GitHub Pricing: Plans, Add-Ons and Team Costs

GitHub pricing starts at $0 for Free, $4 per user per month for Team, and $21 per user per month for Enterprise. A five-person team therefore pays $20 or $105 monthly before usage and add-ons; a 25-person team pays $100 or $525. Choose Team when private code needs enforced reviews, and Enterprise when centralized identity or governance justifies the premium.

GitHub hosts code repositories, the shared project folders that preserve your code's history and proposed changes. For a growing company, the buying decision turns on three things: which controls you need, how many people consume licenses, and which usage meters your development workflow runs up.

Prices and allowances verified against GitHub's pricing page and its billing documentation, November 2026. All amounts below are USD before tax. Worked bills are calculated scenarios, not measured customer invoices.

GitHub Pricing at a Glance

The base subscription is inexpensive; security licenses and cloud usage can become the larger expense. These are the three organization plans currently displayed on the pricing page.

The minutes are the headline equivalents for standard 2-core x64 Linux Actions usage. The billing docs express the underlying compute allowances as $12, $18 and $300 respectively. Storage is shared between Actions artifacts and Packages. Neither allowance multiplies by your seat count.

GitHub Private Repository Pricing

Private repositories themselves are free, with unlimited collaborators. You do not have to buy Team merely because your company's code is private. Free also includes Dependabot, which proposes dependency updates, plus basic code review and project tracking.

The wall is enforcement. When your release process needs required approvals and designated code owners on private repositories, Team becomes useful. Many of these controls already work on public repositories under Free.

A small business storing private scripts, a founder sharing an early application, or a public open-source project may never need a paid organization plan. Stay on Free while its controls and included usage fit. Company headcount alone is not an upgrade trigger.

GitHub Team Pricing

GitHub Team costs $4 per billable user per month and is the sensible default for a commercial team that needs private-repository review rules. It adds multiple reviewers, required reviewers, draft pull requests, code owners and repository rules. A code owner is the person or group responsible for approving changes to a particular part of the codebase.

Team also adds Pages and Wikis for private repositories, environment deployment branches and secrets, and web-based support. Deployment secrets are credentials a workflow can use when releasing software; branch restrictions help control which code can reach them.

For a founder managing a payment service, the useful purchase is the ability to require the payments owner to approve a change before it merges. That is a concrete reason to pay. The extra Actions allowance is usually not: Team adds only $6 of included compute over Free, while five seats cost $20.

GitHub Organization Pricing: Who Counts as a Seat?

Count billable accounts, including relevant contractors, before multiplying by $4. Team bills organization members, including owners, and outside collaborators on private repositories, excluding forks. Some pending invitations also consume seats. A person invited only as a billing manager does not need a paid seat. These distinctions come from the license-consumption rules.

Giving a contractor read access to a private repository can therefore affect the bill even if they never write code. Conversely, your finance person may only need the billing role. Buying a personal Pro subscription does not upgrade repositories owned by your organization.

GitHub Enterprise Pricing

GitHub Enterprise is listed at $21 per user per month, with the strongest justification being centralized identity and governance. SAML single sign-on lets employees sign in through your company's identity provider. SCIM automates account provisioning, and Enterprise Managed Users give the company control over developer identities.

The plan also adds an enterprise account for managing multiple organizations, data residency, advanced auditing and the Audit Log API, GitHub Connect, agent governance, and environment protection rules. The pricing page lists annual SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports and a FedRAMP Tailored authorization; these are vendor assurances, not automatic compliance for your application. Premium support remains an add-on.

For a company that must remove access centrally when someone leaves, these controls can decide the purchase before compute costs matter. For a 25-person startup without those requirements, Team is a reasonable choice. Advanced Security can be purchased on Team, so security scanning alone does not force Enterprise.

GitHub Enterprise Server Pricing

Self-hosting does not remove the Enterprise license charge. Enterprise includes Cloud and Server deployment options, with licensing based on unique users across properly synchronized deployments. The Enterprise billing documentation distinguishes usage-based licenses from volume agreements and confirms that Server still requires licenses.

