GitHub Copilot Pricing 2026: Every Plan, Usage Billing and Real Monthly Cost

GitHub Copilot Pro costs $10/mo, Pro+ is $39/mo, Max is $100/mo, and Free costs nothing, verified on GitHub's pricing page in October 2026. Since June 1, 2026, every plan bills in GitHub AI credits at $0.01 each, so the sticker is a floor and heavy agent use is what lifts the invoice. Business is $19 per seat and Enterprise is $39.

These figures come from GitHub's plans page, its plans documentation and its usage billing docs, all read in October 2026. The short version for a budget: code completions stay unlimited on paid plans, while chat, agent mode, the CLI and the cloud agent draw from a monthly pool of credits that resets on the first of the month and does not roll over.

Toolradar data: the AI coding ranking evaluated 155 tools as of October 2026, and in the scenario table below Pro+ becomes cheaper than Pro once a month's usage passes $44. The product verdict lives in the GitHub Copilot review, and the directory record is GitHub Copilot on Toolradar.

Plan	Price	Included monthly credits	Best for
Free	$0	Limited chat and agent usage, 2,000 completions	Trying Copilot before paying
Student	$0 for verified students	An allowance of credits	Students with a verified account
Pro	$10/mo	1,500 credits ($15 of usage)	Completions plus occasional chat and agent
Pro+	$39/mo	7,000 credits ($70 of usage)	Agent mode on most workdays
Max	$100/mo	20,000 credits ($200 of usage)	Heavy agent and CLI users
Business	$19/seat/mo	1,900 credits per seat, pooled	Teams that need admin controls
Enterprise	$39/seat/mo	3,900 credits per seat, pooled	Organizations that need the top governance tier

What changed with Copilot usage-based billing?

Before June 1, 2026, each model interaction cost one premium request unit and a multiplier was applied depending on the model. GitHub's own billing docs say that as of June 1, 2026, the cost of an interaction depends on the model and the number of tokens consumed instead. One AI credit equals $0.01, and rates follow each model's listed API price per million tokens.

Code completions and Next Edit Suggestions stay unlimited on paid plans, so a developer who mostly tabs through suggestions is never metered. What moved is the meaning of "included": you now get a pool of money-equivalent credits rather than a count of requests, which rewards light chat users and penalizes anyone who runs long agent sessions on a frontier model.

Code review picked up a second meter. GitHub's June 1 changelog says Copilot code review now consumes GitHub Actions minutes in addition to AI credits, so a team running it on every pull request should not assume the seat price is the whole cost. AI for code review covers the alternatives.

How do AI credits turn into a bill?

A credit is a cent, and what each interaction burns depends on input, output and cached tokens, priced per model. GitHub's model table lists Claude Sonnet 5.5 at $2.00 per million input tokens and 10 dollars per million output tokens, while GPT-6 Luna is $0.10 input and $0.50 output. A million output tokens on Sonnet therefore burns 1,000 credits, which is two-thirds of a Pro allowance in one go.

That spread is why model choice, not seat choice, decides most overage: pinning a lightweight model for routine chat saves the pool for the occasions when an agent really needs a frontier model. Opus 5.5 is listed at $4.00 input and 20 dollars output per million tokens, double the Sonnet output rate, so a long agent run on it empties a Pro pool quickly.

When the pool runs dry you have three options, all from GitHub's docs: upgrade the plan, set a budget for additional usage, or wait for the reset. Every 1,000 extra credits you budget for cost ten dollars, so the budget you set is your ceiling on extra spend.

Is GitHub Copilot free?

Yes, with limits. Copilot Free costs nothing and covers limited chat and agent usage plus 2,000 completions a month, and GitHub restricts it to developers who have no organizational access. That is enough to judge the editor experience, but it will not carry a week of agent work.

Two other free routes exist: Copilot Student is free for verified students, and GitHub says verified teachers and maintainers of popular open source projects may be eligible for free Pro. If you qualify for either, check that route before paying. The claim steps for each free route, and the current sign-up status, are in How to Get GitHub Copilot for Free in 2026.

GitHub's June 1 changelog also said new sign-ups for the Student, Pro, Pro+ and Max plans were paused while safeguards went in, with a reopening promised in the following weeks. The plans page now lists a sign-up button for each plan, but confirm availability at checkout rather than assuming it.

Copilot Pro: the plan most people mean

Pro is the plan behind the quoted headline price. It includes unlimited completions and 1,500 credits a month, made of 1,000 base credits plus a 500-credit flex allowance. GitHub states that flex allotments may change over time, so treat the full allowance as a current benefit, not a contract.

Stay on Pro when completions are your main use and chat is an occasional question, because a developer who opens agent mode a few times a week will rarely strain 1,500 credits. A daily agent user can drain the pool mid-month, which is where the next plan comes in. Cursor pricing shows how a rival handles the same trade-off.

Pro+ and Max: when the pool is the product

Pro+ carries 7,000 credits, made of 3,900 base credits and a 3,100 flex allowance. Max carries 20,000 credits, split evenly between base and flex. GitHub launched Max on June 1 as an upgrade for existing Student, Pro and Pro+ subscribers, aimed at more intensive workflows and higher spending limits.

The math favors the bigger plans sooner than the labels suggest. Pro+ gives $70 of usage and Max gives $200, so each step up buys more credits per dollar than Pro does. The catch is that headroom only pays off if you spend it, since an unused allowance is forfeited at month's end.

