GitHub Actions Cost 2026 vs CircleCI, GitLab CI, Buildkite

For 10 developers running 10,000 CI minutes a month, GitHub Actions costs about $82 a month on its Team plan. CircleCI comes to $117, GitLab Premium to $290 and Buildkite Pro to $364. These are list prices in US dollars, verified on each vendor's pricing page on October 10, 2026. GitHub Actions is the cheapest of the four at this size because its seat price is the lowest.

The per-minute prices are closer than the plan names suggest. GitHub's 2-core Linux runner and CircleCI's Linux medium class both cost $0.006 a minute once you pass the included allowance, so the bill is decided by seats. GitHub charges $4 a user, CircleCI charges $15 for each user beyond five, and GitLab and Buildkite charge $29 and $30 a user. Team size changes the order, and the table below shows where.

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 114 CI/CD tools as of October 10, 2026, and 91 of them have a free plan. Free tiers are common in this category, but none of the four covers this volume, so this page prices the paid plans. The full list is in the Toolradar CI/CD ranking.

At a glance

List prices verified on vendor pages, October 10, 2026, in USD. Scenario: 10 developers, 10,000 CI minutes a month.

The scenario and the arithmetic

The scenario is a team of 10 active developers that runs 10,000 CI minutes a month on the default standard Linux runner of each platform. The machines are not identical. GitHub's 2-core runner, CircleCI's Linux medium class, GitLab's default small runner and Buildkite's Small shape (2 vCPU) are the nearest standard options, so this page compares billing, not build speed. A faster runner that finishes the same job in fewer minutes lowers every bill in the table, and that is worth measuring on your own pipeline before you commit.

Each total uses the vendor's own allowance and rate. The working is short:

• GitHub Actions: 10 seats at $4 is $40. The team runs 7,000 minutes above the 3,000 included, and 7,000 at $0.006 is $42. Total: $82 a month, or $984 a year.
• CircleCI: Performance includes five active users, so the other five cost 25,000 credits each, 125,000 in all. The pipelines use 10,000 minutes at 10 credits a minute, another 100,000. Take off the 30,000 free credits and 195,000 paid credits remain. At $0.0006 a credit that is $117 a month.
• GitLab CI: 10 seats at $29 is $290 a month, billed annually, or $3,480 a year. The default runner uses one compute minute for each minute of job time, so 10,000 minutes fits inside Premium's 10,000 with nothing left over.
• Buildkite: 10 active users at $30 is $300. The 10,000 Small minutes use 20,000 vCPU minutes, and Pro includes 4,000 of those. The remaining 16,000 at $0.004 come to $64. Total: $364 a month.

Two points stand out in that arithmetic. GitHub and CircleCI charge the same per minute, and each free allowance is worth the same $18 at list price, 3,000 minutes on GitHub and 30,000 credits on CircleCI. The gap comes from seats. Ten GitHub seats cost $40, while CircleCI's ten users cost $75, because its five included users are free and the other five cost $15 each.

Cost by team size

Monthly list cost at 10,000 CI minutes, with the same allowances and rates as above, verified on vendor pages October 10, 2026.

CircleCI is the cheapest option at five developers, at $42, because its five included users are free and the team's minutes come to 70,000 paid credits. A sixth developer adds $15 to CircleCI, which comes to $57 against $66 for GitHub, so CircleCI still wins at six. From seven developers GitHub Actions is cheaper, $70 against $72, and the gap widens from there. At 25 developers GitHub Actions costs $142 and CircleCI costs $342. GitLab Premium and Buildkite Pro cost more at every team size in the table. Their seat prices are $29 and $30, about seven times GitHub's, and that gap outweighs the compute they include.

Where the ranking can flip

Three things move the answer. Team size changes the cheapest option within the table, and the other two need prices or volumes the table does not show.

• Team size. CircleCI wins up to six developers at 10,000 minutes. Its five included users make the first five seats free, while GitHub bills every seat at its lower rate. From seven developers, GitHub's lower seat rate wins.
• GitHub's renewal price. At 10 developers the GitHub total is $42 plus ten times the seat price. That total reaches CircleCI's $117 when the seat price hits $7.50, so a renewal above $7.50 a user a month would make CircleCI the cheaper option at this size.
• Build volume. GitHub and CircleCI add the same amount per extra minute, so more minutes do not change their order. What more minutes do change is the gap to GitLab and Buildkite, which charge more for each extra minute. GitLab's add-on costs $10 per 1,000 minutes, which is $0.01 a minute beyond its 10,000 allowance, and Buildkite's Small runner costs $0.008 a minute.

GitLab and Buildkite also carry reasons that a list price does not measure. GitLab keeps source control and CI in one vendor, and its Ultimate tier has no published price, so this page cannot cost it. Buildkite Pro includes 10 self-hosted agents, which is the main case for its seat price if you run your own fleet.

What each vendor charges beyond the table

GitHub Actions

GitHub's Free plan includes 2,000 Actions minutes a month on private repositories, Team includes 3,000 and Enterprise Cloud 50,000. Linux 1-core costs $0.002 a minute, arm64 2-core $0.005, Windows 2-core $0.010 and macOS $0.062, while Linux 2-core is the rate used throughout this page. A macOS minute therefore costs about ten times a Linux 2-core minute, so a macOS-heavy pipeline needs its own calculation. Standard GitHub-hosted runners are free on public repositories. GitHub's billing documentation says self-hosted runner usage is free today. GitHub announced a platform charge for self-hosted runners in December 2025 and postponed it, with no new start date. The Toolradar GitHub Actions profile covers the tool.

