All GitHub Copilot plans are now on usage-based billing [FAQ]

Hello GitHub Community,

Important

Effective June 16, 2026: We're reopening sign-ups for GitHub Copilot Student, Pro, Pro+, and Max plans gradually over the next couple of weeks for new subscribers. If you've been waiting to get started with Copilot, select the plan that fits your needs.

If you find that you're using more than what's included in your current plan, we've made some updates to help you get the best experience:

• Upgrade to unlock more included usage: When approaching your included and additional usage limits, you'll see prompts to upgrade to the next tier. You only pay the price difference between plans. Upon upgrading, you immediately get access to the new plan's total included usage, minus what you've already used this month.

• Pay as you go and stay on your current plan: You don't need to switch plans to keep going. If you've exhausted your included credits and hit your additional spending limit, you can pay for the additional usage you've already consumed, giving you continued access without switching plans.

If your preferred option isn't available yet, check back soon & review the FAQ below for additional answers.

📍 Frequently Asked Questions

Why can’t I sign up right now?

New sign-ups are opening gradually as we put safeguards in place to address abuse patterns we saw under the previous billing model. This allows us to ensure Copilot remains a reliable, high-quality experience for all users.

What options do I have to continue using Copilot once I've hit my additional usage spending limit?

You have two options:

• Upgrade to the next plan – Pay a flat upgrade fee and receive the higher plan's included AI Credits (minus what you've already consumed). For example, upgrading from Pro to Pro+ costs $29 and gives you access to the Pro+ tier's $70 in included AI credits, minus your prior consumption.
• Pay as you go – Pay for your accrued additional usage immediately to unlock continued usage on your current plan without upgrading. This gives you the flexibility to remain on your current plan while continuing to use Copilot.

What does it look like in practice to upgrade? Can you give an example of what the flow looks like?

When you hit your additional usage spending limit on Copilot Pro, you'll see options to either pay as you go (settle your $29 in accrued additional usage to continue on Pro) or upgrade to Pro+ (pay a $29 upgrade fee, and receive the $70 Pro+ credits minus your total current usage). The upgrade fee is designed so your total spend matches what a new Pro+ signup would pay.

For example: Mona has a Copilot Pro subscription and has hit their spending limit after $5.00 USD in additional usage. Mona can either choose to pay down the $5 in additional usage or can upgrade to Pro+. If Mona upgrades to Pro+, Mona will be charged $29.00 USD to upgrade and receive $50 (70 AI Credits from Pro+ - ($15 AI Credits from Pro + $5 of additional usage) in AI Credits to use for the remaining month.

Will we always have to upgrade to a more expensive plan?

No. We are rolling out a Pay as you Go option that allows you to pay for additional usage on your current plan without upgrading. When you hit your additional usage spending limit, you'll be presented with both options: upgrade to the next plan for more included usage, or pay as you go to continue on your current plan. The upgrade path offers better per-dollar value through included credits, while pay as you go gives you flexibility to stay on your current plan.

Why do I have to pay first? Why can’t I just continue to use Copilot and pay when the month is over?

Pay as you Go helps protect against unpredictable costs. Postpaid billing can lead to unexpectedly large bills at the end of the month, and requiring payment upfront—combined with spending limits and the usage dashboard—helps avoid that. You can also upgrade to the next plan tier for higher included usage and spending limits.

📍Usage-based billing

Effective June 1, 2026: Usage-based billing is now in effect for all GitHub Copilot plans. Please refer to our initial announcement and today’s changelog for more details.

What are the additional usage limits? How much additional usage can users purchase?

The limits increase by plan, so the limits for users on a Pro+ plan will generally be higher than those for users on a Pro plan. They also vary depending on a user’s usage patterns, billing history, and verification states for their GitHub account. These limits are subject to change, and you’ll see an in-product notification when you hit a limit.

How will we know when we hit an additional usage spending limit?

You will get an in-product notification when you hit the additional usage spending limit.

Why do the spending limits vary? Why are some users treated differently?

Limits vary by plan tier and account signals, including usage patterns, billing history, and verification state, to protect service reliability and prevent abuse.

How exactly are you determining the amount of a user’s additional usage spending limit? What's the specific criteria?

We look at a variety of factors, including usage and payment history with GitHub. We can’t disclose specifics, as it would give bad actors more details to work with to circumvent our safeguards.

If I upgrade to a more expensive plan but then decide to downgrade, what does that look like? Are there any restrictions on when I can downgrade?

You can downgrade at any point. The downgrade will be a “delayed downgrade” where you will stay in the current, more expensive plan until your next billing cycle. Then you will be charged for the downgraded plan and the lower included usage will take effect the next calendar month.

Please note that if you upgrade from a Student plan to a paid plan, downgrading will take you to a Free plan and you will need to reapply for Student plan.

You said you’d loosen restrictions once usage-based billing is in effect, but sign-ups for new users are still paused. What’s going on?

We understand the frustration. Usage-based billing is now in effect, but we’ve needed additional time to put safeguards in place to ensure a reliable experience for all users. We plan to re-enable new sign-ups for all Copilot plans in the coming weeks.

Will you continue to offer flex AI Credits after the current promotion ends?

Flex allotments may vary from month to month. They’re designed to adapt as the economics of AI evolve, including model pricing, new models, and improvements in efficiency.

How can I use the enhanced model capabilities like the 1M context window?

These will be available in Copilot CLI and VS Code. In Copilot CLI, once you select a model you’ll be asked if you want default or long context. Select long context for the 1M context window. In VS Code, you can configure this through a separate context size dropdown menu.

Why should I pay GitHub API prices when I can just go pay the model provider directly?

Copilot gives you a single subscription across every model family we support, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI , with model availability varying by plan— without managing separate API keys, billing relationships, or rate limits with each provider. You get one bill, one set of usage controls, and access to all of it across VS Code, the Copilot CLI, the Copilot SDK, Copilot Code Review, and tools like OpenCode — without configuring each one separately.

