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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

#421

Post by rmast »

redsaber wrote: post #273
gpm wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if they're basically saying they're going to give $10/month free API credits to students and open source maintainers and so on... while otherwise getting out of the consumer portion of this space.

they're downsizing free github copilot pro for open source maintainers. At the very least, it looks like small open source projects got their free copilot pro cut off

I was kinda of disappointed when that happened earlier this month, but not as much now after seeing this change. My primary use had been trying out some of the newer Anthropic and OpenAI models, which probably would have burned through $10 worth of credits rather quickly given their new pricing.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#422

Post by benoau »

> Code completions and Next Edit suggestions remain included in all plans and do not consume AI Credits.

This is the VSCode autocomplete stuff right? Really enjoy this.

> Copilot code review will also consume GitHub Actions minutes, in addition to GitHub AI Credits. These minutes are billed at the same per-minute rates as other GitHub Actions workflows.

That sucks.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#423

Post by referenceo »

notatoad wrote: post #336

so what's everybody using to get autocompletions in vscode? i've been using copilot just because $10 is cheap, but i use opencode for everything other than completions. i tried the continue vscode extension, and it seemed kind of janky. are there better options?

Windsurf has free tab complete and has been good for me. Antigravity has free tab complete as well but no idea if its any good

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#424

Post by jadbox »

0xffff2 wrote: post #128
999900000999 wrote: post #17

Well. Just got an email from GitHub saying they'll be raising prices for Co Pilot. "To keep up with the way you use Copilot, we're transitioning to usage-based billing, and we want to give you enough time to prepare." Man, it was fun. Having my tokens subsidized by Microsoft. If the prices go up to much I guess I'll try Deepseek again.

Link to the announcement for anyone else like me who hasn't gotten the email yet: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-copilo... Not really sure why I would stick with Copilot after this, and increasing Sonnet from 1x to 9x for annual subscribers is highway fucking robbery. Very glad I didn't commit myself to an annual plan.

Dang, Gemini 3 Pro also jumped: 1->6

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#425

Post by Dylan16807 »

LtWorf wrote: post #373
vanviegen wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the long term, I think models are going to be local-first. Why? There's an inherent efficiency advantage to scale, while the only real advantage for local models (privacy/secrecy) hasn't proven convincing for broader IT either.

To not depend on an external company that can decide the price.

That's a silly reason. For non-agent use cases what kind of utilization are you going to average on your own GPU, 5-10%? And that's without batching.

Even with overhead and scaling for peak use and a large profit margin, any company with an ounce of competition will be vastly cheaper than self-hosting. And for models you can run yourself, there will be plenty of competition.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#426

Post by [deleted] »

hgoel wrote: post #383
rvnx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One theory of the play of SpaceX might do if everyone migrates to query-based billing: Provide cheap and unlimited access to Grok for programmers (hence the Cursor partnership/purchase for distribution). -> This would drag massive revenue right before the IPO announcement, like if the company is super growing -> At a loss, but don't worry, we need these funds to build the biggest datacenter of the universe. This anno…

I think they're going to have to do a lot to overcome the Musk and Grok poison. Even ChatGPT hasn't had as many lapses as Grok has had.

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#427

Post by benoau »

nickjj wrote: post #74

I don't use Copilot or any paid AI but all of this usage-based billing reminds me of cellphones back when you paid per individual text message. Usage paying for AI is 1000x crazier because you're not even getting a guarantee in the thing you pay for in the end. You have to keep feeding it prompts and hope it gives you the solution you want. You may end up with no expected result yet you are paying for it. At least wi…

Internet usage when you billed by the hour but your connection was so slow it took a minute plus to load pages lol.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#428

Post by codebje »

mdesq wrote: post #342
theanonymousone wrote: post #162

Something is hilariously off here: Why should I pay $10 and be forced to use it by the end of the month, while I can pay $10 and have it last as long as I want? Their "API pricing" is exactly the same as that of providers: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/copilot-billing...

I have to wonder if it's because of how many Enterprise customers they have who have standardized on Github Copilot and gotten it through the gauntlet of legal approvals etc.

That is exactly where I am.

We're putting other providers through the gauntlet. An M4 Studio or two running the latest Qwen3 or whatever counts for state of the art in open models is also looking a little more viable all the time.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#429

Post by soraisdead »

ctoth wrote: post #255
hirako2000 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does feel like the music is about to stop. It has been years now, of cash injections, investors can't keep feeding the beast forever.

It has been years now of reading this same comment... Surely people can't keep typing it forever.

The difference is we're now in a world where Disney has pulled out of OpenAI without comming, and Sora was dropped off a ditch.

In other words.

The bubble has burst. You're just in denial.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#430

Post by soraisdead »

bluescrn wrote: post #202
giwook wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of us have noticed that usage limits for Claude have been nerfed in recent weeks/months. If anything, these new multipliers are more transparent than anything OpenAI or Anthropic have communicated regarding actual costs and give us a more realistic understanding of what it's costing these providers. The fact that we were able to get such a substantial amount of usage for $20/$100/$200 a month was never meant to…

Did anyone really expect AI to be cheap? If/when it gets to the point where it can replace a skilled worker, the service can be sold for close to the same price as that skilled labour. But the AI can run 24/7, reliably, and scale up/down at a moments notice. There's not going to be much competition to drive prices down, the barriers to entry are already huge. There'll likely to be one clear winner, becoming a near-mo…

> Did anyone really expect AI to be cheap?

Considering most of the cost of producing a model is the upfront cost rather than the running one, I kinda still do.

The point was never to produce 4 frontier models per company a year.

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