Is GitHub Copilot free? Free vs Pro vs Pro+ in 2026
Yes, there's a free plan, but it's limited. Copilot Free gives you 2,000 code completions a month and a small allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat, agent mode and Copilot CLI. Verified students get Copilot Student for free, and verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects can get Copilot Pro for free. Below: every plan and what it includes, how the new AI credits work, and the free coding tools to use instead, all checked on GitHub's own pages on Oct 18, 2026.
Facts and prices checked Oct 18, 2026 · no paid placements
Short answer: Yes, with limits. Copilot Free costs $0 and includes 2,000 code completions a month plus a limited allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat, agent mode and Copilot CLI, using auto model selection only. Verified students get Copilot Student free (unlimited completions), and verified teachers and popular open-source maintainers can get Copilot Pro free. Otherwise Pro is $10/mo, Pro+ $39/mo and Max $100/mo; Business is $19 and Enterprise $39 per user per month.
GitHub Copilot plans (checked Oct 18, 2026)
| Plan | Price | Monthly AI credits | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Free | $0 | A limited allowance (GitHub doesn't publish the number) | 2,000 code completions a month. Chat, agent mode in the IDE, MCP and Copilot CLI on auto model selection only. No cloud agent, no pull request reviews (only "Review selection" in VS Code). Not available if you get Copilot through an organization. |
| Copilot Student | $0 for verified students | An allowance of credits | Unlimited code completions, cloud agent and code review, auto model selection only, no third-party agents. Requires GitHub Education verification, rechecked monthly. |
| Copilot Pro | $10/mo (free for verified teachers and popular open-source maintainers) | 1,500 (1,000 base + 500 flex) | Unlimited completions, a selection of models (Claude Sonnet and Haiku, GPT, Gemini Flash, Grok and more), cloud agent, code review. Opus models aren't included. |
| Copilot Pro+ | $39/mo | 7,000 (3,900 base + 3,100 flex) | Everything in Pro plus premium models like Claude Opus and Fable, delegation to third-party agents (Claude by Anthropic, OpenAI Codex), GitHub Spark. |
| Copilot Max | $100/mo | 20,000 (10,000 base + 10,000 flex) | Everything in Pro+ with GitHub's biggest individual allowance and priority access to premium models. |
| Copilot Business | $19/user/mo | 1,900 per user, pooled across the organization | Central seat management and policies, IP indemnity, no training on your data, content exclusion and audit logs. |
| Copilot Enterprise | $39/user/mo | 3,900 per user, pooled | Everything in Business with priority access to premium models. Needs GitHub Enterprise Cloud, which GitHub lists from $21/user/mo. |
Prices in USD. 1 AI credit = $0.01. Base credits match the plan price; the flex allotment is extra included usage that GitHub says may change over time. Included credits reset at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each month and don't roll over. Extra usage is billed at $0.01 per credit once you set a budget. Code completions and next edit suggestions don't use credits and are unlimited on paid plans.
What Copilot Free includes, and its limits
Copilot Free works in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs and other editors, on github.com, in GitHub Mobile and in the terminal through Copilot CLI. You get 2,000 code completions a month, and chat, agent mode, MCP servers and the CLI draw from a small monthly allowance of AI credits. GitHub's plans page just calls it "limited chat and agent usage" and doesn't publish the number of credits (an older FAQ line on the same page still says 50 chat requests). You can't pick a model: Free uses auto model selection, and the plans page lists Claude Haiku 4.5 and GPT-5 mini for Free. Not included: the cloud agent that turns issues into pull requests, pull request code reviews, third-party agents, buying extra credits and organization policies. When you hit the limit, VS Code and github.com show your reset date and a link to upgrade. Copilot Free isn't available if you have a managed user account, a Copilot seat from an organization, or Copilot Student or free Pro access.
Who gets Copilot for free?
Three groups. Verified students on GitHub Education get Copilot Student, a separate free plan with unlimited code completions, the cloud agent and code review, but auto model selection only and no third-party agents. Verified teachers on GitHub Education get Copilot Pro for free. Maintainers of popular open-source repositories can get Copilot Pro for free too: GitHub doesn't publish a star or download cutoff, so check your Copilot settings page, which tells you if you're eligible. GitHub rechecks eligibility every month, and you can't cancel a free plan granted this way. Students may need to wait a few days after verification for the benefit to apply, and GitHub's docs say not to pay if only paid options appear.
How AI credits replaced premium requests
Since June 1, 2026, Copilot bills AI usage in GitHub AI Credits instead of premium requests. Each interaction is priced by the model and the tokens it uses, then converted at 1 credit = $0.01. A quick chat question on a light model costs a fraction of a credit, while a long cloud agent session on a frontier model across many files costs much more. Chat, agent mode, Copilot CLI, the cloud agent, Spaces, Spark and third-party agents all use credits; completions don't. Paid plans get 10% off model costs when you use auto model selection. When you run out you can wait for the 1st of the month, set a budget and pay $0.01 per credit, or upgrade and pay only the price difference, with this month's usage counted against the bigger allowance. Premium requests now only apply to existing annual Pro and Pro+ subscribers who stayed on the old billing.
Is there a free trial?