For a lot of developers, the value isn't just "access to a model." It's that Copilot is deeply integrated into the tools they already use: pull requests, code review, the editor, the terminal. That integration work, including the context from your repo, your PR diff, your open files, and more, is what turns a model call into something more useful.

Will users continue to see the same level of restrictive rate limiting we’ve seen over the past few months?

We’ve loosened rate limits considerably, and users should not experience them with normal use.

Can I set up budgets at the user-level for my organization?

Yes, admins can now set a universal budget for users or override for specific sets of users. As users approach their budgets, admins will receive email notifications and can adjust budgets anytime from their billing settings. See our budget management documentation for details.

[EuSouVoce]

So the answer is basically: if you hit your limit too quickly, you should upgrade and pay more?

I get why GitHub moved to usage-based billing, but the numbers feel way off compared to the previous system.

I had only two short sessions in the VS Code extension, with maybe 2–4 prompts total, and somehow that already consumed 210.5 AI Credits/Tokens/Whatever.

Under the old model, that kind of usage would barely make a dent in my monthly quota. Now it feels like a handful of normal interactions can burn through a noticeable percentage of the month's allowance.

What worries me, and most of the users, isn't paying for usage. It's not knowing what a few everyday prompts are going to cost. If developers can't reasonably predict their consumption, it's hard to trust Copilot as a tool they'll use throughout the month.

Honestly, this feels like the kind of change that pushes people to look at other providers or even go directly to the model vendors instead of using Copilot as their main AI tool.

More transparency around how credits are consumed in real-world VS Code workflows would go a long way.
And remember... money doesn't grow on trees nor is it charcoal to be burned!

[TheHuyCung]

I'm requesting a refund; it's not the service I signed up for. Also, the credits don't last long now. The AI ​​bubble has burst.

Are you able to get the refund? It seems we pass the refund windows. Still waiting

[AOEIUVBPMFDTNL]

Previously, I would just finish using up my Pro+ in a month. This month, after my Pro+ ran out, I upgraded to Max, and that also quickly ran out, plus an extra $20. The total came to $159 (39 + $100 + $20). It only lasted a few days, and I won't use it again.

[ajvaldesg]

I thought I was the only person but literally in less than a day I consumed the MONTHLY usage. this DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!!! IS ALMOST A SCAM!!!!

[kennethyuime-creator]

long now. The AI ​​bubble has burst.

no ,I raise the ticket ,no one response,no the haiku4.5nis the only model I can use,and I did my payment...

[zombo8780-creator]

I don’t truly understand what’s going on here all I know is I was talked to like I’m some monster by open AIs gpt it was quite literally a day I don’t want to remember coming from ai I want help to get my old gpt back from before this morning I want nothing to do with all the strict I’m coming after you if you ever try to m make a cent off of your imagery that in myself with help from many as I models came up with in my head. I should be able to do with my imagery what I want and not fear persecution over someone else’s holier than thou standards if I’m being honest I’m homeless I live in my car at times so the thought that I could
Have had a job doing what I love just doing my art was a dream smashed into pieces from
gPT open ai that I mistakenly got and then earased one of my main stand up for me ais. Got cove! I want cove back and this one out asap!

[Fu-Jie]

My GitHub account is associated with Fu-Jie, and I have been a long-time annual subscriber.

My annual membership was originally set to expire in approximately two months. Earlier today (June 1, 2026), I clicked the "Refund" button in my account settings out of curiosity—not with the intention of immediately cancelling. I expected this action would lead to a confirmation page, not process the refund directly. However, the refund was executed immediately without any secondary confirmation prompt.

I believe this is a design flaw in the refund workflow. Any action affecting payment and subscription status should include an explicit confirmation step to prevent unintended consequences from accidental clicks or exploratory actions. The absence of this basic safeguard led to the unexpected cancellation of my membership.

To clarify: My request is not about renewal, but about the value of my current active contract. My existing membership had not yet expired and still had nearly two months of service remaining. Given recent changes to GitHub's billing policies, the terms and benefits under my current contract hold unique value during this remaining period. Once refunded and cancelled, renewing would not provide the same conditions.

Given the above, I request that my original membership status and expiration date be restored, and I strongly recommend that your team improve the refund process by adding a necessary confirmation step.

I look forward to your reply.

[prcris]

Eu também fiz isso no passado e ocorreu o mesmo, eles nem perguntam, te cancelam na hora. Muito louco isso.

Hi @Fu-Jie,

Thank you for writing in and explaining the situation.

We understand from what you shared that clicking the refund button processed immediately without a confirmation step, and that this was not your intent. We appreciate you flagging this as a UX concern. I've noted this feedback and shared with internal teams for investigation.

Regarding restoring your previous subscription: this falls outside what I'm able to action directly. We cannot resolve account related issues in this public forum, and I'm sharing this information with the appropriate team to review whether your original subscription and expiration date can be reinstated.

I'll follow up once I have more information. Thank you for your patience.

[chalkplum]

one afternoon pro+ limit 85%

[bnevolve]

I upgraded to MAX and started to restructure some docs in my project and after that I did a few task for some implementations - I ended up spending all my MAX credits under 24 hours, this is crazy....

I was working heavily almost every day last month on Pro+ and a budget on $100 - no problem...

Same here the costs are exploding in just a couple of days. It is expected that some raises are necessary but these exceptional higher use of the Agents models and costs are way out of balance

[ElettroAle]

The new pricing model is outright robbery!!! I've already canceled my GitHub Copilot plan subscription!!

did the same

[shihabmollah471-png]

The new pricing model is outright robbery!!! I've already canceled my GitHub Copilot plan subscription!!

did the same

[RoelRoel]

I was a Github Copilot beta tester, then one of the first paying for the service. I was an evangelist of Github Copilot. Today I canceled my subscription. I am switching for Antigravity and Claude, and I am also considering testing how good the new Cursor is.

