GitHub Copilot changed how it charges on June 1. If you use Copilot for anything beyond inline completions — agentic workflows, code review, multi-model chat sessions — you should know what changed and what it costs.

The old system ran on premium request units. A deliberately opaque abstraction. The new one is legible: 1 AI Credit = $0.01 USD, billed against token usage including input, output, and cached tokens. Every paid plan ships with a monthly credit pool equal to its monthly price. Copilot Pro+ at $39/month gets $39 in AI credits. Business at $19/user gets $19 per user. Enterprise at $39/user gets $39 per user.

What didn't change: code completions and Next Edit Suggestions are still unlimited in all plans, consuming no credits. Inline autocomplete — the core feature most developers use Copilot for — is not metered.

What did change: everything else. Agentic workflows. Code review. Any chat session where you route to a specific model — Claude, GPT-5.5, a reasoning model. All of those now draw from your monthly credit pool.

The default additional spend cap is $0. When your monthly credit pool runs out, metered features stop rather than charging you more — unless you or your admin explicitly raised that limit. Individual developers on Pro or Pro+ are almost certainly at the $0 default. Enterprise admins who unlocked overage during onboarding may have set it higher without revisiting it since.

There's a promotional period running through September 1, 2026, during which Business and Enterprise customers receive higher-than-normal credit allotments. GitHub hasn't published the exact elevated amounts. The implication is that your current consumption is running against an inflated pool, and September will be the first month where the actual per-plan credits apply.

Worth noting the timing. This billing change went live the same morning as Microsoft's Build 2026 keynote, which announced Project Polaris — an in-house coding model for Copilot targeting GA in August, running on Microsoft's own Maia accelerators. If Polaris costs less to serve than GPT-5.5, it should translate into better credit efficiency per call once it ships. The billing shift going token-based right before the underlying model switches to a cheaper in-house one may not be accidental.

Source spread

• GitHub Blog — Copilot is moving to usage-based billing — [builder]. Official announcement; all plan prices and credit amounts sourced here.
• GitHub Docs — Usage-based billing for orgs and enterprises — [builder]. Primary source on the $0.01/credit rate and token-consumption model.
• GitHub Changelog — June 1 billing update — [builder]. Confirms promotional period through September 1, 2026.
• Visual Studio Magazine — Developer backlash — [skeptic]. Developer reaction: "you will get less, but pay the same price."

Pros & cons

What's real:

• AI credits at $0.01 each are more legible than premium request units. You can model expected spend. That's a genuine improvement in billing transparency.
• Code completions staying unlimited means the core feature most developers use daily is completely unaffected. Light users may notice nothing at all.
• The $0 default overage cap means individual developers cannot be surprised by a bill above their plan price unless they explicitly unlocked it.
• Per-credit billing is more equitable than flat rate: heavy agentic users pay proportionally, instead of subsidizing everyone else at the same flat fee.

What deserves a side-eye:

• The promotional period through September 1 is masking what this actually costs for heavy users. Your current credit consumption runs against an inflated pool. September is the first honest bill.
• GitHub hasn't published the exact elevated promotional amounts, which makes it impossible to benchmark your real-rate usage today.
• Enterprise admins who set overage limits above $0 during onboarding may have forgotten to revisit that setting. September invoices could surprise finance teams who aren't tracking credit spend.
• The developer framing — "you will get less, but pay the same price" — is accurate for anyone who used agentic workflows heavily under the old unlimited model. Those users were getting a subsidy. The subsidy is ending.

Further reading

• GitHub Blog — Copilot is moving to usage-based billing — the official announcement with all plan credit amounts
• GitHub Docs — Usage-based billing for organizations and enterprises
• GitHub Changelog — June 1 billing and plans update — confirms promotional period and effective date
• Visual Studio Magazine — Devs sound off on usage-based Copilot pricing — developer community reaction
• How2Shout — GitHub Copilot token billing and developer backlash