| title | GitHub Copilot Usage-Based Billing Learning Guide | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| description | A practical guide for using GitHub Copilot intentionally as usage-based billing begins on June 1, 2026 | ||||
| author | Microsoft | ||||
| ms.date | 2026-05-14 | ||||
| ms.topic | guide | ||||
| keywords |
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| estimated_reading_time | 10 |
GitHub Copilot is moving from request-based billing to usage-based billing on June 1, 2026. This repo helps developers, Copilot users, admins, and billing owners navigate that transition with practical guidance, budget setup notes, and tips for using Copilot intentionally.
The goal is not to use Copilot less. The goal is to use Copilot with clearer intent: choose the right mode, give the right context, verify output quickly, and avoid expensive loops that do not improve the result.
Use the guide that matches your role:
| Guide | Best for | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| User guide | Developers and Copilot users | Token-smart habits, prompt patterns, context control, mode choice, and verification tips |
| Admin guide | Admins, billing owners, platform teams, and engineering leads | Budget setup, rollout decisions, usage monitoring, policy choices, and coaching signals |
| Training guide | Team leads, enablement owners, and facilitators | Topic coverage for workshops, onboarding, brown bags, and self-paced learning |
This README is the shared reference for the billing model, included credits, and model pricing tables.
Source docs:
Important
GitHub says the pricing and billing methods described in the referenced docs start on June 1, 2026. Review the live GitHub docs before making billing or procurement decisions, because model availability and pricing can change.
GitHub Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise usage is measured with GitHub AI Credits. Copilot interactions consume tokens, including input tokens, output tokens, and cached tokens. Each model has its own token price, and GitHub converts the resulting usage into AI credits.
Key facts to remember:
- 1 GitHub AI Credit equals $0.01 USD.
- Copilot Business includes 1,900 AI credits per assigned user per month.
- Copilot Enterprise includes 3,900 AI credits per assigned user per month.
- Existing Business and Enterprise customers receive promotional monthly included credits from June 1 through September 1, 2026.
- Included AI credits are pooled at the billing entity level, not held in isolated buckets per user.
- Code completions and next edit suggestions are not billed in AI credits for paid plans and remain unlimited.
- Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, Copilot cloud agent, Copilot Spaces, Spark, and third-party coding agents consume AI credits.
- After the pooled credits are exhausted, additional usage either continues at published rates or is blocked, depending on policy settings.
- User-level budgets can halt a user's Copilot access even when the broader organization still has pooled credits available.
- There is no automatic fallback to lower-cost models when a budget is exhausted.
| Plan | Standard AI credits per user per month | Promotional credits per user per month, June 1 to September 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Business | 1,900 | 3,000 |
| Copilot Enterprise | 3,900 | 7,000 |
Example: an organization with 100 Copilot Business users receives a shared pool of 190,000 standard AI credits per month. During the promotional period, that same organization receives 300,000 AI credits per month.
All prices in the tables below are per 1 million tokens. These are the usage-based billing rates GitHub lists for June 1, 2026.
A small prompt to a lightweight model can cost a fraction of a credit. A long agent session using a frontier model across multiple files can cost more because it consumes more input, output, and cached context.
| Model | Release status | Category | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-4.1 | GA | Versatile | $2.00 | $0.50 | $8.00 |
| GPT-5 mini | GA | Lightweight | $0.25 | $0.025 | $2.00 |
| GPT-5.2 | GA | Versatile | $1.75 | $0.175 | $14.00 |
| GPT-5.2-Codex | GA | Powerful | $1.75 | $0.175 | $14.00 |
| GPT-5.3-Codex | GA | Powerful | $1.75 | $0.175 | $14.00 |
| GPT-5.4 | GA | Versatile | $2.50 | $0.25 | $15.00 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | GA | Lightweight | $0.75 | $0.075 | $4.50 |
| GPT-5.4 nano | GA | Lightweight | $0.20 | $0.02 | $1.25 |
| GPT-5.5 | GA | Powerful | $5.00 | $0.50 | $30.00 |
GPT-4.1 and GPT-5 mini are included models. GPT-5.4 pricing applies to prompts with 272K tokens or fewer.
Anthropic models include a cache write cost in addition to cached input.
| Model | Release status | Category | Input | Cached input | Cache write | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | GA | Versatile | $1.00 | $0.10 | $1.25 | $5.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4 | GA | Versatile | $3.00 | $0.30 | $3.75 | $15.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 | GA | Versatile | $3.00 | $0.30 | $3.75 | $15.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | GA | Versatile | $3.00 | $0.30 | $3.75 | $15.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | GA | Powerful | $5.00 | $0.50 | $6.25 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.6 | GA | Powerful | $5.00 | $0.50 | $6.25 | $25.00 |
| Claude Opus 4.7 | GA | Powerful | $5.00 | $0.50 | $6.25 | $25.00 |
| Model | Release status | Category | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | GA | Powerful | $1.25 | $0.125 | $10.00 |
| Gemini 3 Flash | Public preview | Lightweight | $0.50 | $0.05 | $3.00 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | Public preview | Powerful | $2.00 | $0.20 | $12.00 |
Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 3.1 Pro pricing applies to prompts with 200K tokens or fewer. Gemini 3 Flash has no long-context surcharge.
| Model | Release status | Category | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok Code Fast 1 | GA | Lightweight | $0.20 | $0.02 | $1.50 |
| Model | Release status | Category | Input | Cached input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raptor mini | Public preview | Versatile | $0.25 | $0.025 | $2.00 |
| Goldeneye | Public preview | Powerful | $1.25 | $0.125 | $10.00 |
Raptor mini uses GPT-5 mini pricing. Goldeneye uses GPT-5.1-Codex pricing.
For users:
- Start with the narrowest useful prompt and context.
- Use completions and next edit suggestions freely for local coding flow.
- Use chat for focused explanations, debugging, and small changes.
- Use agentic workflows when multi-file autonomy is worth the extra context.
- Review diffs and run targeted checks before asking Copilot to continue.
For admins:
- Confirm who owns Copilot billing and budget changes.
- Decide whether additional usage is allowed after included credits are used.
- Configure enterprise, organization, cost-center, and user budgets where they match your governance model.
- Start with alerts, observe real usage, then add hard limits where needed.
- Monitor both AI credit usage and engineering value.
This repo should help a team answer three questions:
- Which Copilot features should we use for which work?
- How do model and context choices affect AI credit consumption?
- What budgets and habits help us keep high-value Copilot usage available?