The $21 list price is a planning reference, not a quote for your infrastructure or negotiated agreement. If you run Server yourself, budget for the machines, backups, upgrades and people operating it. The hosted Actions allowances in this article describe Enterprise Cloud.

GitHub Plans: Which Should You Choose?

Choose the lowest plan that enforces the controls your work requires. Free suits basic collaboration; Team suits controlled reviews on private repositories; Enterprise suits centralized identities, organization-wide governance and relevant deployment requirements.

A growing headcount increases the subscription bill, but it does not automatically change which controls you need. Revisit the plan when your release policy, customer obligations or account-management needs change.

GitHub Actions Pricing

GitHub Actions, the service that runs automated builds and tests, bills eligible compute against a shared monetary allowance. Free organizations receive $12 monthly, Team $18, and Enterprise Cloud $300. Standard Linux usage at $0.006 per minute produces the familiar 2,000, 3,000 and 50,000 minute equivalents. The Actions billing docs also explain the shared storage and compute rules.

Your allowance belongs to the billing account and resets each billing cycle. Unused included compute does not accumulate for later months. It is not 3,000 minutes for each Team member. Eligible cloud sandbox compute and memory can draw from the same pool, as can eligible larger runners on Team and Enterprise Cloud. The examples below assume those other consumers use none of it.

The current runner rates are $0.006 per minute for standard 2-core x64 Linux, $0.005 for 2-core arm64 Linux, $0.010 for standard 2-core Windows, and $0.062 for standard macOS. The 1-core x64 Linux runner costs $0.002 per minute. GitHub rounds each job up to whole minutes.

That makes runner selection material. After your allowance is exhausted, 1,000 billed minutes cost $6 on standard x64 Linux, $10 on Windows or $62 on macOS. These are equal-time comparisons, not claims that the same job runs equally fast on every machine.

Standard GitHub-hosted runners for public repositories and self-hosted runners have no GitHub runner charge. Larger runners are billed even for public repositories. With self-hosting, you still supply the machine and its operating costs.

Artifact Storage, Caches and Custom Images

Storage is a separate meter, and deleting files does not erase charges already accrued. Free, Team and Enterprise Cloud include 500 MB, 2 GB and 50 GB respectively in the shared Actions-artifact and Packages pool. Overages cost $0.25 per GB-month, accrued hourly.

Actions cache has its own 10 GB allowance per repository. Additional cache storage costs $0.07 per GB-month when you configure a larger cache limit. Custom images for larger runners have separate included storage of 75 GB on Team and 150 GB on Enterprise Cloud, with $0.07 per GB-month overage.

For a team retaining every build, shorten retention before upgrading the entire organization for storage. An artifact is a saved build output, such as a compiled application or test report; keeping obsolete outputs consumes space without improving today's release.

Codespaces: Price the Development Hours Separately

GitHub Codespaces, a cloud development machine you open in an editor, starts at $0.18 per active hour on a 2-core machine. The hourly prices are $0.36 for 4 cores, $0.72 for 8, $1.44 for 16 and $2.88 for 32. Storage is another $0.07 per GB-month. These are the Codespaces billing rates.

Personal Free accounts receive 120 core-hours and 15 GB-month of storage; personal Pro accounts receive 180 core-hours and 20 GB-month. A core-hour is one processor core running for one hour, so 120 core-hours means 60 hours on a 2-core machine.

Organization and enterprise plans include no free Codespaces quota. Access to the feature is not a prepaid allocation. If the organization pays for a developer's codespace, do not subtract that developer's personal allowance from the organization bill.

For illustration, 100 active hours on a 2-core machine plus 20 GB of storage retained for a full month costs $19.40 per person: $18 compute plus $1.40 storage. Stopping the machine stops active compute; its retained files still occupy billable storage. Prebuild generation can also consume Actions compute, and custom development-container images add storage.

GitHub Advanced Security Pricing

The two security licenses total $49 per active committer per month if you buy both. They are separate add-ons to Team or Enterprise, not security features automatically covered by the base Enterprise seat.

