GitHub Copilot Pricing 2026: Plans, AI Credits & Overage

GitHub Copilot pricing changed materially in 2026. The headline subscription price still matters, but the product is now also a usage-based AI service. Paid plans include a monthly GitHub AI Credit allowance, and model-intensive features consume credits according to the model and tokens used.

That means two developers on the same $10 Pro plan can have very different effective costs. One developer who mostly uses autocomplete may never buy extra usage. Another who runs frontier-model cloud agents across large repositories can exhaust 1,500 monthly credits and begin paying metered overage.

GitHub Copilot pricing at a glance

Free: $0

Copilot Free is available to eligible individual developers who do not already receive Copilot through an organization. It includes 2,000 code completions per month, Copilot CLI, automatic model selection and limited Chat/Agent usage.

GitHub does not currently publish one fixed Free AI Credit number in the main plan table. This is a deliberate reason not to invent a numerical allowance for Free.

Free is best viewed as a product evaluation and light-use tier rather than a predictable agent-workload plan.

Pro: $10/month

Pro costs $10 monthly. It includes unlimited code completion and next-edit suggestions, cloud agent, code review, third-party agents such as Claude Code and Codex, model selection and 1,500 total monthly AI Credits.

The 1,500-credit total consists of 1,000 base credits plus a 500-credit flex allotment. GitHub says base credits do not change, while the flex allotment can change as AI economics evolve.

At $10, Pro is particularly attractive for developers who get most of their value from unlimited inline assistance and use agents moderately.

Pro+: $39/month

Pro+ costs $39 monthly and includes 7,000 total credits: 3,900 base plus 3,100 flex.

It adds access to premium models including higher-end Opus options and audit logs. GitHub markets the plan as more than four times the included usage of Pro.

A developer consuming several thousand extra Pro credits each month should compare that overage bill against the $29 subscription difference to Pro+.

Max: $100/month

Max costs $100 monthly and includes 20,000 total AI Credits: 10,000 base plus 10,000 flex.

It includes everything in Pro+ plus priority access to new models and features and about 2.9 times the included usage of Pro+.

Max is intended for sustained high-volume agent workflows. A developer who mainly uses autocomplete does not need Max because paid-plan completions are already unlimited on Pro.

Business: $19 per granted seat/month

Business costs $19 per granted seat per month and includes 1,900 AI Credits per user. Credits are pooled at the organization/billing-entity level rather than trapped inside each seat.

Business adds access and budget controls, governance, data privacy and IP indemnity. GitHub is still gradually enabling new Business sign-ups under current plan documentation.

Pooled credits are valuable because not every developer uses AI equally. Light users can leave capacity available for agent-heavy users without separate manual transfers.

Enterprise: $39 per granted seat/month

Enterprise costs $39 per granted seat per month. It includes everything in Business and 2,000 more credits per user, for 3,900 total per user each month.

Enterprise also receives priority models/features and deeper organization integration. It is the plan to evaluate when repository-aware organizational context, centralized rollout and governance are strategic requirements.

How GitHub AI Credits work

One GitHub AI Credit equals $0.01. Credits translate model and token cost into one common billing unit.

When Copilot processes an interaction, it counts input, output and cached tokens. Each model has a price. GitHub converts that total into AI Credits.

This is fundamentally different from the older premium-request system, where a prompt could count as one request multiplied by a model factor regardless of exact token volume.

Base credits versus flex allotment

Individual paid plans now have two components. Base credits correspond directly to the plan price: 1,000 on Pro, 3,900 on Pro+ and 10,000 on Max.

Flex allotment adds 500 on Pro, 3,100 on Pro+ and 10,000 on Max. GitHub explicitly says flex allotments can change over time as model prices, new models and efficiency change.

Budgeting should therefore treat base credits as the durable minimum and flex credits as current extra capacity rather than a permanent contractual quantity.

What uses credits?

Copilot Chat, Agent mode, cloud agent, code review, CLI, Spaces, Spark and other model-intensive experiences can consume credits.

Credit cost varies by both model and task size. A short question to a lightweight model may cost less than one credit, while a frontier-model agent that reads many files and generates extensive output can use much more.

For organizations, GitHub can also bill code review for contributors without a Copilot license if administrators explicitly enable both paid AI usage and the non-licensee review policy.

What does not use credits?

Paid-plan code completions and next-edit suggestions remain unlimited. They do not consume the same AI-credit allowance.

This creates a strong economic advantage for developers who primarily use Copilot as “smart autocomplete.” Their marginal AI cost can remain near zero beyond the subscription.

Credit reset date

Included AI Credits reset at 00:00:00 UTC on the first day of every calendar month. This reset is independent of the subscription billing date.

If a developer subscribes on September 15, the subscription may renew around October 15, but the AI Credit allowance still resets on October 1.

This distinction matters when analyzing invoices and usage dashboards.

No rollover

Unused included credits are forfeited when the monthly AI-credit cycle resets. They do not roll over into the next month.

A developer paying for Max but using only 4,000 of 20,000 credits does not accumulate the unused 16,000. That is a strong signal to downgrade unless the higher plan is needed for feature access or occasional spikes.

