Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

github.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 583 posts

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#551

Post by debian3 »

rs38 wrote: post #335
theanonymousone wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm already on Pro. Why should I keep it?

e.g. if on an annual plan? 0x will be gone, but there are okay 1x and 0.3x models left. I am pretty much curious how the early may test invoicing will look like. current setup of tools etc. is way too chatty eats up 1+M token per PRU easily. not sure how much is cached.

I had some 3x request that I did the math for fun on long running task, and at API price it would have been ~$260 that the in/out and cache. All that for $0.12.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#552

Post by meerita »

I am doing these things to avoid using all tokens and hitting rate limits in a day:

- I plan everything in ChatGPT. I provide project trees and create an execution plan for Claude Code, Codex, or Copilot agents. - I clearly say I do not want the agent to explain what it will do or what it did. I only want "I finished". That saves extra tokens. My projects include tools to gather file contents in bulk. A single command like bun copy-paste FILES=" " lets the agent collect many files into one file. - I also provide a bun create-empty-files command so the agent can create all needed files at once instead of one by one.

With this setup, I managed to build 4 major features (more than 80 file edits or creations) using the 3 daily resets on a standard plan.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#553

Post by brianush1 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #414
sailfast wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And handling API tokens, and billing, and reliability, and middleware. I am not affiliated with them but it’s not “just” routing. Apple still charges 30%. 5.5 seems pretty reasonable. /shrug I dunno.

> handling API tokens Don't you still need to handle tokens with them? Also that's trivial. > billing Yes but you'd be paying for billing anyway. > reliability They increase reliability? > middleware Which you wouldn't need if you paid directly. I'm not saying they shouldn't get 5.5%, but that list is mostly non-convincing. > Apple still charges 30%. 3 of the 30 is for billing, with the rest mostly being gatekeeping…

> They increase reliability?

For models that have multiple providers, they automatically route your requests to a different provider if one of them goes down.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#554

Post by rldjbpin »

this was bound to happen but the knee-jerk changes recently is just hilarious.

having seen tens of millions of tokens (total; albeit not split by type) for a plan-agent workflow of a simple few line change, they should be also spending time on optimizing their internal orchestration.

i think the claude licensing on time-based limits would have been the least frustrating outcome, even if for the short-term. anyways, it was fun while it lasted (especially when opus 4.6 was initially 1x lol).

also, recession indicator anyone?

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#555

Post by saidAkh »

eolgun wrote: post #534

The 27x multiplier on Opus is the tell. That is not a pricing model designed for broad adoption, it's a price signal that says 'use the cheaper model.' The problem is that once users start self-censoring which model they reach for based on cost anxiety, you've degraded the product experience in a way that's invisible in the metrics but very visible in churn. Flat subscriptions had one big advantage: zero cognitive ov…

[flagged]

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#557

Post by darqis »

fortran77 wrote: post #176

I'm not sure I understand this. All I know is now, I pay $39/month (actually less because I paid a year up front), use the agent, mostly on auto--and only choosing a model if it got stuck or in a loop--every day, and haven't hit any limits yet. It seemed to good to be true, after hearing others talk of $300/month bills. I guess it was.

you will pay 6fold at the very least. Your 300 messages became 50 or your 1500 became 250 per month. And you have session limits, daily weekly and monthly limits

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#559

Post by darqis »

miroljub wrote: post #57

This subsidized inference is just a marketing ploy to increase prices and profit. If common people can have a DIY setup with an open source model cheaper than those behemoths with a scale advantage, it's clear that we have been played. Time to either self host a Chinese open source model or to just pay the cheap Chinese providers.

... There IS NO SUBSIDIZED INTERFERENCE jfc.

Re: GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing

#560

Post by darqis »

hu3 wrote: post #478
hansmayer wrote: post #476

In a way, this is good news. I am expecting to see a lot less of AI-boosters claiming that they are "productive in ways you don't understand", now that they'll have to dish out upwards of a few thousand bucks per month for whatever PoCs they are building. And the excited hired middle managers and CEOs spending other people's money will have to be much more careful about their budget starting June.

Nah, they are moving to DeepSeek v4 Pro which is like Sonnet tier for a fraction of the price. And DeepSeek V4 Flash is comparable to Gemini Flash at also a fraction of the cost. These models are just quite chatty from my experience. Only downside. And DeepSeek is planning to deploy to their own Huawei TPUs, halving their already cheap prices.

A better Opus 4.6
Post reply on HN