GitHub's security pricing page lists Secret Protection at $19 per active committer per month and Code Security at $30. Secret Protection detects exposed credentials and blocks qualifying leaks with push protection. Code Security adds vulnerability scanning with CodeQL, classic Copilot Autofix, dependency review and premium Dependabot features.

An active committer is a qualifying contributor whose commit was pushed to a repository with the relevant protection enabled within the previous 90 days. It is not simply someone who committed this calendar month. Count the qualifying people for each product across enabled repositories; GitHub App bots are excluded. See the Advanced Security license and usage rules.

A 25-seat organization can have fewer than 25 security-billable committers. A manager who only reviews work and a developer whose commits enter protected repositories do not necessarily generate the same security charge. Measure the actual enabled-repository population before multiplying.

Public repositories on GitHub.com receive a subset of security capabilities free. However, AI Scan, agentic autofix and push protection for AI-detected secrets can consume additional AI credits. Classic Autofix is distinct from agentic autofix and does not consume those credits. The security license price is therefore not an unlimited allowance for every AI security feature.

For a startup handling customer data, choose the protection its repositories require and assign an owner to the metered AI features. Treat enabling security across more repositories as a budget decision as well as a coverage decision.

The Monthly Bill for 5 People and 25 People

Base seats cost $20 or $100 on Team and $105 or $525 on Enterprise. Free has no base seat charge for either team size. A useful forecast then adds your workload instead of treating the seat subtotal as the final invoice.

For the following worked example, assume every person is a billable member and an active committer for both security products. Each uses 1,000 billed standard 2-core x64 Linux Actions minutes, 100 active hours of a 2-core Codespace and 20 GB-month of Codespaces storage. The organization retains 10 GB total of shared artifacts and Packages for the full month.

There is no other compute-pool use, paid transfer, cache overage, custom-image overage, LFS overage or AI-credit consumption. These are explicit workload assumptions using the vendor rates above, not a claim about typical developer usage.

Five-Person Team: $376 With the Illustrated Workload

Team totals $376 per month, or $75.20 per person, when both security licenses are enabled for all five people:

• Seats: 5 × $4 = $20.
• Actions: 5,000 × $0.006 = $30 gross, minus the $18 allowance = $12.
• Shared artifacts and Packages: (10 GB − 2 GB) × $0.25 = $2.
• Codespaces: 5 × [(100 × $0.18) + (20 × $0.07)] = $97.
• Security: 5 × ($19 + $30) = $245.

The same workload on Enterprise Cloud totals $447: $105 seats, no compute or shared-storage overage, $97 Codespaces and $245 security. On Team, removing both security licenses from this illustration leaves $131, including the specified cloud usage.

The useful conclusion is that a small team can spend more on its development environments and security than on repository seats. Control those choices before treating a plan downgrade as the main saving.

25-Person Team: $1,944 With the Illustrated Workload

Team totals $1,944 per month, or $77.76 per person, under the same per-person assumptions:

• Seats: 25 × $4 = $100.
• Actions: 25,000 × $0.006 = $150 gross, minus $18 = $132.
• Shared artifacts and Packages: the same 10 GB total leaves $2 overage.
• Codespaces: 25 × $19.40 = $485.
• Security: 25 × $49 = $1,225.

Enterprise Cloud totals $2,235: $525 seats, no compute or shared-storage overage, $485 Codespaces and $1,225 security. Team without the two security licenses is $719 for this workload.

The Team cost per person rises slightly because its compute allowance is shared across more people. Buying more seats does not buy another allowance for every developer.

When Does Enterprise's Compute Allowance Pay for the Upgrade?

Compute alone can justify Enterprise for some small teams, but not at every headcount. Enterprise costs an additional $17 per seat and supplies $282 more included monthly compute than Team: $300 minus $18.

For five people, the seat premium is $85. With only standard x64 Linux Actions usage, Team's overage reaches that premium at $103 gross compute, approximately 17,167 billed minutes. Enterprise still fits that workload inside its allowance. This crossover excludes storage differences and every other plan benefit.

