Hello everyone, we've heard your feedback and just shared an update on the announcement. Be sure to check out our latest blog post and have a chance to share your feedback in our community discussion here.

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GitHub
docs.github.com › billing › managing-billing-for-github-actions › about-billing-for-github-actions
GitHub Actions billing - GitHub Docs
Anyone with write access to a repository can run actions. Any costs of running the actions are billed to the repository owner. Each Copilot code review consumes GitHub Actions minutes in addition to AI credits.
Discussions

Per minute charges for self hosted runners? Wtf?
Why are you starting this discussion? Question What GitHub Actions topic or product is this about? Actions Runner Discussion Details GitHub is going to change pricing for runners: https://github.bl... More on github.com
🌐 github.com
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December 16, 2025
Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions
The writing is in the wall. First it was UX annoyances. Then it was GitHub Actions woes. Now it is paying money for running their software on your own hardware. It's only going to go downhill. Is it a good time now to learn from our mistakes and convince our teams and management to use ... More on news.ycombinator.com
🌐 news.ycombinator.com
819
802
December 23, 2025
What will be the impact of the change in Actions pricing?
Why are you starting this discussion? Question What GitHub Actions topic or product is this about? General Discussion Details We've been increasing the amount we use of GitHub Actions over this yea... More on github.com
🌐 github.com
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Starting March 1, 2026, GitHub will introduce a new $0.002 per minute fee for self-hosted runner usage.
This was a purely business decision, and it was because services like Blacksmith and Depot were eating their lunch. These services host managed self-hosted runners, charge exactly half Github does for runners, use faster compute, and switching is trivial (one find and replace line per job). Instead of competing properly on price and performance, Github chose to go the anticompetitive route and simply add an artificial price hike to self-hosted runners. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/programming
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December 16, 2025
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GitHub
github.com › pricing
Pricing · Plans for every developer
Use execution minutes with GitHub Actions to automate your software development workflows. Write tasks and combine them to build, test, and deploy any code project on GitHub. Minutes are free for public repositories.
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GitHub
github.blog › home › changelogs › update to github actions pricing
Update to GitHub Actions pricing - GitHub Changelog
December 17, 2025 - We’re working hard to earn your trust through consistent delivery across GitHub Actions and the entire platform. On January 1, 2026, GitHub will reduce the price of GitHub-hosted runners by up to 39% depending on the machine type used.
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Blacksmith
blacksmith.sh › blog › actions-pricing
The GitHub Actions control plane is no longer free | Blacksmith
GitHub is adding a $0.002-per-minute fee on all GitHub Actions usage, so the control plane is no longer free.
Find elsewhere
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GitHub
github.com › orgs › community › discussions › 182186
Updates to GitHub Actions pricing · community · Discussion #182186
We’re postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach. We are continuing to reduce hosted-runners prices by up to 39% on January 1, 2026.
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Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com › item
Pricing Changes for GitHub Actions | Hacker News
December 23, 2025 - The writing is in the wall. First it was UX annoyances. Then it was GitHub Actions woes. Now it is paying money for running their software on your own hardware. It's only going to go downhill. Is it a good time now to learn from our mistakes and convince our teams and management to use ...
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GitHub
github.com › features › actions
GitHub Actions · GitHub
It promises to streamline our workflows for a variety of tasks, from deploying our websites to querying the GitHub API for custom status reports to standard CI builds. ... We take pride in our Open Source legacy, and are happy to provide free CI/CD for public repositories. Check out the doc to see which runners are included. ... Check out plan details to see how many minutes are included and the pricing table below to see which runners you can use your free minutes on. ... You can’t perform that action at this time.
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GitHub
docs.github.com › en › billing › reference › actions-runner-pricing
Actions runner pricing - GitHub Docs
Reference information for calculating the cost of using different GitHub-hosted runners.
Top answer
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Hi,

From GitHub’s current pricing model, self-hosted runners are generally still different from GitHub-hosted runners because you are providing and maintaining the infrastructure yourself.

For most plans, GitHub-hosted runners consume included Actions minutes and may incur charges after the included quota is exceeded. Self-hosted runners historically did not consume those hosted compute minutes because GitHub is not providing the compute resources.

However, the recent pricing and platform changes have created some confusion because GitHub has started separating billing categories such as:
• hosted runner compute
• larger runners
• storage/artifacts
• logs
• enterprise-level usage features

For GitHub Enterprise specifically, you still receive included GitHub-hosted runner minutes depending on the plan, but self-hosted runner behavior may depend on which additional enterprise features or managed runner capabilities are enabled.

The important distinction is:
• self-hosted runner compute itself is typically not billed the same way as GitHub-hosted compute
• but surrounding platform services or enterprise-managed features may now have associated pricing

I would strongly recommend reviewing:
https://docs.github.com/en/billing/managing-billing-for-your-products/managing-billing-for-github-actions

and:

https://github.com/pricing

as well as checking whether the pricing email specifically references:
• larger runners
• managed runners
• Actions storage
• enterprise orchestration features
• or standard self-hosted runners

For your personal self-hosted runner at home, my understanding is that simply running workloads on your own hardware should still not behave the same way as consuming GitHub-hosted compute minutes. However, because the pricing changes are evolving, opening a support ticket for official clarification is probably the safest option before communicating internally.

Support:
https://support.github.com/

This is definitely an area where GitHub could communicate the distinctions more clearly because many users interpret “Actions pricing changes” as meaning all self-hosted execution is now billable.

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GitHub
github.com › orgs › community › discussions › 55015
Pricing of self-hosted runners for github actions. · community · Discussion #55015
GitHub Actions usage is free for standard GitHub-hosted runners in public repositories, and for self-hosted runners.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › GitHub
GitHub - Wikipedia
2 days ago - For version control, Git (and, by extension, GitHub) allows pull requests to propose changes to the source code. Users who can review the proposed changes can see a diff between the requested changes and approve them. In Git terminology, this action is called "committing" and one instance of ...
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byteiota
byteiota.com › home › infrastructure › cloud & devops › github actions pricing cut: 39% drop, self-hosted fees axed
GitHub Actions Pricing Cut: 39% Drop, Self-Hosted Fees Axed | byteiota
January 30, 2026 - Standard Linux runners dropped from $0.008 to $0.005 per minute while GitHub admitted it “missed the mark” on its attempt to charge $0.002 per minute for self-hosted orchestration.
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GitHub
github.com › pricing › calculator
Pricing Calculator · GitHub
Not available for private repos in legacy per-repository plans, and free for public repositories. Additional storage $0.25 USD per GB, additional data transfer out outside of Actions $0.50 USD per GB.
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GitHub
github.com › insights › pricing changes for github actions
Pricing changes for GitHub Actions · GitHub
This change better supports a world where CI/CD must be faster and more reliable, better caching, more workflow flexibility, rock-solid reliability, and strengthens the core experience while positioning GitHub Actions to power GitHub’s open, secure platform for agentic workloads. Starting today, we’re charging fairly for Actions across the board which reduces the price of GItHub Hosted Runners and the price the average GitHub customer pays.
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IT Brief Australia
itbrief.com.au › story › github-cuts-actions-runner-prices-adds-new-usage-fee
GitHub cuts Actions runner prices, adds new usage fee
February 23, 2026 - GitHub will cut Actions hosted runner prices by up to 39% from 2026 while adding a new USD $0.002-a-minute fee for self-hosted use.