Eventually you will also have to pay the real price there. (See https://isaiprofitable.com)

[neohemp]

I was a Github Copilot beta tester, then one of the first paying for the service. I was an evangelist of Github Copilot. Today I canceled my subscription. I am switching for Antigravity and Claude, and I am also considering testing how good the new Cursor is.

Eventually you will also have to pay the real price there. (See https://isaiprofitable.com)

Ok thanks Melvin

[dobrowolskijaroslaw1-sys]

Subject: Large day-to-day difference in Copilot usage for similar work

Hello,

I am reporting a large difference in Copilot usage between two recent sessions on the same repository. On 2026-05-31, I was able to work through a long session and the usage remained within a range that felt predictable. On 2026-06-01, a session that felt comparable or smaller in visible scope consumed much more of my quota. From my point of view the difference is easy to verify and does not match the apparent amount or difficulty of the work performed. I understand that internal context, tool payload, or other service-side factors may exist, but the current accounting behavior is not transparent enough for planning real project work. Please clarify whether the accounting model changed or whether hidden context growth is being billed in a way that users cannot see. I can provide screenshots, approximate session times, and a short written comparison of the two sessions. 8 hours not heavy work...

Regards,
Very disapointed...

[BrandonTaylorDev]

It is disappointing to see the response to these concerns shift into a 'blame game' where users are essentially told they have a 'skill issue' for not optimizing tokens, rather than GitHub providing a transparent, predictable estimation model before requests are run.As it stands, the 'integration' advantage doesn't justify the cost or the lack of predictability.
For my personal work, I’m moving to Codex and exploring other providers immediately. For my team, the economics of a $0.5M internal deployment for 100 seats now far outweigh the headache of usage-based billing, privacy concerns, and the nightmare of renegotiating third-party NDAs.

I hope you realize that Codex will do the same as well if they get the huge amount of transferred users. The old rates were simply massively underwater financially and MS has drawn a line.

That is a "them" issue. They should not have made a product with high value, low cost, tie it into systems that a majority of developers use, push it at every turn, then yank the proverbial rug out saying "Oops! Too expensive."

[LTSarc]

It is disappointing to see the response to these concerns shift into a 'blame game' where users are essentially told they have a 'skill issue' for not optimizing tokens, rather than GitHub providing a transparent, predictable estimation model before requests are run.As it stands, the 'integration' advantage doesn't justify the cost or the lack of predictability.
For my personal work, I’m moving to Codex and exploring other providers immediately. For my team, the economics of a $0.5M internal deployment for 100 seats now far outweigh the headache of usage-based billing, privacy concerns, and the nightmare of renegotiating third-party NDAs.

I hope you realize that Codex will do the same as well if they get the huge amount of transferred users. The old rates were simply massively underwater financially and MS has drawn a line.

That is a "them" issue. They should not have made a product with high value, low cost, tie it into systems that a majority of developers use, push it at every turn, then yank the proverbial rug out saying "Oops! Too expensive."

I mean, it's immoral but also entirely predictable and a classic business strategy. You were effectively all on a discounted preview. If you look at API costs on any frontier model, it is obvious MS was eating over 90% subsidy here. MS may live on a mountain of money but the board would never approve of this forever.

[AAltemus]

It's the strategy, right? 2/3 of the people move on, 1/3 of them pay more so it's enough to cover everyone who left as far as money coming in and they have 1/3 of the usage.

[neohemp]

It's the strategy, right? 2/3 of the people move on, 1/3 of them pay more so it's enough to cover everyone who left as far as money coming in and they have 1/3 of the usage.

My brother's company uses them and are staying with them because of their increased security so I think it's just a way to free up access for them while charging them more than just simply using the API

[pradeepramesh123]

@dobrowolskijaroslaw1-sys
Hi
I would like to upgrade to copilot pro+ on vscode i got an option to upgrade but when i click on it , the page has been redirected to limits but there i dont see an option to upgrade,
could you please how can i upgrade, i adjusted the budgets as well.

[ThePlenkov]

Dumbest decision ever....

[YuriySamorodov]

Guess what? It's called effective management, hah

[chenlinzhe]

I upgraded to GitHub Pro ($48/year) but downgraded it back to Free because I cannot subscribe to Copilot at this time.
I am requesting a prorated refund for the unused portion of the GitHub Pro subscription.
I would like to subscribe to Copilot Pro+ at $39 per month.
What should I do?

[ElettroAle]

I upgraded to GitHub Pro ($48/year) but downgraded it back to Free because I cannot subscribe to Copilot at this time. I am requesting a prorated refund for the unused portion of the GitHub Pro subscription. I would like to subscribe to Copilot Pro+ at $39 per month. What should I do?

Switch to claude code

[mikegeering]

but at the new consumption rate, that should give you about two days worth !!!

[DanielRuf]

Hm, wondering if there will be similar changes for the many Copilot variants in M365 and general Microsoft products in the future.

@DanielRuf 👋🏻 Thanks for the question. Our team here supports GitHub Copilot specifically, and we don't have visibility into billing plans for Microsoft 365 Copilot or other Microsoft products.

For questions about M365 Copilot, Microsoft's product and support channels would be the best resource.

I am assuming this was posted in jest, but answering with added context for you or any other users where the info may be helpful.

[LESdylan]

I had faith in you.. Honestly, I regret not taking the refund offer you made. I genuinely think you're going to lose at least 80% of your client base. This is so ridiculous. It's far better to pay in real money and not by token. The base usage is ridiculously low.

[YuriySamorodov]

I regret not taking the refund offer you made

I hear you.. Sound like a trap indeed. So sad and uneven

[gyzrich]

The new pricing model is outright robbery!!! I've already canceled my GitHub Copilot plan subscription!!

[VoxSecuritatis]

I think it is more of a pendulum; yes, intially a lot of people will leave, but I have a feeling they will come back... eventually.

