GitHub shifts to metered billing

GitHub said on April 27 that every Copilot plan will move to usage-based billing on June 1, replacing premium requests with GitHub AI Credits. (github.blog) The new system charges for tokens, the small chunks of text models read, reuse, and generate during a response. GitHub said input, output, and cached tokens will all count toward the bill. (docs.github.com 1) (docs.github.com 2) GitHub pegged 1 AI Credit to $0.01 and said paid plans can buy additional usage after included allowances run out. Base subscription prices are unchanged at $10 for Pro, $39 for Pro+, $19 per user for Business, and $39 per user for Enterprise. (docs.github.com) (github.blog) For organizations, the included credits are pooled instead of split into separate per-user buckets. GitHub said Copilot Business includes 1,900 AI credits per user each month and Copilot Enterprise includes 3,900, with temporary promotional levels of 3,000 and 7,000 through September 1, 2026, for existing customers. (docs.github.com) The billing change follows a year in which Copilot expanded from short chat prompts to longer coding-agent sessions across whole repositories. GitHub product chief Mario Rodriguez said a quick question and a multi-hour autonomous session can currently cost the user the same amount. (github.blog) (theregister.com) GitHub said code completions and next edit suggestions will stay included in all paid plans, but chat, command-line interface use, cloud agent, Spaces, Spark, and third-party coding agents will consume AI Credits. Copilot code review will also start consuming GitHub Actions minutes in addition to AI Credits. (github.blog) (docs.github.com) Model choice will now change the bill more directly. GitHub’s pricing table lists GPT-5.4 at $2.50 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, while Claude Opus 4.6 fast mode is listed at $30 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens. (docs.github.com) GitHub said fallback experiences will end under the new system. Today, users who exhaust premium request units can drop to a lower-cost model, but after June 1 usage will be governed by remaining credits and admin budget controls. (github.blog) To prepare customers, GitHub said it will roll out a bill preview in early May based on April 2026 usage. Users will be able to compare current charges with estimated AI Credit spending and download a CSV report. (docs.github.com) The change closes the flat-fee era for Copilot’s heavier features and ties the price of AI coding help to how much compute each session actually uses. GitHub’s cutoff date is June 1, 2026. (github.blog)