CircleCI

CircleCI's Free plan gives 30,000 credits a month, and those credits expire at the end of the month without rolling over. On Performance, each active user beyond five costs 25,000 credits ($15) per billing cycle, paid from the same pool as the minutes. Compute is billed per minute at a rate set for each resource class, and the Linux medium class costs 10 credits a minute, the same per-minute rate as the table. Other classes cost other rates, so check the class your jobs run on. Network and storage beyond plan limits cost 420 credits per GB, and a bulk purchase of 1 million credits costs $600. The CircleCI Performance plan overview has the user and credit rules, and the Toolradar CircleCI profile lists the vendor.

GitLab CI

GitLab's Free tier gives 400 compute minutes a month, and Premium gives 10,000 for $29 per user a month billed annually. Ultimate lists 50,000 minutes and a price on request. Runner size changes the count. A medium Linux runner uses two compute minutes for each minute of job time, a large one uses three, and an xlarge uses six, so a pipeline moved to a bigger machine burns its allowance faster. The Compute Minutes add-on costs $10 per 1,000 minutes as a one-time payment. GitLab describes the GitLab Credits in Premium, $12 per user a month, as a promotional offer for a limited time, and this page leaves them out of every total. The GitLab pricing page and its compute minutes documentation are the sources, and the Toolradar GitLab profile lists the vendor.

Buildkite

Buildkite's Free plan covers up to five users and 2,000 Linux vCPU minutes a month. Pro costs $30 per active user a month, supports up to 50 users and includes 4,000 Linux vCPU minutes. Hosted Linux compute costs $0.004 per vCPU minute, billed per second. Small (2 vCPU) costs $0.008 a minute, and Medium (4 vCPU) costs $0.016. Pro includes 10 self-hosted agents and charges $3.50 a month for each one after that. Enterprise has a 30-user minimum and is priced on request. The Buildkite pricing page is the source, and the Toolradar Buildkite profile lists the vendor.

Free tiers at this volume

No free plan covers the scenario on private repositories. Counted in each vendor's standard Linux minutes, CircleCI's 30,000 free credits give about 3,000 medium minutes. GitHub's 2,000 free minutes cover a fifth of 10,000, GitLab's 400 cover 4%, and Buildkite's 2,000 vCPU minutes give 1,000 Small minutes. For free hosting for the services those jobs deploy, see cloud free tiers compared.

Gotchas that change the bill

• The 12-month label. GitHub's Team and Enterprise prices are labeled "for the first 12 months", and the page gives no renewal price. Ask GitHub for the renewal rate before you budget past year one.
• Credit blocks. CircleCI sells credits in 25,000-credit blocks at $15. The 195,000 paid credits in the scenario need eight blocks, so buying whole blocks costs $120 against the $117 computed above.
• Runner multipliers. GitLab charges more compute for larger runners, so a medium runner doubles the minutes used for the same job.
• Promotional credits. GitLab's included GitLab Credits are a limited-time offer. Do not budget them as permanent.
• Extra agents. Buildkite Pro charges $3.50 a month for each self-hosted agent after the first 10.
• Self-hosted runners. The December 2025 platform charge was postponed, not cancelled, so check GitHub's billing page before you budget a self-hosted fleet.

Where this page stops

This page prices CI spend only. It does not include GitHub Copilot, AI seats or GitLab Ultimate. The seat-and-AI comparison between GitHub and GitLab is in GitHub vs GitLab 2026, and the Copilot line is covered in GitHub Copilot pricing and the GitHub Copilot review. For the tool list by billing unit, read best CI/CD tools. For the AI coding tools that sit beside a Copilot seat, see best AI coding assistants. If you plan to run your own runners, the hardware side is in best self-hosting tools, best VPS hosting for developers and best cheap VPS.

How we compared

Every price on this page is a list price in US dollars, verified on October 10, 2026 on these pages: GitHub pricing, GitHub Actions billing, CircleCI pricing, CircleCI Performance plan, GitLab pricing, GitLab compute minutes and Buildkite pricing. Each total is multiplication and addition of those rates, and the working is in the arithmetic section. The comparison prices billing only and does not measure build speed or runner performance. Annual commitments and negotiated contracts change the totals, and the figures here are the public ones.

FAQ

How much does GitHub Actions cost in 2026?

GitHub Actions is free for public repositories on standard runners. For private repositories, the Team plan costs $4 per user a month, labeled "for the first 12 months", and includes 3,000 minutes. Linux 2-core minutes beyond that cost $0.006 each. For 10 developers running 10,000 minutes, the total is $82 a month.

Is GitHub Actions cheaper than CircleCI?

At 10 developers and 10,000 minutes, yes. The per-minute rates match, so the seat price decides it. CircleCI is cheaper up to six developers, because its five included users are free. From seven developers, GitHub Actions is cheaper.

Is GitLab CI free?

The Free tier includes 400 compute minutes a month, which covers a small project but not a busy team. Premium is priced per seat, billed annually, and includes 10,000 minutes. For 10 developers, the seats cost $290 a month before any extra minutes, and extra minutes cost $10 per 1,000.

Which CI/CD has the most free minutes?

Counted in each vendor's standard Linux minutes, CircleCI's free plan gives the most: about 3,000 medium minutes from 30,000 credits at 10 per minute. GitHub Actions Free gives 2,000 minutes on private repositories, GitLab Free gives 400, and Buildkite Free gives 2,000 vCPU minutes, which is 1,000 Small minutes.

Does Buildkite charge per user?

Yes. Pro costs $30 per active user a month and includes 4,000 Linux vCPU minutes. For 10 developers running 10,000 Small minutes, the bill is $300 in seats and $64 in compute, $364 a month.

Cite this: Devshot, "GitHub Actions Cost 2026 vs CircleCI, GitLab CI, Buildkite", October 2026.

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