What Is Changing on June 1, 2026
GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing on June 1, 2026. The change is straightforward at the surface — premium request units are being replaced by GitHub AI Credits — but the implications for teams, budgets, and day-to-day prompting are wider than a unit rename.
The unit that meters Copilot usage is changing from premium requests to AI Credits:
- Copilot plans include a monthly allotment of AI Credits.
- AI Credits are consumed based on token usage — input, output, and cached tokens.
- The cost of a given task depends on the model used and the number of tokens consumed.
- For Business and Enterprise, included credits are pooled at the billing entity level rather than locked to a single user.
- If the included pool is exhausted, admins choose whether to allow additional usage at published rates or cap spend.
- Copilot code review will also consume GitHub Actions minutes in addition to AI Credits.
The premium-request model applies until June 1, 2026. Internal communications, dashboards, and budget reports should reflect the transition date so finance and engineering see the same picture.
Base Plan Pricing Is Not Changing
The base monthly subscription price stays the same on every plan. What changes is that each plan now ships with a matching dollar value of included AI Credits.
| Plan | Base price | Included AI Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Pro | $10 / month | $10 in AI Credits |
| Copilot Pro+ | $39 / month | $39 in AI Credits |
| Copilot Business | $19 / user / month | $19 per user in AI Credits |
| Copilot Enterprise | $39 / user / month | $39 per user in AI Credits |
Promotional Included Usage for Business and Enterprise
To smooth the transition, existing Business and Enterprise customers receive extra included AI Credits for June, July, and August 2026.
- Copilot Business: $30 per user per month in AI Credits.
- Copilot Enterprise: $70 per user per month in AI Credits.
This promotional window is a good baseline for observing real token consumption before configuring stricter budgets.
What Stays Included and Unmetered
Not every Copilot interaction consumes AI Credits. The most common day-to-day experiences remain included.
- Code completions stay included and unmetered.
- Next Edit suggestions stay included and unmetered.
- These experiences should continue to be the default for routine coding.
Encourage developers to keep using completions and Next Edit suggestions as their primary loop. AI Credits should be reserved for chat, agentic, and review workflows where the deeper context is worth the spend.
Why GitHub Is Making This Change
Copilot has evolved from an in-editor assistant into an agentic development platform that can run longer, multi-step tasks across repositories. A flat request-based model does not reflect the wide range of compute these tasks now consume.
Usage-based billing aligns cost with actual model and token consumption, improves budget control for organizations, and supports a more sustainable Copilot experience as agentic workloads grow.
Summary
Copilot is evolving into an agentic platform with workloads that vary widely in cost, and the previous flat unit model no longer reflects what customers actually consume.
GitHub AI Credits replace premium request units, meter usage by tokens and model, and pool included credits at the billing entity for Business and Enterprise — while base subscription prices stay the same.
Teams enter June 1, 2026 with a clearer view of what is changing, what stays included, and where to invest follow-up planning effort.
References
- GitHub announcement: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing
- Usage-based billing for organizations and enterprises
- Set up budgets