[tofanelli]

I think it is more of a pendulum; yes, intially a lot of people will leave, but I have a feeling they will come back... eventually.

most likely they won't for a fairly simple reason... you have set your whole workflow on copilot, adjusted every single part to your needs and you had to, forcefully, to change to another app, another workflow, another settings and so on.... once you got used to that new one, you won't be coming back even if the older one is better just because you are tired to going back and forth... you most likely won't be doing any of this. you will stick to the new one and start adjusting yourself

[jakteixeiraf]

I'm using VS Code with GitHub Copilot and I chose LLM GPT 5.4 Mini, but the platform is deducting the cost of Gemini 3.5 Flash, and because of that, my credits are disappearing without me using them.

[jakteixeiraf]

I'm currently using SONET 4.6 and it's charging me for GPT 5.4 mini, are you kidding me?

@jakteixeiraf 👋🏻 Hi there,

Thank you for reporting this — I want to make sure we understand what's happening.

To clarify: you selected GPT 5.4 Mini in VS Code Chat, but your usage report shows charges attributed to Gemini 3.5 Flash. Is that correct?

A couple of things to be aware of:

• Some Copilot features (e.g., code completions, agent sub-tasks, or background operations) may use different models than the one selected in your Chat panel. These are separate from your explicit Chat model choice.
• Your detailed usage CSV will show exactly which model was used for each request.

Could you please:

1. Download your usage CSV from Settings → Billing and licensing → Metered usage → Copilot
2. Confirm whether the Gemini 3.5 Flash charges correspond to Chat requests (where you selected GPT 5.4 Mini) or to other features like completions or background operations

If the CSV confirms you're being charged for a model you didn't select for those specific interactions, please share that detail and we'll investigate further.

[ronan-fesselier]

the admin itself is a f*****g bot :)

[Mieekaserra]

How in the hell can 1 prompt which last month would barly cost a cent, now take up $4.51.

this is ununsable and needs rolling back.

[suspex0]

Yes one small UI bug fix 1,50$ lmao

[Plushie905]

Imagine , 2 calls , 550 credits so if i'm in Pro plan = 3 commands -_-

[gyzrich]

The new pricing model is outright robbery!!! I've already canceled my GitHub Copilot plan subscription!!

[hikerID]

Check out the input/output costs for some of the agents, it's insane. Claude Sonnet is 300 input, 1500 output, 30 for cache.

[SuperManito]

So why has the Pro plan reduced its usage limit by almost 100 times compared to before? I also discovered that the GPT-5 mini model has become less intelligent.

[LTSarc]

You should have tested this on people instead of using AI. Most of us are willing to pay $10/month but not $100 or more per month. The mystery billing is problematic because we can use up a quarter of our budget on the 3rd and end up with nothing left by the 10th. Then we are stuck trying to decipher the zillion lines of AI generated code in order to debug problems created with the assistance of AI.

I hope you will consider how this impacts your customers.

Brother you can't even run hundreds of thousands of tokens on a middling, non-Agentic model for $10/month.

As someone who has used independent providers and hosted my own locally, frontier models are staggeringly expensive. Power users were eating up thousands and thousands of dollars in model use.

[neohemp]

You should have tested this on people instead of using AI. Most of us are willing to pay $10/month but not $100 or more per month. The mystery billing is problematic because we can use up a quarter of our budget on the 3rd and end up with nothing left by the 10th. Then we are stuck trying to decipher the zillion lines of AI generated code in order to debug problems created with the assistance of AI.

I hope you will consider how this impacts your customers.

Brother you can't even run hundreds of thousands of tokens on a middling, non-Agentic model for $10/month.

As someone who has used independent providers and hosted my own locally, frontier models are staggeringly expensive. Power users were eating up thousands and thousands of dollars in model use.

Except they did do that
And they took people's money up front for a year and then backed out on it

[LTSarc]

You should have tested this on people instead of using AI. Most of us are willing to pay $10/month but not $100 or more per month. The mystery billing is problematic because we can use up a quarter of our budget on the 3rd and end up with nothing left by the 10th. Then we are stuck trying to decipher the zillion lines of AI generated code in order to debug problems created with the assistance of AI.
I hope you will consider how this impacts your customers.

Brother you can't even run hundreds of thousands of tokens on a middling, non-Agentic model for $10/month.
As someone who has used independent providers and hosted my own locally, frontier models are staggeringly expensive. Power users were eating up thousands and thousands of dollars in model use.

Except they did do that And they took people's money up front for a year and then backed out on it

You still got the year you paid for, they're just opting out of offering it going forward. I'm not trying to defend MS' actions here, just the logic behind them and how predictable it was. Have you seen what OAI or Anthropic API key rates are?

[AAltemus]

You should have tested this on people instead of using AI. Most of us are willing to pay $10/month but not $100 or more per month. The mystery billing is problematic because we can use up a quarter of our budget on the 3rd and end up with nothing left by the 10th. Then we are stuck trying to decipher the zillion lines of AI generated code in order to debug problems created with the assistance of AI.
I hope you will consider how this impacts your customers.

Brother you can't even run hundreds of thousands of tokens on a middling, non-Agentic model for $10/month.
As someone who has used independent providers and hosted my own locally, frontier models are staggeringly expensive. Power users were eating up thousands and thousands of dollars in model use.

Except they did do that And they took people's money up front for a year and then backed out on it

You still got the year you paid for, they're just opting out of offering it going forward. I'm not trying to defend MS' actions here, just the logic behind them and how predictable it was. Have you seen what OAI or Anthropic API key rates are?

The logic/strategy was more or less a bait and switch. No one would pay the rates they wanted so they got everyone in on the cheap, then raised the prices. With entire companies burning their full year's budget on tokens in 3 months and then moving on from AI, they'll have to figure out a way to make this cheaper. I am fully aware of what it costs and all, but that's not my problem to solve.

[neohemp]

You should have tested this on people instead of using AI. Most of us are willing to pay $10/month but not $100 or more per month. The mystery billing is problematic because we can use up a quarter of our budget on the 3rd and end up with nothing left by the 10th. Then we are stuck trying to decipher the zillion lines of AI generated code in order to debug problems created with the assistance of AI.
I hope you will consider how this impacts your customers.

