What happened
In June 2026, on June 1, GitHub Copilot stopped charging by "premium requests" and switched to usage-based billing. The change was announced on April 27 by GitHub's Chief Product Officer, Mario Rodriguez, and took effect across all plans at the start of June.
Under the new model, every plan includes a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits. Credits are consumed based on token usage (input, output and cached tokens) at the published API rates for each model. Paid plans can buy additional usage.
Why GitHub changed
According to GitHub, Copilot "is not the same product it was a year ago." It evolved from an in-editor assistant into an agentic platform running long, multi-step sessions across entire repositories. Under the old model, a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous session could cost the user the same. GitHub says it was absorbing much of that rising inference cost and that the premium request model was no longer sustainable.
What changes in practice
- Plan prices stay the same: Pro remains $10/month, Pro+ $39/month, Business $19/user/month and Enterprise $39/user/month.
- Included credits match the price: Pro includes $10 in credits, Pro+ $39, Business $19 and Enterprise $39 per user.
- Completions stay unlimited: code completions and Next Edit suggestions don't consume credits.
- No more fallback: previously, users who ran out of requests dropped to a cheaper model and kept working. Now usage depends on credits and admin budget controls.
- Copilot code review also consumes GitHub Actions minutes.
- Annual Pro and Pro+ plans stay on the old model until they expire (with higher multipliers from June 1) and then move to Copilot Free unless converted to a monthly plan.
For businesses
- Business and Enterprise customers got promotional credits for June, July and August: $30 (Business) and $70 (Enterprise) per user per month.
- Credits are now pooled across the organization, so light users' allotments don't go to waste.
- Admins get budget controls at the enterprise, cost-center and user levels, and can choose to allow extra usage or cap spend.
GitHub also launched a preview bill in early May so users and admins could estimate costs before the switch.
What this means for development teams
The change reflects a market trend: AI coding tools are moving from flat fees to consumption pricing, because agents use far more compute than chat. For companies:
- Set budgets per team and per user before the first month surprises you.
- Pick the right model for each task: expensive models on simple tasks burn credits.
- Monitor agent and code review usage, which now also consumes Actions minutes.
- Compare costs with other agent tools before renewing contracts.
Sources
- GitHub Blog, "GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing" (2026-04-27): https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-copilot-is-moving-to-usage-based-billing/
- GitHub Changelog (2026-06-01): https://github.blog/changelog/2026-06-01-updates-to-github-copilot-billing-and-plans/
- Documentation: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-billing/request-based-billing-legacy/what-changed-with-billing
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