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GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

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Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#23
People need to wake up and stop being surprised by these billing increases. I see it on every update of every model. This was all subsidized by VC and company money. Now they need a return and the prices will keep going up. Be glad that you took advantage of that up until now, but can we stop the pearl clutching when we all know the amount of money being dumped into AI and the lackluster returns?

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#24
post #4

The era of subsidised inference is truly ending. The new model multipliers ( https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-billing... ) seem like a huge leap, though. From 1x to 6x for new-ish GPT and Sonnet models. 27x for Opus... Seems like folks would be better off with OpenRouter instead.

27x for Opus is genuinely shocking. at that point you're not paying for convenience anymore, you're just paying a GitHub tax. OpenRouter or direct API makes way more sense unless you're really glued to the IDE integration.

I keep seeing people mention OpenRouter.

Does it effectively bypass regional restrictions for you, so you can use something like the Claude API from unsupported regions such as Hong Kong, or does it still enforce the official providers' geo-restrictions?

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#25
I was curious why a company would still use the VS Code + Copilot sidebar method for coding, rather than something like Claude Code. Turns out there’s a GitHub Copilot CLI!

I thought I was pretty familiar with available options, but no one in my circles ever mentions this product. It doesn’t seem to have much mindshare.

Has anyone used it? What’s your experience?

https://github.com/features/copilot/cli

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#26
post #4

The era of subsidised inference is truly ending. The new model multipliers ( https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-billing... ) seem like a huge leap, though. From 1x to 6x for new-ish GPT and Sonnet models. 27x for Opus... Seems like folks would be better off with OpenRouter instead.

Yeah, totally. The recent pricing changes have just made my Copilot subscription go from great deal to awful value over night.

I've been wanting to get off MS more generally and this is good motivation. Will be playing round with OR this week.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#28

Just got an email with this announcement. I have Copilot Pro that I use occasionally, but not enough to tell how the switch to per use would affect my usage. Based on description Pro plan users will get $10 in monthly AI Credits, but that seems rather low compared to what you could use same plan until now.

> rather low compared to what you could use same plan until now.

That's exactly where the subsidy is being removed.

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