Copilot Business and Enterprise: per-seat math

Business includes 1,900 credits per user and Enterprise includes 3,900, each priced per granted seat. Credits are pooled at the billing entity level, so a heavy user can draw on teammates' unused allowance. Additional usage is enabled by default for organizations, at the same one cent per credit.

The detail that surprises finance teams is that organization seats carry no markup on credits: 1,900 credits is exactly $19 of usage, and 3,900 matches the Enterprise seat price too. The seat price is the allowance, and any usage beyond it adds dollar for dollar. Admins can cap that with user-level, cost-center, organization and enterprise budgets, which GitHub made generally available for user-level limits on June 1. For how Copilot's seat price compares with GitLab's Premium seat, see GitHub vs GitLab 2026.

Choose Business unless you need Enterprise's governance features, because the extra credits alone do not justify the jump. Both plans also bill non-licensed users' code review usage straight to the organization, so audit who triggers reviews.

What does Copilot cost for a real month?

These scenarios apply GitHub's published allowances and the one-cent credit rate. The usage levels illustrate monthly model spend rather than measured averages, and they assume the full flex allowance is available and a budget is set for overage.

Monthly model usage	Pro	Pro+	Max
$30 (light agent use)	$25	$39	$100
$120 (daily agents)	$115	$89	$100
$250 (all-day agents)	$245	$219	$150

Pro+ beats Pro once usage passes $44, because Pro costs its base price plus whatever exceeds $15. Max beats Pro+ once usage passes $131. Below $44, the cheapest plan is the one whose allowance covers you.

A 10-seat team shows the organization side. Ten Business seats are $190 a month with 19,000 pooled credits, and the bill only rises if the team spends more than $190 of usage in total. Ten Enterprise seats double that. Per year, Business comes to $2,280 before any overage.

How does Copilot compare with Cursor, Claude and Windsurf?

At the entry price Copilot is the cheapest paid option on this list, and the gap widens for teams. Cursor, Claude and Windsurf all start at $20/mo for an individual, while Copilot Pro costs half that. Entry price is not total cost, though, because each product bills a different way.

Tool	Entry paid plan	10-seat team, per month
GitHub Copilot	Pro, $10/mo	Business, $190
Cursor	Pro, $20/mo	Teams, $400
Claude (includes Claude Code)	Pro, $20/mo	Team Standard, $250 billed monthly
Windsurf	Pro, $20/mo	Teams, $480 ($80 plus $40 per seat)

Claude Code is a terminal agent included in paid Claude plans and shares one usage limit with the rest of the plan. For the head-to-head verdict, see Cursor vs GitHub Copilot, and for the terminal route read Claude Code pricing. The product pages are the Cursor review, the Windsurf review and the Claude Code review, and the broader shortlist is AI coding assistants. Directory records: Cursor on Toolradar and Windsurf on Toolradar.

Is Copilot worth paying for?

For most individual developers, yes at the Pro level, because the entry price buys unlimited completions plus a usage pool that casual agent use rarely exhausts. The case weakens if you already pay for another assistant, because unlimited completions overlap with what rival tools bundle.

Move up when agent mode becomes a daily habit, which is the $44 crossover above, and stay on Free if you only need an occasional answer. Teams get the clearest value from Business, where pooled credits absorb uneven use across seats.

How we checked these prices

Louis Corneloup, founder of Dupple and Toolradar, wrote this breakdown. Prices and allowances come from GitHub's plans page, plans docs, individual billing docs, organization billing docs, model pricing table and June 1 changelog, read in October 2026.

Competitor prices come from Cursor, Claude and Windsurf pricing pages read the same month, and the 155 tool count is Toolradar's live AI coding ranking. Scenario figures are our arithmetic on those published rates. More on how we publish is on the Devshot about page.

FAQ

How much does GitHub Copilot cost in 2026?

Free is $0, Pro is $10/mo, Pro+ is $39/mo and Max is $100/mo for individuals, verified in October 2026. Business is $19 per seat per month, and Enterprise costs the same per seat as Pro+ does per month. Usage beyond each plan's included credits bills at $0.01 per credit, so heavy agent users pay more than the sticker.

How does Copilot usage-based billing work?

Since June 1, 2026, every plan bills in GitHub AI credits, where one credit equals $0.01, instead of premium requests. Chat, agent mode, the CLI and the cloud agent consume credits based on the model and tokens used, while code completions stay unlimited. Included credits reset on the first of each month and do not carry over.

Is GitHub Copilot free?

Yes. Copilot Free has limited chat and agent usage and 2,000 completions a month, and Copilot Student is free for verified students. Verified teachers and maintainers of popular open source projects may be eligible for free Pro.

What is the difference between Copilot Pro and Pro+?

Pro gives 1,500 credits a month, and Pro+ gives 7,000. Both include unlimited completions and access to the available models. Pro+ becomes the cheaper plan once your monthly usage passes $44.

How much is Copilot Business versus Enterprise per seat?

Business has 1,900 pooled credits per seat, and Enterprise has 3,900. Choose Enterprise only if you need its governance features.

What happens when I run out of Copilot credits?

You can upgrade the plan, set a budget for extra usage, or wait for the monthly reset. A budget of ten dollars adds 1,000 credits. Organizations have additional usage enabled by default, with budgets available to cap it.

Is Copilot cheaper than Cursor?

Yes at entry level, since Cursor Pro is $20/mo against half that for Copilot Pro. For ten seats, Copilot Business is $190 and Cursor Teams is $400, so the gap compounds with headcount.

Cite this: Devshot, "GitHub Copilot Pricing 2026: Every Plan, Usage Billing and Real Monthly Cost", October 2026.

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