All GitHub Copilot plans are now on usage-based billing #197089
Replies: 376 comments 566 replies
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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. |
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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. |
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one afternoon pro+ limit 85%
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Dumbest decision ever.... |
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Hm, wondering if there will be similar changes for the many Copilot variants in M365 and general Microsoft products in the future. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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So why has the Pro plan reduced its usage limit by almost 100 times compared to before? I also discovered that the |
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In case anyone is curious on the value comparison, this is what I am seeing on the $10 plan using GPT-5.4:
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. |
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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. |
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Posting here so I can still subscribe to the chaos |
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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. |
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believe me, the AI subsidy will eventually ends followed by Other companies. gotta use the subsidized platform like Claude Code while you can 😉 |
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Yeah, I'll be looking to go to another provider since this change. I'm already over usage and I've barely done a fraction of what I used to do work wise. This was a sad choice, I've been using github copilot for over a year and its sad to have to change due to greed. EDIT: For those looking for a good substitute it looks like Claude is pretty good and liberal with limits. Also it integrates directly into VS code so its not such a huge change from Github Copilot. |
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So users that had Copilot Pro on year subscriptions ($10 usd/month) ... according to everywhere, we were supposed to have 1000 AI "credits". Why is there only "300" premium requests? .. How can I change my subscription to the $10 usd month "actual" Github Copilot Pro? I have only the option to upgrade to $39/month or to cancel and refund (and have no copilot anymore because new subs are paused). So how can I transfer my "old" $10 usd/month sub (which have 300 credits) to the new $10/month (which have 1000 credits) ?!? .... This is a bit of nonsense or asking people to cancel (and because they can't sign up again) not come back. Really great points for your customer care "trying hard" to just tell whomever want to stay your customer to just walk away. |
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Dear GitHub Copilot Team, Please accept my condolences on the future funeral of what was, for me, once an almost perfect working product. I do not write that lightly. Copilot was one of the few tools that genuinely changed my workflow. It was fast, predictable, integrated well into my editor, and gave me enough practical usage to rely on it during normal development work. It was not just a toy or a novelty feature. It became part of how I worked. That changed immediately with the new AI Credit billing model. After only one request to edit code, roughly 1% of my monthly 7,000 AI Credits was gone. That translates to about 100 comparable jobs per month before hitting the limit. Before this change, I could do around 1,000 similar jobs before running into my practical limits. That is not a small pricing adjustment. That is a product becoming unusable for the kind of work it was previously excellent at. What makes this worse is that this was not even an extreme test. I had model auto-selection enabled. I was not deliberately selecting the newest or most expensive frontier model. The request mostly used GPT-5.3-Codex. In other words: I was using Copilot in a normal, reasonable way, and the result was still a credit burn rate that made the product feel immediately unsafe to use. The problem is not that usage-based billing exists. I understand that AI compute has a cost. The problem is that the new model destroys predictability. A developer should not need to mentally calculate whether a normal code edit is going to consume 0.1%, 1%, 5%, or 30% of their monthly allowance. A coding assistant that makes users nervous to ask for help has failed at being an assistant. The old Copilot felt like a reliable tool. The new Copilot feels like a taxi meter running inside my IDE. So I cancelled directly. Not because I wanted to leave. Not because I stopped liking the product. But because the value proposition changed overnight from “this helps me work” to “this makes me hesitate before every request.” That hesitation kills the product. For me, the damage is not only the price. It is the loss of trust. I cannot integrate a tool into my workflow if every normal interaction might burn a visible chunk of my monthly allowance. I cannot recommend it to teams if usage is this difficult to predict. I cannot treat it as a productivity tool if the billing model punishes the exact behaviour the product encourages: asking it to inspect, reason, edit, and improve code. If GitHub wants Copilot to remain a serious developer tool, not just an expensive demo wrapper around model APIs, I think this needs urgent reconsideration:
Copilot used to feel like GitHub understood developers. This change feels like GitHub understands billing models better than developer trust. That is why I cancelled. My condolences again on the funeral of a product I genuinely liked. |
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The new billing model has bricked my workflow in Visual Studio. I’ve been paying for Copilot Pro for 9 months, and after June 1 the product is simply not performing. Here’s what happened: 20% of my monthly credits were burned on five failed prompts using Opus 4.8 Zero output was produced These were routine prompts that have worked flawlessly for months This is the first time Opus 4.8 has failed since I started using it in April Before this billing change, 4.8 consistently generated large, multi‑file outputs in minutes. Now it burns credits unpredictably, fails silently, and provides no transparency about cost or failure modes. In its current state, it is unusable. GitHub’s own May usage projection explicitly stated I would “see essentially no difference” compared to April. That statement does not match reality. The current behavior contradicts the messaging, the documentation, and the expectations set for paying customers. Right now, the product is charging more, delivering nothing, and failing at tasks it previously handled without issue. That is not an acceptable trajectory for a paid developer tool. I’m asking GitHub to: investigate and acknowledge the regression in Opus 4.8 restore the credits burned on failed prompts correct the misleading usage projections Since the revised billing messaging appeared in April, there has been no mention of throttling or degraded service — which is unacceptable. If these throttling and billing issues aren’t resolved shortly, I’ll be discontinuing my subscription. I relied on Copilot for real work, and in its current state it’s unreliable and unusable. |
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I would like to report what seems to be abnormal Copilot Pro+ usage accounting. |
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If GitHub switches to a usage-based model, why not create its own model or agent, similar to Cursor? It could be a “Composer Agent” with usage-based pricing, fast performance, and optimized modifications for efficient API usage. This GitHub Copilot feels like OpenRouter but with a higher-priced API rate. |
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I disabled all the processes I was doing that were depending on GH in my business regarding this issue. Expect GH could fix this. If theres no solution i would need to change provider. :/ |
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I am using the PRO, I have used 172 of the total 300 preminum request, but I am not able to use Copilot right now. |
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The new usage model is like a scam, my Pro+ subs can't even survive one week before all preminum requests used up. What happend MSFT? |
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Using OpenRouter together with OpenCode: since I already have GPT Plus, I leverage Codex to generate the initial plan and then pass it to OpenCode using the DeepSeek v4 Flash model.. Who knew that I would use Chinese models but nothing can be beat that price. Plus you can actually see TOKENS instead of a vague ai-credits. |
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I'm at 50% usage being extremely conservative on only the 8th of the month. Microsoft / GitHub you REALLY need to address this because it's unusable. I will be cancelling before the month is up. |
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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.
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