Starting June 1, 2026, GitHub Copilot will undergo a major shift from premium request units (PRUs) to a usage-based billing model powered by GitHub AI Credits. This change reflects Copilot's evolution into an agentic platform that handles complex, multi-step coding tasks, demanding a pricing structure that aligns with actual resource consumption. Whether you're a solo developer, a team lead, or an enterprise admin, understanding these updates is essential for budgeting and planning. Here are the ten key things you need to know about this transition.

1. The Transition to Usage-Based Billing Begins June 1, 2026

GitHub has announced that all Copilot plans—Free, Pro, Pro+, Business, and Enterprise—will move to a usage-based billing model on June 1, 2026. This means your monthly subscription will include a fixed allotment of GitHub AI Credits rather than a set number of premium requests. If you exceed that allotment, you can purchase additional credits directly from your billing dashboard. This change aims to better match costs with the actual compute and inference resources consumed by each user, making the system more sustainable for both GitHub and its customers.

2. PRUs Are Being Replaced by GitHub AI Credits

The current premium request units (PRUs) will disappear entirely. In their place, every plan will provide a pool of GitHub AI Credits each month. These credits will be deducted based on token usage—specifically input tokens, output tokens, and cached tokens—using the published API rates for each model. This means that a quick chat query will consume fewer credits than a long, agentic coding session that runs across multiple files. The change ensures that heavy users pay proportionally more, while casual users aren't subsidizing power users.

3. Token Consumption Determines Your Credit Usage

Your monthly credit consumption will be calculated by counting the tokens processed during each Copilot interaction. Every AI model has a specific rate per token, which GitHub will publish and update as needed. Input tokens are the text you send (e.g., your code context and prompts), output tokens are the code or suggestions Copilot generates, and cached tokens are reused from previous sessions to improve speed. This granular approach ensures you only pay for what you actually use, and it gives you clear insight into which activities are most expensive.

4. Base Plan Prices Are Not Changing

Despite the billing overhaul, the monthly subscription prices for all Copilot plans remain unchanged. Copilot Pro stays at $10 per month, Pro+ at $39 per month, Business at $19 per user per month, and Enterprise at $39 per user per month. What does change is the value inside those plans: your monthly credit allowance will replace the previous fixed number of premium requests. For many users, this could mean better value if they use Copilot sporadically, but heavy users may need to purchase extra credits. GitHub has not yet specified the exact credit allowances per plan, so stay tuned for those details as June approaches.

5. Code Completions and Next Edit Suggestions Stay Free

One of the most user-friendly aspects of the new system is that certain features will not consume any AI Credits. Basic inline code completions and Next Edit Suggestions—the real‑time hints that appear as you type—will continue to be included in all plans at no extra cost. This means your daily flow of small, quick suggestions won't eat into your monthly credit allowance. Instead, credits are reserved for more resource‑intensive operations like full chat conversations, agentic coding sessions, and multi‑file refactoring tasks. This distinction helps ensure that lightweight usage remains essentially free.

6. Fallback Experiences Are Being Removed

Under the current PRU system, if you exhaust your premium requests, Copilot automatically downgrades you to a lower‑cost model (a “fallback”) so you can continue working with reduced capabilities. Starting June 1, 2026, this fallback option will be eliminated. Instead, once your credit balance is depleted—or you hit the budget cap set by your admin—Copilot will stop responding until you either purchase more credits or wait for the next billing cycle. This change encourages users to monitor their consumption and adjust their usage patterns, but it also means you must plan for peak usage periods to avoid interruptions.

7. Copilot Code Review Now Also Consumes GitHub Actions Minutes

If you use Copilot’s code review feature to automatically analyze pull requests, be aware that it will now consume two types of resources: GitHub AI Credits for the AI processing and GitHub Actions minutes for the workflow execution. The Actions minutes are billed at the standard per‑minute rate for GitHub Actions workflows. This dual consumption means that heavy code review usage could affect both your Actions quota and your Copilot credit allowance. Teams should factor this into their overall GitHub budget, especially if they frequently review large pull requests.

8. Temporary Changes to Individual Plans for Reliability

In the lead‑up to the June 1 transition, GitHub has implemented temporary adjustments to Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, and Student plans. These include tightened usage limits and paused self‑serve purchases for Copilot Business. According to GitHub, these measures are purely for reliability and performance as they ramp up infrastructure to support usage‑based billing. Once the new billing model is fully live, they will loosen these limits. For now, existing subscribers should not see drastic changes to their day‑to‑day experience, but new Business sign‑ups may need to contact sales.

9. Self‑Serve Copilot Business Purchases Are Paused

If you were planning to upgrade to a Copilot Business plan through the GitHub website, you’ll need to reach out to the sales team instead. GitHub temporarily paused self‑serve purchases for Business plans as part of the reliability measures mentioned above. This pause affects only new purchases; existing Business accounts continue to work normally. The move is designed to give GitHub time to ensure that the backend can handle the transition to AI Credits without service disruptions. Once the new billing system launches, self‑serve options for Business will likely return.

10. Preview Your Projected Costs in Early May

To help users and admins prepare for the change, GitHub will release a preview bill experience in early May 2026. You’ll be able to see an estimate of how many AI Credits your current usage would consume, along with projected costs. This preview will appear on the Billing Overview page when you log into github.com. For organizations, admins can also set budget controls early, letting them cap credit usage per user or team. GitHub encourages everyone to check this preview regularly to avoid surprises on June 1.

The shift to usage‑based billing marks a new chapter for GitHub Copilot, aligning costs with the actual compute demands of modern AI‑assisted development. By understanding these ten changes—from credit calculation to fallback removal and preview tools—you can smoothly adapt your workflow and budget. As the June 1 deadline approaches, keep an eye on GitHub’s official announcements for exact credit allowances and further details. With proper planning, this transition can make Copilot even more valuable for your team.