GitHub Actions pricing changes in 2026

By Daniel Zoghalchali·Latchkey

The GitHub Actions pricing changes 2026 actually delivered are smaller than the ones it was promised: hosted runner prices fell by up to 39 percent on 1 January, and the $0.002 a minute charge on self-hosted usage announced for 1 March was postponed a day after it was announced and has not returned. Everything below is dated to the changelog entry that carries it, so you can check any line against GitHub's own post rather than against a summary of one.

Timeline: 16 Dec announced, 17 Dec postponed, 1 Jan cut, 22 Jan slim runner, 1 Jun Copilot minutes — The five dates that moved a GitHub Actions bill, from the December 2025 announcement to the June 2026 Copilot change, each taken from the GitHub changelog entry that announced it.

Two things make this topic hard to read on the open web. The announcement that generated the most coverage describes a charge that never started, and the changes that did land arrived in small changelog entries nobody wrote a thread about.

So this page is a timeline with a bill column. Each row names the date GitHub published the change, what the change is, and what it does to what you pay. The rates themselves live on how GitHub Actions pricing works; this page is only about what moved and when.

The change that was announced, then postponed, in two days

On 16 December 2025 GitHub published an entry titled "Update to GitHub Actions pricing". It said GitHub would "reduce the price of GitHub-hosted runners by up to 39%" on 1 January 2026, and that from 1 March 2026 it would "introduce a new $0.002 per minute GitHub Actions cloud platform charge that will apply to self-hosted runner usage". The same post added that "Runner usage in public repositories will remain free" and that GitHub Enterprise Server pricing was not affected.

The post was updated on 17 December 2025, the day after, with a note at the top: "We're postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach." The same note confirms the other half went ahead: "We are continuing to reduce hosted-runners prices by up to 39% on January 1, 2026."

Nine months later the billing documentation still reads "GitHub Actions usage is free for self-hosted runners", read on 20 September 2026. So the honest budgeting position is that self-hosted runners carry no GitHub fee today, and that a $0.002 per minute charge has been drafted, published and shelved once. What a self-hosted GitHub runner really costs works through the rest of that bill, which was never GitHub's to send you.

Everything that did change, with its date

The rows below are the 2026 changes that touch an Actions invoice, in the order GitHub published them. Two of them lower a rate, two add or move a charge, and the rest change what you can see or what you can spend before someone stops you.

Date	What GitHub published	What it does to the bill
16 Dec 2025	Hosted prices to fall by up to 39% on 1 Jan; a $0.002 per minute charge on self-hosted usage from 1 Mar	Announcement only
17 Dec 2025	The same post is updated to postpone the self-hosted charge	The self-hosted charge never starts
1 Jan 2026	"Reduced pricing for GitHub-hosted runners usage" confirms the cut is in effect	Lower per-minute rates; public repositories still free
22 Jan 2026	The 1 vCPU `ubuntu-slim` Linux runner reaches general availability	A $0.002 SKU for short jobs, capped at 15 minutes
29 Jan 2026	Linux and Windows arm64 standard runners arrive in private repositories	$0.005 rather than $0.006 on Linux; Windows arm64 matches x64
3 Mar 2026	Email alerts when included usage reaches 90% and 100%	No price change; you find out before the wall
26 Mar 2026	Custom images for GitHub-hosted runners reach general availability	Image storage is billed like other Actions storage
10 Apr 2026	A workflow run may be re-run at most 50 times	Caps what a retry loop can spend
27 Apr 2026	Copilot code review will consume Actions minutes from 1 June 2026	A new consumer of your included minutes

The cut landed, and it landed quietly

On 1 January 2026 GitHub published "Reduced pricing for GitHub-hosted runners usage", which says the reductions "are now in effect", repeats the "up to 39%" figure, points at the December post, and adds that "Standard hosted runner usage in public repositories remains free".

Two details matter when you compare a 2025 invoice to a 2026 one. The cut is "up to" 39 percent and varies by machine type, so no single multiplier converts an old bill into a new one. And the December post's own FAQ states that the January rates "include the new $0.002 per-minute Actions cloud platform charge", which means the platform charge is already inside the $0.006 you pay for a standard Linux minute. It was only ever an addition for self-hosted usage, and that addition is the part that was postponed.

Two new SKUs made some jobs genuinely cheaper

On 22 January 2026 GitHub made the 1 vCPU Linux runner generally available. It has "one vCPU and 5 GBs RAM", workflows on it "execute inside of a container rather than a dedicated VM instance", and "Jobs that use this runner type are limited to 15 minutes of execution time". You reach it by putting ubuntu-slim in runs-on. It bills as actions_linux_slim at $0.002 a minute, a third of the standard Linux rate.