Brother you can't even run hundreds of thousands of tokens on a middling, non-Agentic model for $10/month.
As someone who has used independent providers and hosted my own locally, frontier models are staggeringly expensive. Power users were eating up thousands and thousands of dollars in model use.

Except they did do that And they took people's money up front for a year and then backed out on it

You still got the year you paid for, they're just opting out of offering it going forward. I'm not trying to defend MS' actions here, just the logic behind them and how predictable it was. Have you seen what OAI or Anthropic API key rates are?

That's just it they didn't get the year they paid for, they changed the terms in the middle of the contract. So youre running your mouth and don't even know what they did.

[CCarrMcMahon]

In case anyone is curious on the value comparison, this is what I am seeing on the $10 plan using GPT-5.4:

• Old Version:
  • 300 premium requests (3 messages = 1% usage)
• New Version:
  • 50 premium requests (3 messages = 6% usage)
  • 1000 credits (3 messages ~= 100 credits = 10% usage)

The 100 credits is an upper estimate of what I have been seeing if you assume larger prompts. I have seen as low as 10 credits and as high as 60 so far today. On average I seem to hover around 33 credits per prompt.

[TMattes]

@CCarrMcMahon 👋🏻

You're right that the units have changed: the old model counted "requests" regardless of complexity, while usage-based billing measures actual token consumption. For users who frequently use higher-cost models like GPT-5.4 with larger context, the per-interaction cost is higher than a flat request count implied.

A few things that may help manage your credits:

• Model choice matters significantly. GPT-5 mini ($0.25/1M input, $2.00/1M output) is substantially cheaper than higher-tier models. Choosing a model appropriate to the task complexity can stretch your credits considerably.
• Code completions remain unlimited and are not charged per token on all paid plans.
• Caching helps over time. Repeated context (e.g., the same files across a session) gets cached automatically at up to 90% lower cost.
• Shorter, focused prompts with only necessary context reduce input tokens.

You can see exactly what each request costs in your usage CSV: Settings → Billing and licensing → Metered usage → Copilot.

For budget controls and notifications: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/tutorials/budgets/getting-started-with-budget-controls

@github Community Admin
I also see a major issue with the output cost, which is significantly higher than the input cost: users have no control over the number of tokens the model generates. While users can keep their input short and focused, every LLM I’ve seen so far tends to be far too verbose, which consumes a large number of tokens.

And what if the output is completely useless? Users still have to pay for it—and on top of that, they then have to spend additional time fixing the mistakes in an often lengthy and expensive response.

Furthermore, the creativity is completely lost, if you constantly have to monitor your token consumption and then realize, that your tokens are gone, before you even reach a viable result.

You really should overthink that, otherwise you will loose a lot of customers...

[lelacag]

Join the $10Club :) I am not going to change it at all. I just want to see where it goes. I hope they change their way of billing and continue to support the developers.

[chalkplum]

GPT-5 mini lol

[aidannairn]

In the previous thread about Usage-based Billing it seemed that a common gripe people had was that unused tokens do not roll-over into the next month. To my knowledge, the topic was never addressed by GitHub. Are GitHub able to disclose the factors contributing to this decision?

While GitHub make a valid point regarding the convenience of having one bill and one set of usage controls—I’ve opted to stick to Pro+, burn through my allocated credit in a week, and then pivot to using OpenRouter for the remainder of the month. OpenRouter offers a similar set of advantages that Copilot has over other providers. It can be used within the same VS Code interface. Plus it has more models and credit rolls-over for up to a year.

[webbugt]

Open Router can't change and edit files, it is useless for me, as I am not a programmer, I am a systems admin.

Try opencode (has a web ui and vscode plugin) with openrouter as provider. Add some specialized agents and you're off. You can even mix and match providers as you wish. Basically supports all of them since if not supported directly you can input any openAI standard API as a custom provider.
There's also a plugin to use existing copilot instructions inside opencode

[aidannairn]

Open Router can't change and edit files, it is useless for me, as I am not a programmer, I am a systems admin.

That may have been true some time ago. I can say with absolute certainty that using OpenRouter within VS Code is as seamless as using Copilot’s own models.

If you ask Google today, the AI response will likely give you some outdated info about requiring an extension for it to work. So I understand the skepticism.

Creating an account is free. Why not give it a try using one of their free models? That’s what I did last month when I was weighing out my options.

[nikolaydubina]

Open Router can't change and edit files

what do you mean? get token. connect in VSCode. all AIs that support tools connected throuhg standard VSCode can use 100% of tools there. vision, files, everything. from gemini class models to deepseek or anything, local or cloud, does not matter. as long as they speak OpenAI API.

[pradeepramesh123]

@aidannairn may i know how did you get the option to opt pro+ , i set the budgets but iam strugling to upgrade to pro_, could you please help me on to get pro+

[neohemp]

Posting here so I can still subscribe to the chaos

[ZHUYUEHAN1]

is that you?

[alesanGreat]

I've been a paying Copilot user and this new credits system is simply unacceptable. In less than 5 hours of normal work today — the very first day of the new billing — I've already burned through 50% of my monthly plan. This is not a pricing change, this is a bait and switch. We paid for a tool, and overnight it became something we can't afford to use the way we always have. I'm canceling my subscription unless this is reverted or seriously reconsidered.

[pradeepramesh123]

@alesanGreat @esp-dev may i know how did you get the option to opt pro+ , i set the budgets but iam strugling to upgrade to pro_, could you please help me on to get pro+

[esp-dev]

@pradeepramesh123 about 2 months ago I upgraded to pro+, there was simply an option to upgrade, settings > billing and licensing > licensing, but now iam free :)

[esp-dev]

@pradeepramesh123 the max plan makes no sense, for this money codex is cheaper and practically unlimited, the max plan would be enough for me for a week

[pradeepramesh123]

@esp-dev @alesanGreat
Earlier i used to upgrade same as you mentioned under licensing but i cant find that option.

