GitHub Copilot Premium Pricing Announced Plans Costs Explained

GitHub Copilot users could soon face steeper costs if they opt for enhanced AI coding models beyond the standard offering. The coding assistant owned by Microsoft’s GitHub is rolling out a “premium requests” system, according to an announcement made this past Friday.

The new pricing structure specifically targets advanced AI functionalities such as multi-file modifications and “agentic” coding tasks, when performed on specialized models rather than the default GPT-4o model provided by OpenAI. For regular Copilot subscribers utilizing the base model, no immediate limits apply, allowing continued unrestricted use.

However, subscribers who prefer more sophisticated tools, such as Anthropic’s 3.7 Sonnet, will experience newly enforced usage caps intended to manage computational resources and expenses associated with more demanding AI tasks. GitHub detailed these changes in an official blog post, noting that from May 5, Copilot Pro members, who pay $20 monthly, will see their access restricted to 300 premium requests each month.

Copilot Business and Enterprise customers, meanwhile, will also receive capped limits. Business users will be assigned 300 premium requests, while Enterprise-tier subscribers are offered 1,000 monthly requests. These adjustments will come into effect somewhat later, between May 12 and May 19, depending on the customer’s subscription level.

Higher Pricing Introduced with Copilot Pro Plus Tier

Additionally, GitHub has presented an alternative subscription option designed to serve customers with greater requirements. Known as Copilot Pro Plus, this newly launched plan starting at $39 monthly, includes a significantly higher allowance of 1,500 premium requests per month.

This option not only alleviates potential overages faced by users with heavy AI model demands but also provides access to GitHub’s most advanced models, such as the recently unveiled GPT-4.5 from OpenAI. Subscribers hesitant to upgrade fully to the Pro+ tier will also have the flexibility to buy premium requests individually at a price of $0.04 each.

GitHub’s decision to introduce this revised payment approach mirrors recent pricing strategies taken by other AI coding services such as Devin, which similarly just increased costs for specific sets of users. The core reason behind higher prices in AI-based coding tools appears closely tied to rising compute expenses for more sophisticated AI models.

Advanced reasoning models like Anthropic’s 3.7 Sonnet tend to deliver improved reliability, given their internal processes to validate accuracy. However, this additional precision and capability inevitably demands greater computing power, translating directly into increased operational costs and prompting service providers to pass some of those expenses onto users.

Despite these recent financial adjustments, GitHub’s Copilot remains highly profitable and continues to drive impressive growth. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently highlighted Copilot’s success, noting it has contributed to more than 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth in 2024 alone.

GitHub Copilot has grown substantially since Microsoft acquired the platform approximately seven years ago, becoming an even larger revenue source now than GitHub’s original business model was during the acquisition. This underscores the significance of Copilot within the company’s broader portfolio and its continued strategic importance.

GitHub Expands Copilot Pricing with Premium AI Requests