Additional usage: $0.01 per credit

After the included allowance is exhausted, paid subscribers can enable additional usage. The conversion is fixed: one AI Credit costs one cent.

A $10 budget supports 1,000 extra credits. A $50 budget supports 5,000 credits.

GitHub budgets make it possible to cap usage rather than allowing unlimited overage. Teams should set budgets before enabling expensive agent workflows broadly.

Plan upgrade economics

Pro includes 1,500 total credits for $10. Pro+ costs $29 more and adds 5,500 more included credits. At the $0.01 overage rate, buying 5,500 extra Pro credits would cost $55.

That means a developer who consistently needs the full 7,000-credit range can save money with Pro+ compared with staying on Pro and purchasing equivalent overage. The comparison is even stronger if premium-model access matters.

Max costs $61 more than Pro+ and adds 13,000 credits. Buying 13,000 additional credits at the flat overage rate would cost $130, so a sustained high-usage user can justify Max before considering priority access.

Legacy annual plans after June 1, 2026

GitHub's billing transition created an important exception. Existing Pro and Pro+ annual subscribers who remained on the old system can continue using premium-request billing until their annual term ends.

Those users can stay on the legacy plan, cancel with the transition-specific prorated refund option, or move to a current monthly paid plan with prorated value handling.

When the legacy annual term ends, GitHub says the account automatically downgrades to Copilot Free unless the user subscribes to a current monthly plan.

Why old annual pricing pages can be misleading

Older GitHub documentation and G2 references still mention Pro at $100/year and Pro+ at $390/year. Those prices describe the earlier annual subscription model and should not be treated as the normal current usage-based offer for new customers.

SearchSagar therefore uses the current monthly plan table for 2026 new-purchase comparisons and treats annual billing only as a legacy-transition case.

Cancellation

Current Copilot plans can be canceled at any time. Access continues through the end of the current billing cycle and the account then downgrades to Free.

Canceling does not create a normal prorated refund for unused time. GitHub's current license-change documentation explicitly states that unused time is not refunded on cancellation or downgrade.

When prorated refunds do apply

If an individual Pro, Pro+ or Max subscriber is assigned a Business or Enterprise seat, GitHub automatically cancels the personal plan and provides a prorated refund for the remaining portion of the personal billing cycle.

Legacy annual Pro/Pro+ subscribers also received special transition options after the June 2026 billing change.

Seat billing for organizations

Business and Enterprise are billed by granted seat. Adding seats is prorated for the remaining billing cycle, while removing seats affects future billing according to the license-change rules.

Credits can be pooled at the billing-entity level. Administrators can also set budget controls for paid overage and govern model/feature access.

Code review for non-licensed users

Organizations can enable Copilot code review for contributors who do not have a full Copilot license. This does not require buying a seat for every non-developer contributor.

Instead, review usage is charged through organization AI Credits. The feature is off by default and requires administrators to enable both paid AI-credit usage and the relevant code-review policy.

Beginning June 1, 2026, code-review workflows can also consume GitHub Actions minutes, so organizations should include Actions usage in the total-cost model.

Privacy value of Business and Enterprise

Business and Enterprise are not only higher-priced credit packages. GitHub states that customer data from these plans is not used to train GitHub AI models.

They also add IP indemnity and organization-level controls. For companies with proprietary code, those contractual and governance differences can be more important than the extra credits.

Cost scenario: autocomplete-heavy individual

A developer who uses inline completion constantly but only occasional Chat may fit comfortably on Pro. Unlimited completion creates value without significant credit usage.

If 1,500 credits are rarely exhausted, Pro+ would mostly pay for unused capacity.

Cost scenario: agent-heavy individual

A developer running cloud agents, frontier models and long code-review sessions may exhaust Pro quickly. Suppose monthly use reaches 6,000 credits.

Pro includes 1,500, leaving 4,500 overage credits. At one cent each, that would add $45, for a $55 effective month. Pro+ at $39 includes 7,000 credits and would be cheaper before considering premium-model benefits.

Cost scenario: 20-person team

Twenty Business seats cost $380 per month before tax and contribute 38,000 pooled monthly credits. Enterprise would cost $780 and contribute 78,000 credits.

The $400 difference should be evaluated against additional credit needs, priority features, organization customization and governance requirements—not simply raw seat count.

GitHub Copilot pricing versus alternatives

Cursor Hobby is free, Start in India is ₹649/month, Pro $20, Pro+ $60 and Ultra $200, while Teams Standard is $40/user/month. Claude Code is included in Claude Pro at $20/month or $200/year and Max from $100; Team Standard is $25 monthly or $20 annual-equivalent. Windsurf, now Devin Desktop, lists Free, Pro $20, Max $200 and Teams starting at $80/month plus $40 per full seat.

Copilot's $10 Pro price remains unusually low for individual developers, but agent-heavy users must compare total AI-credit usage instead of headline subscription cost alone.

Final pricing verdict

GitHub Copilot's base subscription prices are transparent and competitive. The complexity lies in model/token-driven AI Credits.

For most individuals, Pro is the rational starting point. Pro+ and Max become economically sensible only when measured agent usage would otherwise create larger overage bills or when premium model access is required.

Frequently asked questions