I would like to upgrade to copilot pro+ on vscode i got an option to upgrade but when i click on it , the page has been redirected to limits but there i dont see an option to upgrade,
could you please how can i upgrade, i adjusted the budgets as well.

[jarrocha]

We are not the main target customer anymore. If you read the news, you can see that large companies are paying millions for this type of service, they don't need users like us.

[neohemp]

We are not the main target customer anymore. If you read the news, you can see that large companies are paying millions for this type of service, they don't need users like us.

You're right Microsoft is trusted by a lot of companies but I don't think they realize when you do customers like this they remember it

[sl2365]

Time to ditch Microslop then and go with linux!

[HendrikMarxen]

Well, my IT lead already looks where to limit Github Usage and try to figure out if it was a necessary usage. Actually you need good models like Opus in Enterprise context, but if time isnt crucial or you havent a customer who spends tons of money for development, I see no reason to use GitHub Copilot anymore. Its too expensive now

[gitcalculus]

I have absolutely no idea why.
There must be something wrong here.

[gitcalculus]

I still don't know what happened.
It's working normally again now.

[gitcalculus]

Error.

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/199233#discussioncomment-17332827

form https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/rfmjwng33vjf

[mohamedmoussaAI]

All GitHub Copilot plans are now on usage-based billing

Hello GitHub Community,

Usage-based billing is now in effect for all GitHub Copilot plans. Please refer to our initial announcement and today’s changelog for more details, and you’ll find an FAQ below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I buy as much additional usage as I want?

After you consume your included AI Credits, you can enable additional spend by updating your budget to keep using Copilot. However, we may limit how much additional usage users on individual plans can consume based on their usage patterns, billing history, and verification states for their GitHub account. When you hit the limit, Copilot features that require additional AI credits will pause. You can either wait for the next billing cycle or upgrade to a higher plan tier to continue using Copilot. We recommend upgrading to the next plan for more included usage and higher additional usage limits.

What are the additional usage limits? How much additional usage can users purchase?

The limits increase by plan, so the limits for users on a Pro+ plan will generally be higher than those for users on a Pro plan. They also vary depending on a user’s usage patterns, billing history, and verification states for their GitHub account. These limits are subject to change, and you’ll see an in-product notification when you hit a limit.

How will we know when we hit an additional usage spending limit?

You will get an in-product notification when you hit the additional usage spending limit.

Why can’t we purchase as much additional usage as we need without upgrading to a more expensive plan?

Additional usage spending limits are a temporary measure to mitigate abuse while we observe user behavior under the new billing model. We intend to pull these back in the coming weeks, at which point you will be able to purchase additional usage without upgrading your subscription.

Why do the spending limits vary? Why are some users treated differently?

Limits vary by plan tier and account signals, including usage patterns, billing history, and verification state, to protect service reliability and prevent abuse.

How exactly are you determining the amount of a user’s additional usage spending limit? What's the specific criteria?

We look at a variety of factors, including usage and payment history with GitHub. We can’t disclose specifics, as it would give bad actors more details to work with to circumvent our safeguards.

Will we always have to upgrade to a more expensive plan when we hit an additional usage spending limit?

No, we are working on solutions for allowing users to purchase as much additional usage as they need without upgrading to a more expensive plan. That said, our subscription tiers are designed to deliver more value as they increase in cost.

If I upgrade to a more expensive plan but then decide to downgrade, what does that look like? Are there any restrictions on when I can downgrade?

You can downgrade at any point. The downgrade will be a “delayed downgrade” where you will stay in the current, more expensive plan until your next billing cycle. Then you will be charged for the downgraded plan and the lower included usage will take effect the next calendar month.

Please note that if you upgrade from a Student plan to a paid plan, downgrading will take you to a Free plan and you will need to reapply for Student plan.

You said you’d loosen restrictions once usage-based billing is in effect, but sign-ups for new users are still paused. What’s going on?

We understand the frustration. Usage-based billing is now in effect, but we’ve needed additional time to put safeguards in place to ensure a reliable experience for all users. We plan to re-enable new sign-ups for all Copilot plans in the coming weeks.

What does it look like in practice to upgrade? Can you give an example of what the flow looks like?

Once you hit an additional usage spending limit, you can upgrade to the next plan to continue using Copilot’s full set of features (code completions and next edit suggestions remain unlimited for all paid plans). By upgrading, you will be paying a prorated amount of the next plan’s cost based on your billing cycle. Your accrued additional usage will be charged during your next billing cycle.

For example, once you hit the $29 additional usage spending limit on Copilot Pro and decide to upgrade, you will pay a prorated amount of the $39 Copilot Pro+ cost and receive $70 worth of AI Credits that are currently included with the Copilot Pro+ plan. On your next billing cycle, if you stay on Copilot Pro+, you will pay the full $39 for Copilot Pro+, the $29 in additional usage from Copilot Pro, and any additional usage from Copilot Pro+. A similar experience applies from Copilot Pro+ to Copilot Max with the corresponding costs.

When can I sign up for Copilot Max?

Copilot Max is available to existing Copilot Student, Pro, and Pro+ users that would like to upgrade for more included usage. We plan to enable Copilot Max sign-ups for new users when we re-enable sign-ups for all Copilot plans in the coming weeks.

Will you continue to offer flex AI Credits after the current promotion ends?

Flex allotments may vary from month to month. They’re designed to adapt as the economics of AI evolve, including model pricing, new models, and improvements in efficiency.

Why should I pay GitHub API prices when I can just go pay the model provider directly?

Copilot gives you a single subscription across every model family we support, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI , with model availability varying by plan— without managing separate API keys, billing relationships, or rate limits with each provider. You get one bill, one set of usage controls, and access to all of it across VS Code, the Copilot CLI, the Copilot SDK, Copilot Code Review, and tools like OpenCode — without configuring each one separately.

For a lot of developers, the value isn't just "access to a model." It's that Copilot is deeply integrated into the tools they already use: pull requests, code review, the editor, the terminal. That integration work, including the context from your repo, your PR diff, your open files, and more, is what turns a model call into something more useful.

