GitHub is flipping the switch on Copilot billing. Starting June 1, every Copilot plan moves to a pay-as-you-go model where you're charged by the token. The old "premium request" system is getting replaced with GitHub AI Credits, and usage will be calculated based on actual token consumption — including input, output, and cached tokens — at rates matching each model's public API pricing.
This is the final piece of a tightening cycle that's been unfolding over the past ten days. On April 20, GitHub paused new sign-ups for individual Pro, Pro+, and Student plans, tightened usage caps, and kicked Claude Opus out of the Pro tier. Two days later, it also halted self-service enrollment for Copilot Business on Free and Team organizations. Product VP Joe Binder explained at the time that agentic workflows — where models spin up sub-agents and run long tasks in parallel — burn through compute far faster than any fixed plan was designed for. "Often just a few requests cost more than the entire plan's pricing," he said. In its latest announcement, GitHub says the new metered billing will allow it to relax those restrictions.
Here's the part that sounds familiar: monthly subscription prices aren't changing. Pro stays at $10/month, Pro+ at $39, Business at $19 per user, and Enterprise at $39 per user. That monthly fee now translates into a pool of AI Credits. Go over your credit balance, and you buy more at the public API rate. Code completions and Next Edit Suggestions still don't consume credits. The old fallback mechanism — where expensive models auto-switched to cheaper ones after exhausting premium requests — is gone. Instead, you're bounded by your credit balance and whatever admin budget caps are set.
Enterprise customers get a three-month cushion. From June through August, Business users will receive $30 in credits per month (the eventual official amount is $19), and Enterprise users get $70 (eventually $39). GitHub is also introducing organization-level pooled usage, so unused credits can be shared across a team. Admins can set budget caps at the enterprise, cost center, and user levels. An estimated billing feature is rolling out in early May so folks can see what they're in for before the switch.
GitHub isn't the only one rethinking pricing — Chinese AI lab Zhipu AI recently killed its unlimited coding plan for similar reasons.
Annual subscribers keep their current billing until their plan expires, then get moved to Copilot Free. They can also switch to monthly early and receive prorated credits for the remaining year.