GitHub Copilot free tier includes AI coding assistant by GitHub… Catalogue date July 2026.

GitHub Copilot Free Tier 2026 caution

Why caution: effective 2026-06-24 — GitHub limited Copilot Free and Copilot Student to auto model selection, so Free users can no longer choose which model answers. Source ↗ Full history ↓

A verdict here is not a fixed property of the vendor. A one-off pricing event demotes a vendor while its recorded date falls in the last 180 days and then lapses on its own, with nothing about the vendor having changed; a standing condition — a free tier withdrawn, a product retired — does not lapse with time. This one rests on a standing condition, so it does not lapse.

Limits, pricing history. Catalogue date July 2026. Last updated 2026-09-28.

GitHub Copilot's free tier offers AI coding assistant by GitHub… We rate it caution — one recorded restriction, on 2026-06-24.

One of 15 AI Coding services we track. See our full AI Coding Free Tier Comparison →

Tier

Free

Free Tier Details

AI coding assistant by GitHub. Copilot Free is $0 with no credit card: 2,000 code completions a month, a limited monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat and agent features, and models through auto model selection only. Copilot Student is free for verified students. Paid plans include a monthly allowance of AI credits: Pro $10 (1,500 credits), Pro+ $39 (7,000) and Max $100 (20,000); Business $19 (1,900) and Enterprise $39 (3,900) per seat. Code completions are unlimited on paid plans, and usage beyond an allowance costs $0.01 per AI credit.

We read that on 2026-09-12 from https://github.com/features/copilot, and our check recorded: the page names GitHub Copilot as "github copilot" and states "$ 0". A source check reads the cited page for the service's name and a price; the limits above are from our own record.

When You'll Outgrow GitHub Copilot's Free Tier

When your usage exceeds the free tier limits, you'll need to upgrade.

Pricing Change History (11 recorded)

corrected effective 2026-09-28 low impact

Data correction - GitHub moved every Copilot plan to AI credits on 2026-06-01, not on 2026-08-28; GitHub's changelog dates it. Our re-read of 2026-08-28 recorded it as a change dated the day it read the page, and a re-read of 2026-09-12 recorded terms the page already showed as an increase. Source ↗

Before: Recorded 2026-08-28 as pricing_restructured, dated 2026-08-28

After: pricing_restructured, dated 2026-06-01 from GitHub's changelog. The 2026-09-12 record describes no change.

corrected effective 2026-09-27 low impact

Data correction - GitHub launched Copilot Free on 2024-12-18, not on 2025-12-18. The date comes from GitHub's own announcement. Source ↗

Before: Recorded 2026-03-19 with the launch dated a year late

After: new_free_tier dated 2024-12-18, from GitHub's announcement of Copilot Free

increased discovered 2026-09-12 · effective date unknown low impact

Retracted — this record was our error (2026-09-28). The free tier now includes access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more, and access to the Copilot CLI. The pricing for Pro is $10/month with $15 monthly total credits, Pro+ is $39/month with $70 monthly total credits, and Max is $100/month with $200 monthly total credits. The page also mentions Business and Enterprise plans with different pricing and features. Retracted 2026-09-28: nothing changed on 2026-09-12. The Internet Archive's capture of GitHub's Copilot page on 2026-04-21 already lists Copilot Free with 2,000 completions a month, "Access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more" and Copilot CLI, and its capture of 2026-08-27 shows the $15, $70 and $200 of monthly credits for Pro, Pro+ and Max. The record compared the page with our own listing text. Source ↗

Before: AI coding assistant by GitHub/Microsoft. Works in VS Code/JetBrains/GitHub.com. Copilot Free: 2,000 completions/month, an allowance of GitHub AI Credits, limited agents, auto model selection only. Copilot Student is free to verified students. Pro $10/mo (base 1,000 AI credits), Pro+ $39/mo (3,900), Max $100/mo (10,000), Business $19/granted seat/mo (1,900 per user), Enterprise $39/granted seat/mo (3,900 per user). Usage beyond the allowance is billed at $0.01/AI credit; code completions and next edit suggestions are unlimited on paid plans and not billed in credits. The April 2026 pause on new Pro, Pro+ and Student signups has been lifted — all individual plans accept new signups today. New self-serve purchase of Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise remains paused (2026-04-22), with GitHub saying sign-ups reopen soon for card and PayPal customers.