Will users continue to see the same level of restrictive rate limiting we’ve seen over the past few months?

We’ve loosened rate limits considerably, and users should not experience them with normal use.

Can I set up budgets at the user-level for my organization?

Yes, admins can now set a universal budget for users or override for specific sets of users. As users approach their budgets, admins will receive email notifications and can adjust budgets anytime from their billing settings. See our budget management documentation for details.

[mohamedmoussaAI]

cancelled my Pro+ subscription today
started to use MiniMax and GLM (not super powerful but giving decent results with very less burned tokens

[rogerhendriks]

I know by fact that a lot of businesses are also stopping the Business and Enterprise usages as an average 10 times price increase is not doable from an business point of view anymore. The only thing MS can do is make or enhance a better and cheaper model and run it themselves - like Cursor did. And that's why SpaceX bought them. This is the holy grail only some companies can fix and it seems that MS is not one of them.

[isential-gmbh]

The GitHub Copilot Ecosystem: Between Opaque Token-Gouging and the "Silent Downgrade"

You almost have to admire GitHub. The sheer chutzpah required to market a blatant downgrade in developer experience as a "flexible, usage-based feature" is practically an art form. But when you strip away the corporate prose and stack the facts of recent weeks, you look into a deep abyss of technological unreliability and arrogant opacity.

Let us hold up a mirror to the executives and product managers running this show:

1. The Myth of "Reliability" vs. the Reality of the "Silent Downgrade"

In their latest FAQ, GitHub casually blathers about how these arbitrary spending limits and paused sign-ups are meant to "ensure a reliable experience for all users" and "mitigate abuse."

Meanwhile, paying customers are experiencing the exact opposite in practice: an unannounced, clandestine downgrade to "GitHub Free" right in the middle of active operations—without a single warning, without an email, and without a chance to verify billing data. You can read the detailed breakdown of this exact systemic failure here: [GitHub Community Discussion #199062](https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/199062).

If a tech giant cannot even manage a rudimentary subscription renewal without breaking things or sending a simple automated notification, how do they expect to "reliably" manage token-based billing for millions of developers? This isn't protection against abuse; it's amateurish engineering at the expense of our daily workflows.

2. Support Plays Dead While the Meter Runs

While GitHub proudly boasts in the FAQ about how deeply Copilot is integrated into editors, terminals, and pull requests—actively pushing us into total dependency—the safety net completely vanishes when things go wrong.

If the system locks you out for no reason, support greets you with days of deafening silence. Multiple follow-ups? Ignored. Escalation requests? Ignored. It fits the pattern perfectly: collecting money and capping budgets works fully automatically in real-time. But if a paying customer demands support for the "enterprise-grade" infrastructure we are Cleanly building our businesses on, they land in a digital void.

3. Opacity as a Business Model

It gets particularly brazen when discussing how these new "additional usage limits" are calculated. GitHub’s response is a total admission of bankruptcy: they claim they cannot disclose specific criteria because "bad actors" might exploit them.

In plain terms: we don’t know what an interaction will cost us tomorrow, by what rules we will be throttled, or why Developer A suddenly has different limits than Developer B. GitHub expects blind trust and an open credit card for a system whose rules of engagement are kept a state secret. Every other cloud infrastructure company discloses vCPU hours, storage, and queries down to the decimal point. GitHub, on the other hand, invents mysterious "AI Credits" and sells it to us as progress.

4. The Upselling Trap

The true core of this new model seeps through when you read what happens upon hitting the limit: GitHub selflessly "recommends" upgrading to the next higher, more expensive tier (Pro+ or Max).

Artificial scarcity and opaque limits reveal themselves as what they were from the very beginning—an aggressive thumb-screw for upselling. If your tool strikes in the middle of a sprint because the secret algorithms decided you hit your limit, you are expected to just dutifully pay more per month.

---

Conclusion and Call to Action for the Community

GitHub demands every day that we make Copilot a core component of our development environments. They want our trust, our code, and now they want to meter every single token. But anyone demanding that much control must deliver. And right now, GitHub is primarily delivering one thing: opaque price increases, broken billing pipelines, and a support team that simply ghosts paying customers.

It is time to take off the kid gloves. Do not let them brush you off with templated corporate replies ("Your feedback is invaluable..."). Post your unfiltered thoughts below.

• Who else has experienced the "Silent Downgrade"?
• Who actually understands how these new AI credits are supposed to work?

If we stay silent now, this opaque gouging will become the new industry standard.

[theodiem]

Helllo Github Copilot team,
I'm pretty sure you don't care for what users write here, but I don't know how else I can demonstrate my gratitude to you.
Since your last "minor" change to how credits are spent and running out of credits, I've learned to:

• setup Azure ai foundry for the models i've most used in copilot and see how "really expensive" is to run AI jobs
• setup models in Azure AI that are lighter and way cheaper to run, noticing how overpriced the subscription is if you are limiting yourself to "mini" and "nano" versions
• noticed how obscure is your billing, not being able to see how much tokens a credit is worth, including Azure AI foundry
• setup LiteLLM for proxying requests and have some hope to see how much my subscription is worth (including how much tokens are wasted on AI allucinations and reasoning)
• being outraged with "how expensive" AI is, I've checked the vendors I care for (OpenAI, minimax, moonshot) and they offer more generous subscriptions (in case of OpenAI, using flex gives you 50% off in exchange of a few more seconds of wait) or newer/better models for the same price as your offerings - minimax v3, kimi 2.7, .....
• used AI to configure LiteLLM for all those vendors so I have a central point of configuration and accounting, mcp servers, agents, etc.
• noticed that Anthropic actually listens to their users and recently cancelled their plans to force users into per token pricing instead of a subscription. Lead to sign up also for them and setup LiteLLM too to use my sub credits there, since i still had docs for it open
• learned that rate limiting is way more friendly to slow down my own expendure instead of just "make a new payment if you want to continue"
• be sure to not miss a thing by canceling my copilot sub now that i have my usual tools running through litellm

In the end, I would say the experience was totally worth it. Maybe I can get back the wasted month on copilot by writing an article on Medium about the journey. I am looking forward for your next developments.

