8922580fc0
Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Joe Clark <31087804+jc-clark@users.noreply.github.com>
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| GitHub Actions billing | Learn how usage of {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} is measured against your free allowance and how to pay for additional use. |
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GitHub Actions | concepts |
How use of {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} is measured
{% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} usage is free for self-hosted runners and for public repositories that use standard {% data variables.product.github %}-hosted runners. See AUTOTITLE.
For private repositories, each {% data variables.product.github %} account receives a quota of free minutes, artifact storage, and cache storage for use with {% data variables.product.github %}-hosted runners, depending on the account's plan. Any usage beyond the included amounts is billed to your account.
- Minutes: Your free minutes reset to the full amount at the start of each billing cycle. Minutes usage is charged to the repository owner, not the person who triggered the workflow runs.
- Storage: Storage charges accumulate throughout the month based on hourly usage. Your accrued storage charges reset to zero at the start of each billing cycle.
Tip
Anyone with write access to a repository can run actions without using minutes for their personal account.
How storage billing works
{% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} storage billing operates on an hourly accrual model:
- Continuous billing: Storage charges accrue every hour based on your actual usage throughout the month
- Monthly total: Your bill reflects the total storage used throughout the month, measured in GB-Hours
- Included amount: The free storage allowance for your plan (for example, 50 GB on the Enterprise plan) is converted to an hourly rate for billing calculations
- Shared storage: Actions artifacts, Actions caches, and {% data variables.product.prodname_registry %} storage all share the same pooled allowance. For more information, see AUTOTITLE.
Understanding current vs. accrued storage
It's important to understand the difference between what you see on {% data variables.product.github %} and what appears on your bill:
- Current storage: The amount of storage you have right now (visible in repository settings and the Billing Overview page)
- Accrued storage: The cumulative total of storage used throughout the billing cycle (determines your bill)
When you delete artifacts:
- Current storage decreases immediately
- Future hourly charges stop accumulating
- Storage already accrued during the current billing cycle remains in your total and will appear on your bill
Example (30-day billing cycle): If you store 10 GB of artifacts for 10 days, then delete everything on day 11:
- Days 1-10: Accruing 240 GB-Hours per day (10 GB × 24 hours)
- Day 11: Delete artifacts → current storage drops to 0 GB
- Days 11-30: Accruing 0 GB-Hours (no storage)
- Your bill: Shows 2,400 GB-Hours total (10 days × 240 GB-Hours/day)
Deleting artifacts reduces your current storage and prevents future charges, but does not remove charges already recorded for the time the storage existed.
Storage measurement units
{% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} measures storage in binary gigabytes (GB), where:
- 1 GB = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes
- This is also known as a gibibyte (GiB)
- 1 GB = 1,024 megabytes (MB)
Billing calculations use GB-Hours:
- 1 GB-Hour = 1 GB of storage for 1 hour
- Example: Storing 3 GB for 10 days = 720 GB-Hours (3 GB × 10 days × 24 hours)
Your monthly bill converts GB-Hours to GB-Months by dividing by the hours in the month (usually 720 hours for a 30-day month).
Examples of how usage is measured
- If you run a workflow on a standard Linux runner and it takes 10 minutes to complete, you'll use 10 minutes of the repository owner's allowance. If the workflow generates a 10 MB artifact, then you'll also use 10 MB of the repository owner's artifact storage allowance.
- If you run a workflow that normally takes 10 minutes and it fails after 5 minutes because a dependency isn't available, you'll use 5 minutes of the repository owner's allowance. If you fix the problem and re-run the workflow successfully, in total you'll use 15 minutes of the repository owner's allowance.
- If you run a workflow that generates many log files and a long job summary, these files do not count towards the repository owner's artifact storage allowance.
- Cache storage usage is measured by the peak usage for each hour. Included usage is 10 GB per repository. For a given hour, if a repository has a peak cache usage of 15 GB, then the repository owner will be charged for the 5 GB of usage above the 10 GB included for that hour. The repository owner will only be charged if the repository cache storage limit has been configured higher than the included usage.
- Additional cache storage is $0.07 per GiB, per month.