After: Free: $0 USD per user / month. Includes 2,000 completions per month, access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more, Copilot CLI, and Community Support. No credit card required.

restricted effective 2026-06-24 medium impact

GitHub limited Copilot Free and Copilot Student to auto model selection, so Free users can no longer choose which model answers. Source ↗

Before: Copilot Free: 2,000 completions a month and an allowance of GitHub AI Credits; "Copilot Student and Copilot Free users have access to a selection of models, which are subject to change." (GitHub docs, capture of 2026-06-02)

After: "Copilot Free and Student plans will now use Copilot auto model selection as the default and only model selection experience." (GitHub changelog, 2026-06-24)

restructured effective 2026-06-01 high impact

GitHub retired premium requests and now bills every Copilot plan in GitHub AI Credits. Copilot Free kept 2,000 code completions a month, and its 50 chat and agent requests a month became an allowance of AI credits. Plan prices did not change: Pro at $10 a month now includes $15 of usage and Pro+ at $39 includes $70, and the new Max plan is $100 with $200. Source ↗

Before: Free: "50 agent mode or chat requests per month 2,000 completions per month"; Pro $10 a month with 300 requests a month and the option to buy more (features page, capture of 2026-05-31)

After: "As of June 1, all Copilot plans bill based on GitHub AI Credits consumed." (GitHub changelog, 2026-06-01). Free: "2,000 completions per month Access to Haiku 4.5, GPT-5 mini, and more Copilot CLI"; Max: "$ 100 USD per user / month" (features page, capture of 2026-06-01)

restricted effective 2026-04-22 high impact

No longer in force (2026-09-01). GitHub paused new self-serve signups for Copilot Business by organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team plans, two days after the pause on individual plans. Existing Copilot Business customers were unaffected and could keep adding seats. Copilot Enterprise was not named in the announcement. Reversed: GitHub's 2026-08-28 changelog states "Starting September 1, 2026, GitHub will start reenabling sign-ups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal." The pause announcement is marked Retired. Source ↗

Before: Organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team could buy Copilot Business ($19/user/month) self-serve.

After: Reversed. GitHub's changelog post for this pause is marked Retired, and its 2026-08-28 billing announcement says signups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal were reenabled from 2026-09-01. The same announcement adds an upfront per-seat charge on assignment, reaching existing Business and Enterprise customers on those payment methods from 2026-10-01.

restricted effective 2026-04-20 high impact

No longer in force (2026-06-17). GitHub paused new signups for Copilot Pro, Pro+, and Copilot Student plans citing infrastructure strain from agentic AI workflows (long-running, parallelized sessions overwhelming capacity). Existing users are unaffected. Free tier signups remain open. Same announcement also removed Claude Opus from Pro (now Pro+ only) and tightened usage limits on individual plans. Reversed: GitHub reopened sign-ups for Copilot Student, Pro, Pro+ and Max from 2026-06-17 ("We're reopening sign-ups for GitHub Copilot Student, Pro, Pro+, and Max plans gradually over the next couple of weeks"), and its changelog post for this change is marked Retired. A separate pause dated 2026-04-22 covered new self-serve signups for Copilot Business by organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team plans, and did not cover Copilot Enterprise; GitHub reenabled signups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal from 2026-09-01. Source ↗

Before: Pro ($10/mo), Pro+ ($39/mo), and Copilot Student plans accepting new signups. Claude Opus available on Pro. Standard individual-plan usage limits.

After: Reversed. GitHub's changelog post for this change is marked Retired, and its plans documentation offers Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max and Copilot Student to new users today (verified 2026-09-02). A separate pause dated 2026-04-22 covered new self-serve signups for Copilot Business by organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team plans, and did not cover Copilot Enterprise; GitHub reenabled signups for new Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers paying by credit card or PayPal from 2026-09-01. Free tier was unaffected throughout.

restricted effective 2026-04-10 medium impact

No longer in force (2026-09-02). GitHub paused new Copilot Pro trials due to abuse. Existing trials continued through their term. New users could still subscribe to Pro directly (paid) until the broader April 20 signup pause closed that path too. Resolved: Copilot Pro is open to new subscribers, verified 2026-09-02 against GitHub's plans documentation. Source ↗

Before: Copilot Pro offered a 30-day free trial to any new user

After: Resolved. Copilot Pro is open to new subscribers today (verified 2026-09-02 against GitHub's plans documentation); the trial pause is no longer reflected in GitHub's current plan pages.

restricted effective 2026-03-12 medium impact

Student plan now managed under dedicated 'GitHub Copilot Student' plan. Premium models (GPT-5.4, Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet) removed from manual self-selection — still available via Auto mode (system picks the model). Source ↗