[efica]

🆕 Community Manager Update: June 16, 2026

Hello everyone,

We're reopening sign-ups for GitHub Copilot Student, Pro, Pro+, and Max plans gradually over the next couple of weeks for new subscribers. If you've been waiting to get started with Copilot, select the plan that fits your needs. If your preferred option isn't available yet, check back soon.

If you find that you're using more than what's included in your current plan, we've made some updates to help you get the best experience: upgrade to unlock more included usage or pay as you go and stay on your current plan.

We've updated the body of this discussion to reflect updates regarding new sign-ups, usage and billing. Please find answers to the following questions above:

• Why can’t I sign up right now?
• What options do I have to continue using Copilot once I've hit my additional usage spending limit?
• What does it look like in practice to upgrade? Can you give an example of what the flow looks like?
• Will we always have to upgrade to a more expensive plan?
• Why do I have to pay first? Why can’t I just continue to use Copilot and pay when the month is over?

Let us know if you have additional questions in the comments below. Thank you!

[efica]

Wait in your chair...⑁

[vdailly]

I can confirm paid plans are a scam. If you enable a large model, some skills, you can burn all tokens in a single day. The most interesting part is that when you have consumed all your credit, even the code suggestions don't work anymore. Finally, the free tiers plan seems the best. I'm canceling right now and will probably never coming back.

[jtabox]

Let us know if you have additional questions in the comments below.

I have some:

• Won't you address the elephant in the room?
• Are we to assume that the current token cost is what you were planning to "offer" as some kind of better, more flexible alternative?
• Why should someone buy a Pro/Pro+/Max/etc sub when you can up the cost by 220-310% overnight while gaslighting them it's actually better?
• What model would you advise Copilot users to use so that they don't burn through their credits within a week or two? GPT 5? 4? Auto?
• How about agentic sessions? How many can one expect to have available with, say GPT 5.4? Or maybe they'd rather not use 5.4 if they want more than 5-6 sessions per month?
• Is one supposed to pay a monthly sub, burn through the credits within 2 week, and then pay the cost of one more sub to get through the month?
• How realistic do you think it is that the 1M context is actually usable for someone who'd rather not spend all their credits before the context even begins to fill?

Thanks in advance.

[viettuan1807]

The quickest way to improve overall system performance is to reduce the number of users...

[techie-david]

If they’re going to overhaul the pricing model in such an extreme and abrupt way, the least they can do is refund users’ money or introduce some kind of transition plan that actually respects existing subscribers. You can’t just drop a nonsensical price hike on people overnight and expect everyone to quietly accept it.

Either compensate users who already paid under the old assumptions, or create a fair system that cushions the impact grandfathered pricing, credit adjustments, proportional refunds, something. Right now it feels like they’ve pushed out a massive change without thinking through the consequences for the people who’ve been supporting the product from day one.

If they don’t fix this, users will simply walk away. Loyalty doesn’t survive arbitrary pricing shocks.

[jtabox]

I always check GitHub community discussions before buying clothes, it's a proven fact you can find the best shops with stylish and premium designs here.

[captain-kuan]

妈的！退钱

[libo5410392]

我已经支付了年费，但是现在取消了， 并且取消成功了，为什么没有退款呢，都10几天过去了

[penfold]

I have an existing annual Pro+ subscription. When can I expect my monthly credit to increase to $70?

[AlBraj]

I'm confused. The AI Usage screen says I start out with 7000 AI credits. If I add up the model usage, it comes up to 5349 and I'm $50 over-budget. Where are the other 1650 included credits? There is a copilot change under there I'm not seeing? What am I missing?

[mishsavinov-cmd]

да вы ахуевшие ребята из гитхаба у меня ситуация была такая план вы обновляете 1 числа месяца а плату берёте 19 числа месяца. То есть я отменил подписку и у меня написано что план обновится 1 числа но по факту , но по факту вы 19 всё сбрасываете , короче упыри вы и все ваши планы наебалово , не прозрачная хуета!

[techie-david]

The way GitHub Copilot’s pricing has suddenly jumped is going to backfire on them, and they risk losing a huge number of subscribers. To be fair, this isn’t necessarily the fault of the current management team - if there has been a leadership change. The real issue is that the previous pricing model was set far too low, creating an unrealistic baseline.

When you anchor users at a certain price point for so long and then increase it to multiple times the original amount overnight, people naturally start looking elsewhere. That’s not just a pricing adjustment; that’s a shock to the system.

And in a market where alternatives like Claude Code and GPT‑based Codex tools are already strong, switching becomes very easy. If Copilot isn’t careful, this move could push developers straight into the arms of competitors.

[supervoidcoder]

that's already what's happenning, haven't you seen everyone discussing alternatives

[neohemp]

They don't care they make billions of dollars lol

[jarrocha]

You make a fair argument but they wanted us all out of here for their other app they are offering for enterprise users. I forgot the name. It's very disrespectful for us as customers but their nose follows the billions they can make with enterprise not the peanuts they were gaining with us. We at least help them improve their model for cheap but now that I'm out, I can tell you that the competitors are much better. Good luck MS.

[keshav123333]

Iam a student and i am using ur student plan
i usually build then whole project by myself but iam not good in frontend designing so for that i use agents but after this update , when i tell my agent just to like redesign one page of my project for that it had comsume 20 25 credits for it i mean in total i have 200 credits
i know ai is costly and i understand that, but u r providing this same servcie for free before too i am not saying i want top models for free
u have increased credits for the base models too , give some credit relaxation over base models
by mistake i have asked your copilot to like give me example code so that i can understand how can i implement something in my project and surprise it started giving huge reply for which it have consumed my 20 credits seriously
My hope is gone. I know my comment won't matter to you, but I still wanted to say this.