Free use of {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %}
The following amounts of time for standard runners, artifact storage, and cache storage are included in your {% data variables.product.github %} plan. At the start of each month, the minutes used by the account are reset to zero.
{% data reusables.billing.actions-included-quotas %}
Note
- Included minutes cannot be used for larger runners. These runners will always be charged for, even when used by public repositories.
- The storage amounts shown are shared with {% data variables.product.prodname_registry %}. This means your total storage across Actions artifacts, Actions caches, and Packages cannot exceed the included amount for your plan.
The use of standard {% data variables.product.github %}-hosted runners is free:
- In public repositories
- For {% data variables.product.prodname_pages %}
- For {% data variables.product.prodname_dependabot %}
- For the agentic features ({% data variables.release-phases.public_preview %}) in {% data variables.copilot.copilot_code-review %}
Using more than your included quota
If your account does not have a valid payment method on file, usage is blocked once you use up your quota.
Paying for additional {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} use
You pay for any additional use above your quota using the payment method set up for your {% data variables.product.github %} account. See AUTOTITLE.
Storage is billed based on hourly usage of artifacts and caches throughout the month. Minutes are calculated based on the total processing time used on each runner type during the month.
- To estimate costs for paid {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %} usage, use the {% data variables.product.github %} pricing calculator.
- To view your current minutes, artifact, and cache storage, see AUTOTITLE.
Note
The billing dashboard may show your Actions usage as a dollar amount ("spend") rather than raw minutes. This amount already reflects any applicable minute multipliers.
Minute multipliers
Each type of runner has a minute multiplier that is determined by the operating system and processing power. For example, jobs that run on Windows and macOS runners hosted by {% data variables.product.github %} consume minutes at 2 and 10 times the rate that jobs on Linux runners consume.
| Operating system | Minute multiplier |
|---|---|
| Linux | 1 |
| Windows | 2 |
| macOS | 10 |
For full details of minute multipliers for {% data variables.product.github %}-hosted runners, see AUTOTITLE.
Example minutes cost calculation
For example, if your organization uses {% data variables.product.prodname_team %}, using 5,000 minutes beyond the included quota would have a total actions minutes cost of $56 USD, with the use of both Linux and Windows runners.
- 5,000 (3,000 Linux and 2,000 Windows) minutes = $56 USD ($24 USD + $32 USD).
- 3,000 Linux minutes at $0.008 USD per minute = $24 USD.
- 2,000 Windows minutes at $0.016 USD per minute = $32 USD.
This example assumes that the baseline runner was used for each operating system.
Example artifact storage cost calculation
If you use 3 GB of artifact storage for 10 days of March and 12 GB for 21 days of March, your artifact storage usage would be:
- 3 GB x 10 days x (24 hours per day) = 720 GB-Hours
- 12 GB x 21 days x (24 hours per day) = 6,048 GB-Hours
- 720 GB-Hours + 6,048 GB-Hours = 6,768 GB-Hours
- 6,768 GB-Hours / (744 hours per month) = 9.0967 GB-Months
At the end of the month, {% data variables.product.github %} rounds your artifact storage to the nearest MB. Therefore, your artifact storage usage for March would be 9.097 GB.
Note
{% data variables.product.github %} updates your artifact storage space within a 6 to 12-hour window. If you delete artifacts, the available space will be reflected in your account during the next scheduled update.
Example cache storage cost calculation
If you use 3 GB of cache storage for 10 days of March and 12 GB for 21 days of March, your cache storage usage would be:
| Usage (GBs) | Billable (GB-Hours) | Non billable (GB-Hours) |
|---|---|---|
| 3 GB for the first 10 days | 0 GB-Hours | 720 GB-Hours |
| 12 GB for the next 21 days | 2*21 days*24 hours = 1008 GB-Hours | 10*21 days*24 hours=5040 GB-Hours |
For cached storage, billing charts and reports show only the cost of usage beyond the included 10 GB. At the end of the month, the Actions Cache Storage SKU would show a use of 1008 GB-Hours.
Managing your budget for {% data variables.product.prodname_actions %}
{% data reusables.billing.default-over-quota-behavior %}
{% data reusables.billing.migrated-budgets %}