For 25 people, the seat premium is $425, exceeding the maximum $282 compute saving. In fact, at 17 or more seats, the larger compute allowance alone cannot recover the list-price upgrade. Enterprise may still be the right purchase for identity, governance or other benefits; that is a different justification.

GitHub Packages Pricing and Other Storage Charges

GitHub Packages, the registry for distributing software packages, charges for eligible private storage and transfer beyond its allowance. Monthly included transfer is 1 GB on Free organizations, 10 GB on Team and 100 GB on Enterprise Cloud. Public packages and incoming transfer are free; qualifying downloads inside Actions using GITHUB_TOKEN do not consume transfer allowance. The Packages billing documentation explains those exceptions.

Additional storage costs $0.25 per GB-month, sharing the pool described above; additional outbound transfer outside Actions costs $0.50 per GB. For a team distributing packages to outside systems, transfer deserves its own forecast rather than being hidden inside repository storage.

GitHub Container Registry Pricing

Container registry storage and bandwidth are currently free, according to the Packages billing documentation. A container image bundles an application and the environment needed to run it. Do not automatically apply private package overage rates to container images, and do not assume the current free policy can never change.

GitHub LFS Pricing

Git Large File Storage, or LFS, uses a separate metered allowance for large versioned files. Current LFS billing documentation says prepaid data packs have been removed. Free includes 10 GiB of storage and monthly download bandwidth; Team and Enterprise Cloud include 250 GiB of each. A GiB is a binary storage unit, so preserve that unit in your estimate.

The calculator lists additional storage at $0.07 per GiB-month and outbound transfer at $0.0875 per GiB. GitHub's main pricing page still advertises a $5 pack with 50 GB of storage and bandwidth, while the calculator retains future-tense migration wording. For a current metered account, use the billing documentation's model and confirm the account's settings instead of budgeting around that inconsistent pack description.

GitHub Pricing Calculator: Subtract Allowances Carefully

Use the official pricing calculator to price resources, then reconcile included usage against the billing docs. Its FAQ says estimates exclude entitlements, while some individual controls, including LFS, show included amounts. Check each component so you neither omit an allowance nor subtract it twice.

Record the billable account, runner type, active Codespaces hours, retained storage and security-committer count. A forecast built from those inputs is more useful than multiplying headcount by a single headline rate.

GitHub vs GitLab and Bitbucket: Normalize the Seat Cost

GitHub Team has a low paid entry price, but a cheaper or more expensive competitor is only comparable when it supplies your required controls. Compare the same headcount and billing commitment before comparing usage bundles.

GitLab

GitLab, a code-hosting and development platform, lists Premium at $29 per user per month, billed annually on its pricing page. That is $145 monthly-equivalent for five people and $725 for 25, with annual totals of $1,740 and $8,700. Premium includes 10,000 compute minutes, advanced CI/CD and priority support. Ultimate uses custom pricing.

GitLab Free lists five users per top-level group and 400 compute minutes, so a growing private group can reach its limit earlier than on GitHub Free. Consider Premium when its wider development workflow replaces other tools you would otherwise buy. Do not compare its annual commitment with GitHub's monthly seat subtotal as though the included features were identical.

Bitbucket

Bitbucket, Atlassian's code-hosting platform, displays $3.65 per user per month for Standard and $8 for Premium on its pricing page. Multiplying those displayed rates gives Standard seat estimates of $18.25 for five people and $91.25 for 25; Premium gives $40 and $200. Confirm the calculator or checkout quote for your user tier.

Free supports up to five users with 50 build minutes and 1 GB of LFS storage. Enforced merge checks, deployment permissions, IP allowlisting and required two-step verification are Premium features. Standard's small seat-price saving against GitHub Team is only $1.75 for five people or $8.75 for 25; it is not a strong reason to migrate a working team, especially if the controls you need move you to Premium.

For a broader workflow comparison, see the code-hosting platform guide. Choose the collaboration model first, then compare the total bill for the same workload.