Before: Students shared Copilot Free quotas with full model self-selection

After: Dedicated Student plan — premium models only via Auto mode, no manual model selection

restructured effective 2026-02-01 medium impact

Premium request model introduced across all tiers. Free: 50/mo, Pro: 300, Pro+: 1,500, Business: 300/user, Enterprise: 1,000/user. Overage at $0.04/request. Advanced reasoning models consume 5x-20x per interaction Source ↗

Before: Free: 50 chat messages/mo, paid tiers had vague 'unlimited' chat

After: Premium request quotas per tier with $0.04 overage. Model multipliers (5x-20x) for advanced reasoning models

new effective 2024-12-18 high impact

GitHub launched Copilot Free tier — AI code completion available to all GitHub users at no cost. 2,000 completions and 50 chat messages per month included Source ↗

Before: Paid only: Individual $10/month, Business $19/user/month. Free for verified students, teachers, and OSS maintainers only

After: Free tier: 2,000 code completions/month, 50 chat messages/month. Individual $10/month, Business $19/month, Enterprise $39/month remain for higher limits

View all 476 pricing changes across all vendors →

Recommended Migration Targets

These alternatives were identified from GitHub Copilot’s pricing changes as recommended replacements.

Cursor Free Cline Open Source Windsurf Free Claude Code Paid

Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The list above is every one of the 4 entries in that order, not a prefix of it. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.

date: 2026-09-30
query_key: curated-alternatives:GitHub Copilot
seed: 1dacccf0f8b4c360a3348318f3ab0f8b23ee1b7174b3a0e0297f0d0b897765b3
tie_count: 1

Comparisons

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Featured in Monthly Reports

September 2026 Report June 2026 Report April 2026 Report March 2026 Report February 2026 Report December 2024 Report

Watch GitHub Copilot for Pricing Changes

We do not push notifications. Every change we record is readable the moment it lands, and the JSON answer carries an ETag — send it back as If-None-Match and an unchanged answer costs one 304.

curl https://agentdeals.dev/api/changes?vendor=GitHub%20Copilot
curl https://agentdeals.dev/pricing-changes/feed.xml?vendor=GitHub%20Copilot

API docs →

Query via MCP

Look up GitHub Copilot programmatically with the AgentDeals MCP server:

{
  "tool": "search_deals",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "GitHub Copilot",
    "limit": 5
  }
}

Frequently Asked Questions

Is GitHub Copilot free?

Yes, GitHub Copilot offers a free tier: Free. AI coding assistant by GitHub. Copilot Free is $0 with no credit card: 2,000 code completions a month, a limited monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat and agent features, and models through ...

What is GitHub Copilot's free tier?

GitHub Copilot's free tier is called "Free". AI coding assistant by GitHub. Copilot Free is $0 with no credit card: 2,000 code completions a month, a limited monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat and agent features, and models through auto model selection only. Copilot Student is free for verified students. Paid plans include a monthly allowance of AI credits: Pro $10 (1,500 credits), Pro+ $39 (7,000) and Max $100 (20,000); Business $19 (1,900) and Enterprise $39 (3,900) per seat. Code completions are unlimited on paid plans, and usage beyond an allowance costs $0.01 per AI credit.

Is GitHub Copilot's free tier reliable?

GitHub Copilot's free tier requires caution because of one specific recorded change, on 2026-06-24: GitHub limited Copilot Free and Copilot Student to auto model selection, so Free users can no longer choose which model answers. Source: https://github.blog/changelog/2026-06-24-changes-to-model-selection-for-free-and-student-plans/

Is GitHub Copilot's free tier good for production?

GitHub Copilot's free tier is usable for prototyping and development, but we rate it caution because of one recorded restriction, on 2026-06-24. Consider alternatives with more stable pricing for critical services.

What changed in GitHub Copilot's pricing?

GitHub Copilot has had 8 recorded pricing changes. Most recently: GitHub limited Copilot Free and Copilot Student to auto model selection, so Free users can no longer choose which model answers. Source: https://github.blog/changelog/2026-06-24-changes-to-model-selection-for-free-and-student-plans/ (2026-06-24).

When will I outgrow GitHub Copilot's free tier?

When your usage exceeds the free tier limits, you'll need to upgrade. When you outgrow the free tier, evaluate paid plans against alternatives — sometimes a competitor's free tier covers what you need.

What category is GitHub Copilot in?

GitHub Copilot is categorized under AI Coding on AgentDeals.

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