GitHub Actions macOS runner cost and the minute multiplier

macOS is the most expensive standard runner on GitHub Actions. This page answers one question: what does a macOS minute cost, and is there still a multiplier to apply? The figures are the ones this site's calculator uses.

Is there a macOS minute multiplier?

Not in the pricing data this site uses. The two GitHub pages read on 2026-10-05, the Actions runner pricing reference and the GitHub Actions billing page, list no minute multiplier and no separate platform charge. Each runner has its own per-minute rate, and the included minutes of a plan are counted as plain minutes of standard runners.

So the calculator applies no multiplier. A macOS minute uses one included minute, like a Linux minute does, and once the included minutes are gone it is billed at the macOS rate. If you have an older note that says to multiply macOS minutes, check it against GitHub's current pages before you use it: a multiplier is not a figure this site could confirm, so it is not covered here.

What a macOS minute costs

For scale, the standard Linux 2-core runner is $0.006 a minute and the standard Windows 2-core runner is $0.01. The standard macOS rate is a little more than ten times the Linux one. That ratio is simply two prices divided; it is not a multiplier GitHub applies to your minutes.

Worked example: macOS jobs only

A GitHub Team account builds an app in a private repository: 10 jobs per working day on the standard macOS runner, 15 minutes each, 22 working days a month. That is 220 jobs and 3,300 minutes. The plan includes 3,000 minutes, so 300 minutes are billed. The calculator gives $18.60 a month ($223.20 a year).

The same 300 billed minutes on the Linux 2-core runner would cost $1.80. Nothing about the workload changed except the rate.

Worked example: a small macOS share in a Linux workload

Now a GitHub Team account running 40 jobs a day, 6 minutes each, 22 working days: 5,280 minutes against 3,000 included. Ninety percent of the jobs run on Linux 2-core and ten percent on macOS.

A tenth of the minutes is more than half of the bill. The total of $26.45 a month ($317.38 a year) assumes the included minutes are shared between the runners in proportion to their use. Included minutes are really consumed in the order jobs run, so the calculator also shows a range: $13.68 if the macOS jobs happened to use the allowance first, $43.25 if the Linux jobs did.

Worked example: a larger macOS runner

GitHub's pricing reference says included minutes cannot be used for larger runners and that larger runners are not free for public repositories. Take the first example again, 10 jobs a day of 15 minutes for 22 days, and move it to a larger runner. All 3,300 minutes are billed:

• macOS 12-core: $254.10 a month ($3,049.20 a year).
• macOS 5-core (M2 Pro): $336.60 a month ($4,039.20 a year).

Against $18.60 on the standard runner, the jump comes mostly from losing the included minutes, not from the higher rate. A larger runner only pays for itself if the job gets much shorter on it, and only a test run tells you that.

Keeping the macOS bill down

• Run on macOS only what needs macOS. Linting, unit tests of shared code and dependency checks usually run on Linux at a tenth of the rate.
• Watch short jobs. Every job is rounded up to a whole minute, so a 20-second macOS job is billed as one minute at $0.062.
• Public repositories. Standard runners are free there, macOS included. Larger runners are not.

More guides

• GitHub Actions runner pricing per minute by OS and size
• GitHub Actions Windows runner cost per minute
• Minute rounding and the cost of short jobs
• How GitHub Actions minutes are billed