GitHub Copilot Usage-Based Billing in 2026: What Each Plan Includes in AI Credits

GitHub Copilot bills through AI Credits: each paid plan includes a dollar amount of credits (1 AI Credit = $0.01), and your usage draws that pool down. As of October 23, 2026, GitHub's plans page lists Pro at $10 a month with $15 of credits, Pro+ at $39 with $70, and Max at $100 with $200, while Business and Enterprise cost $19 and $39 per seat.

Our June 11, 2026 version reported that the switch took effect on June 1, 2026. The old model gave each plan a fixed monthly allotment of "premium requests." The new model gives each plan a pool of AI Credits, and usage is metered by token consumption at each model's rate. What a plan buys you now depends on which models you use and how heavily. Plan figures in this post were rechecked on October 23, 2026; our June 11 version listed $10 and $39 of credits for Pro and Pro+.

Fast answer

• Copilot bills by AI Credits, not a fixed premium-request count. 1 AI Credit = $0.01.
• Pro: $10/month with $15 of AI Credits ($10 base plus $5 flex). Pro+: $39 with $70 ($39 plus $31). Max: $100 with $200 ($100 plus $100).
• Business: $19 per granted seat with 1,900 credits per user. Enterprise: $39 with 3,900 credits per user.
• Heavy models drain credits faster than lightweight ones, so the same monthly fee buys very different amounts of work depending on model choice.

What actually changed

Under the old system, "premium requests" were a countable unit, you got, say, 300 a month, and you could roughly predict when you would run out. Under usage-based billing, a single complex request to a top-tier model can consume many times the credits of a simple one. GitHub frames this as fairer (you pay for what you use), and developers frame it as harder to predict. Visual Studio Magazine summed up the community reaction bluntly: "you will get less, but pay the same price."

The practical effect: your $10, $39, or $100 no longer maps cleanly to a number of requests. It maps to a dollar pool of credits that drains at different speeds depending on what you ask and which model answers.

Which Copilot plan should you choose?

• Choose Free if you code occasionally and 2,000 inline suggestions a month is enough.
• Choose Pro ($10) if Copilot is your daily assistant but you mostly use it for completions and short chats.
• Choose Pro+ ($39) if you run premium models every day and regularly empty the Pro pool.
• Choose Max ($100) only if you empty the Pro+ pool most months; compare it with Claude Max 5x and ChatGPT Pro 100 at the same price before you buy.
• Choose Business or Enterprise when you need seat management and policy controls; GitHub lists their credits per user (1,900 and 3,900).

What else changed in October 2026

• Gemini 4 Argon became available in GitHub Copilot on October 13, 2026, per the GitHub changelog.
• Copilot can now interact with desktop apps (computer use), per the GitHub changelog entry of October 1, 2026.
• Cursor, a common Copilot alternative, is now sold through the X Subscription, starting at $8 for Grok-only use and $30 for Premium.

How to not get surprised by overages

• Know which model is answering. Top-tier reasoning models drain credits fastest; defaulting to a lighter model for routine completions stretches your pool dramatically.
• Watch your burn rate, not your request count. The old "I have X requests left" intuition is dead, what matters now is dollars-of-credits consumed per day.
• Set a budget. Pro includes $15 of credits; spread across 22 working days, that is about $0.68 a day ($15 divided by 22). Blowing past that early in the month leaves little for the rest of it.
• Reserve heavy models for hard problems. Use the cheapest capable model for boilerplate and autocomplete.

FAQ

What are GitHub Copilot AI Credits?

AI Credits are a dollar-denominated pool included with each paid Copilot plan, where 1 credit equals $0.01. As of October 23, 2026, Pro includes $15 of credits ($10 base plus $5 flex), Pro+ $70, and Max $200. Usage is deducted from that pool, and heavier models use it faster.

Did GitHub Copilot get more expensive in 2026?

The list prices for Pro ($10) and Pro+ ($39) are the same as in our June 11, 2026 version, and the plans page now lists more included credits ($15 and $70, including flex credits) plus a new $100 Max tier. Whether you get more or less work per dollar than under premium requests depends on which models you use; heavy use of top-tier models is where developers reported getting less.

Is Copilot Max worth $100?

Only if you regularly empty the Pro+ pool. Max includes $200 of credits for $100 a month. At the same price you could buy Claude Max 5x (which includes Claude Code) or ChatGPT Pro 100 (which includes Codex), so compare where your coding actually happens before upgrading.

How do I track my Copilot AI Credit usage?

GitHub shows usage in your billing settings, but it is after-the-fact. To watch your burn rate live and forecast when you will run out, a menu bar tracker like Tokens 4 Breakfast reads your usage in real time alongside your other AI tools.

Sources

• GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing, The GitHub Blog
• GitHub Copilot Plans & pricing
• GitHub Docs: Copilot plans (Business and Enterprise credits per user)
• GitHub changelog: Copilot (Gemini 4 Argon, computer use)
• Models and pricing for GitHub Copilot, GitHub Docs
• Devs Sound Off on Usage-Based Copilot Pricing Change, Visual Studio Magazine