What GitHub Actions costs a solo developer per month
For one person working in private repositories, the usual answer is nothing: GitHub Free includes 2,000 minutes a month and GitHub Pro includes 3,000. This page shows where those allowances run out, what the minutes beyond them cost on each standard runner, and how one macOS job changes the picture, using this site's calculator.
Assumptions
- Private repositories in a personal account. In public repositories standard runners are free and all of this costs $0.00.
- 22 working days a month. Weekend projects use fewer days and fewer minutes.
- Standard GitHub-hosted runners, with every job rounded up to a whole minute.
- Compute only: the price of GitHub Pro itself, storage and taxes are not in the figures.
Five workloads on Linux
A job here is one job of one workflow run: a push that starts a lint job and a test job counts as two.
| Workload | Minutes per month | Billed on GitHub Free | Cost on GitHub Free | Billed on GitHub Pro | Cost on GitHub Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 jobs a day, 5 minutes each | 550 | 0 | $0.00 | 0 | $0.00 |
| 10 jobs a day, 5 minutes each | 1,100 | 0 | $0.00 | 0 | $0.00 |
| 20 jobs a day, 5 minutes each | 2,200 | 200 | $1.20 | 0 | $0.00 |
| 30 jobs a day, 5 minutes each | 3,300 | 1,300 | $7.80 | 300 | $1.80 |
| 40 jobs a day, 10 minutes each | 8,800 | 6,800 | $40.80 | 5,800 | $34.80 |
The first two rows are most solo projects, and they cost nothing on either plan. The last row is a heavy pipeline for one person, and even that is $40.80 a month on GitHub Free. On Linux, a solo developer has to work at it to run up a large bill.
The difference between the plans is 1,000 minutes, worth $6.00 a month at the Linux 2-core rate once you are past both allowances. That is the most the larger allowance can save on Linux; this page does not price the plan itself.
The daily budget
Spread over 22 working days, 2,000 minutes are 90 whole minutes a day and 3,000 minutes are 136 whole minutes a day. With 5-minute jobs, GitHub Free covers 18 jobs a day: 1,980 minutes, with 20 left over. The nineteenth job a day takes the month to 2,090 minutes, 90 of them billed, $0.54. GitHub Pro covers 27 jobs a day; one more makes it 3,080 minutes and $0.48.
Going slightly over is cheap. The allowance is a threshold, not a cliff, and on Linux the first minutes past it cost cents.
The same overage on each runner
Take the fourth workload, 30 jobs a day of 5 minutes on GitHub Free, where 1,300 minutes are billed, and put all of it on one runner:
| Runner | Rate per minute | Minutes billed | Cost per month | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux 1-core, x64 | $0.002 | 1,300 | $2.60 | $31.20 |
| Linux 2-core, x64 | $0.006 | 1,300 | $7.80 | $93.60 |
| Linux 2-core, arm64 | $0.005 | 1,300 | $6.50 | $78.00 |
| Windows 2-core, x64 or arm64 | $0.01 | 1,300 | $13.00 | $156.00 |
| macOS 3-core or 4-core | $0.062 | 1,300 | $80.60 | $967.20 |
Nobody runs every job on macOS, but the row shows why an app developer's bill looks different from a web developer's. The realistic case is a small share: the same 30 jobs a day with 90% on Linux 2-core x64 and 10% on macOS.
| Runner | Minutes | Included minutes used | Minutes billed | Cost per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux 2-core, x64 | 2,970 | 1,800 | 1,170 | $7.02 |
| macOS | 330 | 200 | 130 | $8.06 |
| Total | 3,300 | 2,000 | 1,300 | $15.08 |
One job in ten on macOS takes the month from $7.80 to $15.08, $180.96 a year, and the macOS jobs cost more than all the Linux jobs together. The calculator's bounds are $7.80 if the macOS jobs happen to run while included minutes remain, and $26.28 if the Linux jobs use the allowance up first. For a solo developer the practical version of that is simple: run the macOS job when it is needed, not on every push.
What to take from this
- Public repositories cost nothing on standard runners. If the project can be open, the question on this page goes away.
- On Linux, the free allowance is about 18 short jobs a day. Count your jobs per push before worrying about it.
- Watch the runner, not the plan. A Windows or macOS job is where a personal bill comes from.
Check your own month. Enter your jobs per day, average job length and runner mix in the free calculator, with GitHub Free or GitHub Pro as the plan.