GitHub doesn't list a free trial of Copilot Pro, Pro+ or Max on its plans page or in its docs today, so Copilot Free is the way to try it. For companies, GitHub's pricing page offers a 30-day trial of GitHub Enterprise that includes Copilot and Advanced Security. Two other things to know before you sign up: GitHub may use interactions from Free, Pro and Pro+ users (prompts, outputs and code snippets) to train its models unless you opt out in your Copilot settings, and it says it doesn't train on Business or Enterprise data. Also, new paid individual sign-ups were paused from April 20, 2026 and reopened gradually from June 17, 2026.
Business and Enterprise: what teams pay
Copilot Business is $19 per granted seat per month and includes 1,900 AI credits per user; Copilot Enterprise is $39 and includes 3,900. Credits are pooled across the billing entity, so 100 Business seats share 190,000 credits and heavy users can draw more while light users offset them. Additional usage is on by default for organizations and billed at $0.01 per credit, so admins who want a hard cap must turn off the AI credits paid usage policy or set budgets. Organizations can also let members without a Copilot seat use Copilot code review on github.com, billed in AI credits, but only if an admin enables two policies. Enterprise requires GitHub Enterprise Cloud; Copilot isn't available for GitHub Enterprise Server.
Free alternatives to GitHub Copilot, compared
- 01
CursorCursor Free ($0): Agent, Chat and Tab with limited agent and chat requests on Cursor's own models. Plus ($8/mo) is Grok models only; third-party models like Claude need Premium ($30/mo) and are billed at API list price. The closest swap if you want an AI-first editor instead of a plugin.
- 02
Google AntigravityGoogle Antigravity Individual ($0): an IDE, app and CLI with a range of agent models, unlimited Tab completions and command requests, and basic weekly rate limits. Google AI Pro ($19.99/mo in the US) raises the limits.
- 03
OpenAI CodexOpenAI Codex on ChatGPT Free ($0): Codex for quick coding tasks, with GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app (subject to rollout). Go is $8/mo. Plus ($20/mo) adds Codex on the web, in the CLI, in the IDE extension and on iOS. The Codex CLI is open source (Apache-2.0) and also runs on an API key at API rates.
- 04
ClineCline: free and open source (Apache-2.0, about 70,500 GitHub stars) for individual developers in VS Code or the terminal. No subscription: bring your own key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter and more), buy inference from Cline at cost, or run local models. A good fit if you want Copilot-style agent mode and to pay only for the tokens you use.
- 05
ZedZed Personal ($0 forever): a fast, open-source editor with unlimited use when you bring your own API keys or run external agents like Claude Agent and Codex CLI. Zed Pro ($10/mo, with a free trial) adds Zed-hosted models, unlimited edit predictions and $5 of tokens.
- 06
AiderAider: free, open-source (Apache-2.0) pair programmer for the terminal that edits your files and commits each change to git, with about 49,600 GitHub stars. Works with almost any model, including local ones. Development has slowed: the latest release is v0.86.2 (Feb 12, 2026) and the last commit was May 22, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is GitHub Copilot free?
Yes, with limits. Copilot Free costs $0 and includes 2,000 code completions a month plus a limited allowance of AI credits for chat, agent mode and Copilot CLI, on auto model selection only. Paid plans start at $10/mo for Copilot Pro.
Is GitHub Copilot free for students?
Yes. Verified students on GitHub Education get Copilot Student for free: unlimited code completions, the cloud agent and code review, with auto model selection and no third-party agents. GitHub rechecks eligibility every month.
Can teachers and open-source maintainers get Copilot Pro free?
Yes. Verified teachers on GitHub Education and maintainers of popular open-source repositories can get Copilot Pro for free. GitHub doesn't publish the cutoff for maintainers; your Copilot settings page shows whether you qualify, and eligibility is rechecked monthly.
How much is GitHub Copilot Pro?
Copilot Pro is $10/mo and includes 1,500 AI credits a month (1,000 base plus a 500 flex allotment), unlimited code completions, the cloud agent and code review. Pro+ is $39/mo with 7,000 credits and Max is $100/mo with 20,000.
What happened to premium requests in Copilot?
Since June 1, 2026, Copilot bills usage in GitHub AI Credits (1 credit = $0.01) priced by model and tokens, instead of premium requests. Premium requests now apply only to existing annual Pro and Pro+ subscribers who stayed on the old billing. Code completions don't use credits.
What's the best free alternative to GitHub Copilot?
Cursor Free if you want an AI-first editor, Google Antigravity for a free agentic IDE and CLI, Codex on ChatGPT Free for quick tasks, or Cline, Zed and Aider if you'd rather bring your own API key or run local models and pay only for tokens.
Facts and prices checked on vendor pages on Oct 18, 2026: GitHub Copilot plans, Copilot plans (docs), Usage-based billing for individuals, Usage-based billing for organizations and enterprises, Getting started with a Copilot plan, Copilot Student, Free Copilot Pro for teachers and maintainers, Requests in Copilot (legacy), GitHub pricing, GitHub changelog: sign-ups paused (Apr 20, 2026), GitHub changelog: sign-ups reopening (Jun 17, 2026), Cursor pricing, Google Antigravity pricing, Google AI plans, Codex pricing, Codex on GitHub, Cline pricing, Cline on GitHub, Zed pricing, Aider on GitHub, Aider on PyPI. Plans and limits change often, so confirm before you buy.