GitHub Copilot Pricing 2026: Free, Individual ($10), Business ($19), Enterprise ($39)

Quick Summary: GitHub Copilot Free (launched 2024) gives 2,000 completions/month — enough for light use. Individual at $10/month ($100/year) unlocks unlimited completions and is the right plan for most developers. Business at $19/user/month adds organizational controls. Enterprise at $39/user/month enables codebase fine-tuning. Here’s what each plan delivers.

Last updated: April 2026 | Pricing verified against GitHub’s official pricing page

GitHub Copilot Pricing Plans (April 2026)

Plan-by-Plan Breakdown

Free Plan — $0/month

GitHub launched a Copilot Free tier in late 2024, giving every GitHub account access to AI coding assistance without a subscription. The limits are real but make the free tier usable for evaluation and light personal projects.

What you get:

• 2,000 code completions per month — roughly 60–70 completions per day
• 50 Copilot Chat messages per month — conversational AI about your code
• Access to Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT-4o (model selection available)
• All major IDE integrations: VS Code, JetBrains, Vim/Neovim, Visual Studio
• Basic security vulnerability detection in completions
• Access to Copilot on GitHub.com (basic features)

What you don’t get:

• Completions beyond 2,000/month (throttled, not blocked — some users report degraded quality at limits)
• More than 50 chat messages/month
• CLI assistant, PR summaries, or advanced GitHub features
• IP indemnification

Who Free is for: Students, hobbyists, developers evaluating GitHub Copilot, or anyone coding as a side activity rather than professionally. 2,000 completions/month is approximately one active day of development — not enough for professional daily use.

Individual Plan — $10/month ($100/year)

The right plan for individual professional developers. At $10/month ($100/year with annual billing — 17% discount), GitHub Copilot Individual is among the best-value AI developer tools available.

What you get beyond Free:

• Unlimited code completions — no monthly cap, no throttling
• Unlimited Copilot Chat messages — ask questions about code without limit
• Multiple AI model selection — choose between Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o, and others per session
• GitHub Copilot CLI — AI assistance in the terminal for shell commands
• PR summaries — auto-generate pull request descriptions based on the diff
• Copilot in GitHub.com — AI assistance directly on github.com (PR reviews, issue summaries)
• All IDE integrations — VS Code, JetBrains, Vim, Visual Studio, Neovim, Azure Data Studio

Annual vs. monthly billing: Individual is $10/month or $100/year (save $20/year). If you’re planning to use it for 11+ months, annual billing is worth it.

Individual vs. Free — the practical difference:

Code completions are Copilot’s core feature. In a typical 8-hour development day, a developer might receive 200–400 completion suggestions. The 2,000/month Free cap covers roughly 5–10 active development days — not a full month of professional use. Individual removes this ceiling entirely.

Business Plan — $19/user/month

Business adds organizational management on top of Individual — policy controls, audit logging, and legal IP protection for commercial code development.

What you get beyond Individual:

• Organization-wide policy management — admins set rules for what Copilot can/cannot do (e.g., disable public code matching for specific repos)
• Audit logs — track Copilot usage across the organization
• IP indemnification — GitHub will defend and pay damages if a third party claims Copilot-generated code infringes their copyright. This is significant for commercial use.
• SAML/OIDC SSO — integrate with your identity provider
• Exclude specific files/repos — prevent Copilot from using certain codebases as context
• Seat management — assign, remove, and manage developer seats

The IP indemnification question:

For commercial software development, this is the most important Business feature. GitHub’s IP indemnification covers you if a third party claims that Copilot-generated code infringes their copyright — GitHub bears the legal and financial risk, not you. Individual users have no such protection. For companies shipping commercial software, this alone can justify Business over Individual.

Business vs. Individual × N:

The ~$9/user/month premium pays for IP protection, audit logs, and SSO. For teams shipping commercial software, the IP indemnification typically justifies the cost within the first legal consultation avoided.

Enterprise Plan — $39/user/month

Enterprise is designed for large organizations that want to fine-tune GitHub Copilot on their proprietary codebase — making the AI understand your specific coding patterns, internal APIs, and architectural conventions.

What you get beyond Business:

• Copilot knowledge bases — create curated knowledge bases from your internal documentation
• Fine-tuning on your codebase — train Copilot on your organization’s private repositories
• Custom AI models — bring your own models or use GitHub’s fine-tuned versions
• Advanced GitHub.com AI features — deeper AI integration across Issues, Projects, Code Search
• Advanced security scanning — Copilot Autofix for security vulnerabilities across your repos

Who Enterprise is for: Large engineering organizations (typically 100+ developers) where the cost of training Copilot on internal patterns is justified by productivity gains, or organizations with advanced security scanning requirements.

Enterprise vs. Business math: $39 vs. $19 = $20/user/month more. For 100 developers, that’s $2,000/month ($24,000/year) extra. The ROI depends on how much productivity gain the codebase fine-tuning and knowledge bases produce — typically evaluated against developer hourly costs.

GitHub Copilot vs Competitors

See our Cursor vs GitHub Copilot comparison and Best AI Coding Assistants 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is GitHub Copilot worth it at $10/month?

For professional developers, yes. At $10/month, GitHub Copilot Individual is one of the best-value AI tools in the market. Most developers report 20–35% productivity gains — even at the lower end, that represents significant time savings relative to $10/month.

What’s the difference between GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT for coding?

GitHub Copilot is embedded directly in your IDE — it sees your current file, project structure, and suggests completions as you type. ChatGPT is a chat interface you switch to for conversation-style help. Copilot is better for inline completion; ChatGPT (or Claude) is better for explaining complex code, architecture decisions, and generating code from scratch outside your IDE.

Does GitHub Copilot Business include unlimited seats?

No. Business is priced per seat ($19/user/month). You pay for each developer who needs access.

Can I use GitHub Copilot with JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, etc.)?

Yes. GitHub Copilot has full JetBrains IDE support. This distinguishes it from Cursor and Windsurf, which are VS Code forks — GitHub Copilot works in JetBrains, VS Code, Visual Studio, Vim, and more.

Is Copilot’s code safe to use commercially?

On the Free and Individual plans, there’s no IP indemnification — you assume the risk. On Business and Enterprise, GitHub provides IP indemnification for commercial use. For commercial projects, Business tier is strongly recommended.

What happened to GitHub Copilot X features?

The features announced as “Copilot X” (Copilot Chat, voice, pull request assistance) have been progressively rolled into the standard Copilot product. The “Copilot X” branding was retired; these features are now just part of Copilot Individual and above.

Which GitHub Copilot Plan Should You Choose?

Free: You’re a student, hobbyist, or evaluating Copilot. 2,000 completions/month is enough to experience the product but not for professional daily use.

Individual ($10/mo): You’re a professional developer coding full-time. Unlimited completions and chat justify the cost within the first few days of use.

Business ($19/user/mo): Your team ships commercial software and needs IP indemnification, SSO, and organizational management. The legal protection alone typically justifies the premium for commercial codebases.

Enterprise ($39/user/mo): Your engineering organization (100+ developers) wants to fine-tune Copilot on your proprietary codebase or needs advanced security scanning integrated with GitHub.

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Pricing last verified: April 2026. Confirm current rates at github.com/features/copilot.