On 29 January 2026 Linux and Windows arm64 standard runners arrived in private repositories. GitHub's entry says these are "free-tier eligible" and that "In private repositories, these runners have two vCPUs; in public repositories, they have four vCPUs". Standard Linux arm64 bills at $0.005 against $0.006 for x64, so a label change of ubuntu-24.04-arm is a 16.7 percent cut on that line, computed from the two published rates. The saving is a Linux one: Windows arm64 is published at $0.010, the same as Windows x64.

Together those two entries are the only rate reductions available to you by editing a workflow file rather than waiting for a price list. The catch on both is compatibility: 15 minutes is a hard ceiling on the slim runner, and arm64 needs a toolchain that has arm64 builds.

.github/workflows/ci.yml

# The two 2026 SKUs that lower a rate without changing what the job does
jobs:
  label:
    runs-on: ubuntu-slim      # $0.002 a minute, 15 minute ceiling
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - run: ./scripts/label-issue.sh

  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04-arm # $0.005 a minute against $0.006 on x64
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - run: make test

The change that raised a bill in 2026 was not a rate

On 27 April 2026 GitHub announced that from 1 June 2026, "GitHub Actions minutes will be consumed from your existing plan entitlement for each review that is run on private repositories, with any usage beyond your included minutes billed at standard GitHub Actions rates". The reason is architectural: Copilot code review runs on GitHub Actions using GitHub-hosted runners.

That is the one 2026 change that reliably makes an invoice larger, because it adds a consumer to a quota that was already spoken for. The same entry notes that "There are no changes to public repositories, where Actions minutes remain free", and that larger runners and self-hosted runners used for review "are billed at different rates than standard GitHub-hosted runners".

It also changes what your allowance means. If a team on GitHub Team opens 400 pull requests a month and each review bills 3 minutes, that is 1,200 minutes, or 40 percent of the 3,000 minute allowance, gone before a test has run. Count it before you assume your usage pattern is unchanged, and see running out of minutes for what happens when it is not.

What to watch, and what not to

Watch the changelog rather than the discussion threads. Every change above was published as a dated entry before anyone wrote about it, and the one that generated the most heat is a charge that has never applied. If the $0.002 per minute self-hosted charge is revived it will appear the same way, and the number to re-derive is your own self-hosted minute count multiplied by $0.002.

Watch your own allowance too, now that it has a new consumer. Since 3 March 2026 GitHub emails you when included usage reaches 90 percent and 100 percent for Actions minutes and Actions storage, and that alert is opt-out rather than something you have to build.

What not to watch is any advice that still prices Actions with OS multipliers. GitHub publishes a flat per-minute rate for every runner now, and the rates it published on 20 September 2026 are the ones in how GitHub Actions pricing works. If a 2026 rate card is still more than you want to pay, how Latchkey cuts the GitHub Actions bill is the comparison that starts from it.

Key takeaways

The hosted price cut of up to 39 percent took effect on 1 January 2026 and is confirmed in GitHub's changelog.
The $0.002 a minute self-hosted charge was announced on 16 December 2025 and postponed on 17 December 2025.
ubuntu-slim at $0.002 and private-repository arm64 at $0.005 are the two cheaper SKUs that arrived in January.
From 1 June 2026 Copilot code review consumes Actions minutes on private repositories.

Frequently asked questions

What changed in GitHub Actions pricing in 2026?

Hosted runner prices fell by up to 39 percent on 1 January. A 1 vCPU ubuntu-slim runner arrived at $0.002 a minute on 22 January and arm64 standard runners reached private repositories at $0.005 on 29 January. From 1 June, Copilot code review began consuming Actions minutes on private repositories. The announced charge on self-hosted usage never started.

Did GitHub back down on the self-hosted runner charge?

It postponed it. The 16 December 2025 announcement was updated on 17 December with "We're postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach." GitHub has not published a new date, and as of 20 September 2026 the billing documentation still states that Actions usage is free for self-hosted runners.

Does GitHub Copilot code review consume my Actions minutes?

On private repositories, yes, since 1 June 2026. GitHub's 27 April 2026 entry says minutes are consumed from your plan entitlement for each review, with usage beyond the included minutes billed at standard rates. Public repositories are unaffected. Reviews that run on larger or self-hosted runners are billed at those runners' rates instead.

What is the ubuntu-slim runner and what does it cost?

$0.002 a minute, a third of the standard Linux rate, generally available since 22 January 2026. It has one vCPU and 5 GB of RAM, runs your job in a container rather than a dedicated virtual machine, and caps job execution at 15 minutes. GitHub recommends it for automation such as labeling, linting and API calls rather than for heavyweight builds.