Annual Billing, Refunds and Price Changes

The live GitHub pricing page does not display a separate annual discount for Team or Enterprise. Annualizing today's list prices gives $48 per Team seat and $252 per Enterprise seat, but those are calculations, not separate annual-plan quotes. Enterprise volume agreements can have their own terms.

Standard GitHub payment terms say monthly and yearly plan payments are non-refundable, including partial months and unused months. The plan-change rules apply upgrades immediately and defer downgrades or cancellations until the current cycle ends. Reducing annual seats does not create an immediate refund for unused time.

The historical Team price fell from $9 to $4 per user per month in GitHub's April 2020 pricing change, which also made private repositories with unlimited collaborators free. Today's important budgeting changes also concern metering and add-ons, so an unchanged seat price does not guarantee an unchanged invoice.

Check the Bill Before Your Next Release Cycle

Assign an owner to the bill and set deliberate limits before enabling more metered features. A budget notification alone does not stop spending.

1. 1

   Count the accounts that can generate charges

   Review organization members, private-repository contractors and pending invitations. Separately count active committers for each security product. Keep finance-only access in the billing role where appropriate.

2. 2

   Price the workflow you intend to run

   Separate Actions runner types, Codespaces hours, artifact and package retention, transfer and LFS. Check which account pays for each resource. Use the five-person or 25-person example as a calculation pattern, replacing its assumptions with yours.

3. 3

   Choose whether each budget alerts or stops usage

   In billing, create the relevant product or SKU budget and enable "Stop usage when budget limit is reached" when a hard cap is appropriate. Read the budget setup instructions: an unchecked stop option allows continued usage, and active-committer security license budgets restrict new repository enablement without disabling protection already active.

Decide in advance which workflows may stop at a cap and which need headroom. A release pipeline should not discover your spending policy halfway through a deployment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is GitHub entirely free?

GitHub Free includes unlimited public and private repositories and collaborators. Paid controls, cloud resources beyond included usage and optional security products can generate charges. A team that fits Free's features and allowances can keep its base subscription at $0 indefinitely.

Is GitHub Pro free for students?

Yes. The Student Developer Pack lists free GitHub Pro while you are a student. That personal-account benefit does not upgrade a company's organization. Separate education and nonprofit discounts include eligible academic Team use and qualifying nonprofit offers; plan discounts do not automatically cover metered usage or other subscriptions.

What is GitHub for idiots?

GitHub is a shared workspace for software projects. It keeps the history of code changes, lets people propose and review updates, and helps a group work on the same project without passing files around manually.

What are the disadvantages of using GitHub?

For a growing business, the main tradeoffs are feature gates on private repositories, separate usage meters and the effort of maintaining platform-specific automation. Enterprise centralizes more controls, but its seat premium and add-ons still need a budget.

Is GitHub still owned by Microsoft?

Yes. GitHub remains part of Microsoft; its current privacy statement identifies Microsoft within its corporate group.

What is GitHub basically used for?

It is used to store code, track changes, review proposed updates, manage project issues and automate software builds and releases. The base plan determines the collaboration and governance controls; usage-based products add their own costs.

Why did the GitHub CEO resign?

Thomas Dohmke said in his August 2025 departure announcement that he was leaving to become a founder again. That announcement is not a reason to infer any particular change to your subscription price.

Why are people boycotting GitHub?

The Software Freedom Conservancy's Give Up GitHub campaign objects to proprietary hosting, vendor lock-in and the use of free-software code in AI training. Those are the campaign's stated objections; they are separate from the commercial plan comparison above.

Who founded GitHub?

GitHub's early team included Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett and Scott Chacon. Chacon's early history of GitHub describes its origin as a side project written by Tom and Chris, with PJ joining soon afterward.

What is the GitHub Copilot controversy?

GitHub Copilot, the AI coding assistant, has drawn criticism over training-code licensing and attribution, including the objections noted above. For purchasing, distinguish access from usage: Enterprise now advertises Copilot access, while the Copilot plan documentation says that access includes no AI-credit allowance. Use our GitHub Copilot pricing guide for its separate plans and usage charges.

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