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GitHub Copilot licensing

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This article is about licensing GitHub Copilot plans (Free, Student, Pro, Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise), seats and GitHub AI Credits metering. It is not legal advice; the governing terms depend on how Copilot was bought.

On This Page

GitHub Copilot is licensed per user. Individuals subscribe to a personal plan billed per calendar month, while organizations and enterprises buy Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise and pay for each granted seat.[1][2] On top of the seat or plan, every plan includes a monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits, the unit GitHub uses to meter chat, agent and CLI usage by model and token count; 1 AI credit equals $0.01 USD.[5] An effective license position for Copilot therefore has two parts: a count of assigned seats against the named-user pattern, and a consumption position in AI credits, as described in subscription and consumption licensing. Prices below are as published on 2026-09-26.

Plans

GitHub lists seven Copilot plans. Copilot is not currently available for GitHub Enterprise Server.[1]

Plan Buyer Published price AI credits per month 
Copilot Free Individual Free An allowance (amount not stated)[1] 
Copilot Student Verified students Free An allowance (amount not stated)[1] 
Copilot Pro Individual $10 USD per month 1,500 (1,000 base + 500 flex)[6] 
Copilot Pro+ Individual $39 USD per month 7,000 (3,900 base + 3,100 flex)[6] 
Copilot Max Individual $100 USD per month 20,000 (10,000 base + 10,000 flex)[6] 
Copilot Business Organizations and enterprises $19 USD per granted seat per month 1,900 per user, pooled[1] 
Copilot Enterprise Enterprises on GitHub Enterprise Cloud $39 USD per granted seat per month 3,900 per user, pooled[1] 

Copilot Pro is free for verified teachers and maintainers of popular open source projects, and Copilot Free is intended for individual use only.[2] With GitHub Enterprise Cloud, an enterprise owner chooses Business or Enterprise for each organization, so both plans can coexist in one enterprise.[1][2] GitHub publishes no part numbers for these plans.

Metrics

  • Copilot seat: GitHub defines a seat as a license to use Copilot, assigned to a unique user account through a Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise plan.[3]
  • GitHub AI Credit: the billing unit for Copilot usage. Input, output and cached tokens are priced by model and converted into AI credits.[5]
  • Copilot model token: per-model prices per 1 million tokens (input, cached input, cache write where applicable, output) that drive the AI credit conversion.[7]

Current GitHub documentation meters usage in AI credits. The pricing page still names a legacy “Premium request paid usage” policy, but no premium request allowance appears in the retrieved plan or billing pages, so this article does not record one.[11][1]

Counting and metering

Seats

A Copilot license is required for each user who uses Copilot. Organizations and enterprises are billed for the number of assigned seats at the end of each monthly billing cycle.[2] A user who holds seats in several organizations of the same enterprise is billed once per cycle. If a user holds both a Business and an Enterprise seat, only the Enterprise seat is billed, at the Enterprise rate from the time it was assigned.[3] Organization owners assign seats in organization settings or through the REST API, and removing every assigned seat cancels the organization’s Copilot plan.[3]

Seats added mid-cycle are billed for the rest of the cycle, prorated by the date added. Removed seats stop billing at the end of the cycle, the lower count applies from the next cycle, and GitHub issues no refunds for unused time. An unassigned user keeps access until the cycle ends; a revoked seat loses access immediately.[4] When a Pro, Pro+ or Max subscriber is assigned a Business or Enterprise seat, the personal plan is canceled automatically with a prorated refund.[2]

AI credits

For Business and Enterprise, each assigned license adds its included AI credits to a pool at the billing entity level: 100 Copilot Business users give a shared pool of 190,000 credits. Adding licenses mid-cycle grows the pool at once; removing them shrinks it only from the next cycle.[5] Paid personal plans consume base credits first, then a variable flex allotment that GitHub says is designed to adapt as the economics of AI evolve.[6] In both cases unused credits are forfeited, and the allowance resets at 00:00:00 UTC on the first day of each calendar month, whatever the subscription billing date.[5][4]

Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, the cloud agent, Spaces, Spark and third-party coding agents consume credits. Code completions and next edit suggestions are not billed in AI credits and stay unlimited on paid plans.[5] Copilot Free includes 2000 code completions per month.[6]

Prerequisites

Copilot Enterprise is designed for enterprises using GitHub Enterprise Cloud.[1] Individual plans are tied to a single account and cannot carry additional seats; licensing several users needs an organization plan.[2] Purchasing additional AI credits is not available for plans bought through GitHub Mobile on iOS or Android.[7]

Data use

Which terms govern Copilot depends on the purchase channel. Business and Enterprise bought directly from GitHub fall under the GitHub Generative AI Services Terms; purchases through Microsoft fall under Microsoft’s Product Terms; all other users fall under Section J of the GitHub Terms of Service.[8] The Generative AI Services Terms state that GitHub will not use Inputs or Outputs to train generative AI models unless the customer has given documented instructions.[9] For individual licenses, Section J.3 grants GitHub a license to use Inputs and Outputs to develop and train AI models unless the user opts out in account settings or is covered by a customer or volume licensing agreement.[10]

Programs

  • Individual plans (Free, Student, Pro, Pro+, Max): upgrades take effect immediately with proration; downgrades apply from the next cycle; cancelling a monthly plan keeps access until the cycle ends.[2]
  • Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise: both billed monthly per granted seat.[2]
  • Additional usage (pay-as-you-go): once the pool is exhausted, usage continues at per-token model rates converted to AI credits. Budgets can be set per user, cost center, organization and enterprise; a user who exhausts a user-level budget is blocked even if the pool still has capacity.[5][7]

Copilot bought through Microsoft is governed by Microsoft’s Product Terms;[8] see Microsoft 365 and Online Services licensing for how those terms are organized.

Out of scope

  • GitHub Enterprise Cloud, GitHub Advanced Security, Actions minutes and other GitHub products, except where they change Copilot billing.
  • Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio: see Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing.
  • Full per-model token price tables, which change often; see the vendor page.[7]
  • Premium request allowances and multipliers, which do not appear in the retrieved documentation.

Catalog rows

New catalog rows for this article, grouped by table.

References

  1. Plans for GitHub Copilot (GitHub Docs)Plan descriptions, prices, AI credit allowances; GitHub Enterprise Server exclusion. Undated page.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  2. GitHub Copilot licenses (GitHub Docs)License per user; options by account type; seat measurement; free use.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  3. GitHub Copilot seat assignment (GitHub Docs)Seat definition; multi-organization and mixed-plan billing.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  4. Making changes to your GitHub Copilot license (GitHub Docs)Proration, removals, monthly allowance reset.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  5. Usage-based billing for organizations and enterprises (GitHub Docs)AI credits, pooling, reset, additional usage and budgets.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  6. Usage-based billing for individuals (GitHub Docs)Base credits, flex allotment, allowance table.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  7. Models and pricing for GitHub Copilot (GitHub Docs)Per-model prices per 1 million tokens.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  8. GitHub Terms for Additional Products and Features (GitHub Docs)Governing terms for Copilot by purchase channel.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  9. GitHub Generative AI Services Terms (Version: March 2026)Section 1.A scope; Section 3 training.Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  10. GitHub Terms of Service, Section J (AI Features, Training, and Your Data)Effective 2026-04-27. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
  11. GitHub Copilot plans and pricing (github.com)Pricing page FAQ; GitHub AI Credits; legacy Premium request paid usage policy name.Retrieved 2026-09-26.

See also

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