GitHub Enterprise licence holders get a $0 Copilot seat and Copilot Standalone costs $10, but neither includes AI credits: usage bills the enterprise budget.
On 28 October 2026 GitHub said every licensed GitHub Enterprise user can have a Copilot seat with no seat charge, provided the enterprise works with a GitHub or Microsoft account team. Users in the same enterprise without a GitHub Enterprise licence can buy Copilot Standalone at $10 per user per month. Neither option includes monthly AI credits, so the cost moves from seats to the enterprise budget. It follows GitHub's move to upfront seat billing for Business and Enterprise on 1 October.
What changed
Both the Enterprise-included seat and Standalone carry the same feature and model eligibility as Copilot Enterprise, with priority access to premium models. The difference is billing. GitHub says AI usage is metered against the enterprise budget from the first request, and there is no included usage allowance to track or top up. Existing policies, alerts and attribution still apply.
Which features need that budget matters:
- Copilot Chat, Copilot code review and Copilot in the cloud need available budget.
- Code completion and next edit suggestions keep working when no budget is available.
- An exhausted budget does not remove the seat. Features that do not need budget stay available.
How it compares
The two new options include no AI credits; Business and Enterprise seats still do.
| Plan | Seat price | Included AI credits |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Enterprise-included seat | $0 | None |
| Copilot Standalone | $10 per user per month | None |
| Copilot Business | $19 per seat per month | 1,900 per user per month |
| Copilot Enterprise | $39 per seat per month | 3,900 per user per month |
Business and Enterprise figures are from GitHub's Copilot plans page. Both plans remain available for new and existing enterprises, so the new bundle is an extra route, not a replacement.
Availability
The bundle is available now to account-team customers on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, who can contact sales to set up a new enterprise account on this model or move an existing one. Self-serve customers are not covered yet: GitHub says it is opening access in stages and will announce dates in the coming weeks. Current subscriptions are unaffected.
What admins should do
- Set the enterprise budget before enabling seats widely. Without one, Chat, code review and the cloud agent do not work while the seat remains, so users get code completion and little else.
- Check your spending controls. There is no per-seat credit pool to cap a heavy user, so the enterprise budget and its alerts are what stop runaway usage. Use the existing attribution to see who spends.
- Compare cost per user before moving. A Business seat's 1,900 credits come with a fixed $19. Under the new model the same usage is billed separately, and the plans page does not give a per-credit rate, so model your own usage first.
- Confirm policies. GitHub says feature and model availability stays subject to administrator policies and spending controls.