of AI credits?
You can upgrade, set a budget to buy more credits at $0.01 each, or wait for the monthly reset. The old fallback to a cheaper model no longer exists.
5-What’s the difference between Pro and Pro+?
Pro+ adds premium models, audit logs, and 7,000 monthly credits versus Pro’s 1,500. It suits people who use agents and top-tier models daily.
