Last updated: July 2026
Copilot Free ($0) gives you a limited monthly amount of completions and chat plus a small AI Credit allowance. Copilot Pro ($10/month) unlocks unlimited code completions, more agent mode and chat, premium models, and a much larger monthly credit pool. If you code daily and hit the Free caps, Pro is worth it; light autocomplete users can stay free.
GitHub Copilot has a genuinely useful free tier now, which makes the upgrade question real: do you actually need Pro, or is $0 enough? The honest answer depends on how you code — how often, whether you use agent mode, and how much you lean on premium models. Here is exactly what each plan includes, how the new AI Credit billing works, and who should upgrade.
Since June 2026, GitHub Copilot moved to usage-based billing built around AI Credits. The mental model is simple: code completions stay free on every plan — the inline gray-text autocomplete you get as you type does not cost credits. What draws credits is the heavier stuff: agent mode runs and chat requests, especially on premium frontier models.
So a plan is really two things stacked together: a set of feature limits (how much completion and chat you get) and a monthly AI Credit allotment (how much agent and chat work you can do before you top up). Free gives you a small taste of both; each paid tier expands the credit pool and lifts the caps. For the full mechanics of the credit system, see our guide to what GitHub Copilot AI Credits are.
The Free plan is a real product, not a demo. At $0/month it gives you a limited monthly amount of code completions and chat, plus a small monthly AI Credit allowance for agent and chat usage. For someone who reaches for autocomplete a few times a day and occasionally asks a quick question in chat, that envelope can comfortably cover a whole month.
The catch is the caps. Because completions and chat are metered rather than unlimited, a heavy day of pair-programming can exhaust the monthly completion budget well before the reset. And the small credit allowance means agent mode — the autonomous, multi-file workflow — runs out quickly if you rely on it. Free is generous for light use and restrictive for daily, agent-heavy use.
Copilot Pro is $10/month, and it changes the tier from "metered" to "always on" for the parts of Copilot most developers use constantly. Pro unlocks:
For heavier users there are higher tiers above Pro: Pro+ at $39/month and Max at $100/month, both of which add substantially larger credit pools for sustained frontier-model usage. See the full Copilot pricing breakdown for how those tiers compare.
Here is the head-to-head on the dimensions that actually decide the upgrade:
| Feature | Copilot Free | Copilot Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0/month | $10/month |
| Code completions | Limited monthly amount | Unlimited |
| Chat | Limited monthly amount | More / higher limits |
| Agent mode | Small allowance | Expanded |
| Premium models | Not included | Included |
| Monthly AI Credits | Small allowance | Larger allotment |
| Best for | Light / occasional use | Daily coding |
Above Pro, Pro+ ($39/mo) and Max ($100/mo) keep everything Pro has and simply add larger credit pools for heavy frontier usage — the right tier only if you routinely exhaust Pro's credits on premium models.
The single most important thing to internalize: completions are free, agent and chat draw credits. Under the June 2026 usage-based model, the inline autocomplete that fires as you type never touches your credit balance. Your monthly credit pool is spent by chat messages and, especially, by agent mode runs on premium models.
This matters because agent runs are where credits disappear fastest. An agent working autonomously re-sends accumulated context on every turn — open files, prior tool output, chat history — so a long run on a frontier model can drain credits far faster than the number of messages suggests. The wordier your prompts and the fatter the context, the more each turn costs. That is precisely the layer Terse works on: it compresses the prompts you send into Copilot on-device and tracks per-request cost, so a larger share of your credit pool goes to actual work instead of padding. For the full picture of where credits go inside a session, our breakdown of AI coding agent costs walks through it turn by turn.
Free is the right call more often than people assume. Stay on the free plan if you are a light or occasional user who mostly wants autocomplete. Concretely, that means you:
If that is you, paying $10/month buys headroom you will not use. Try Free first and let the caps tell you when you have outgrown them.
Upgrade to Pro if you are a daily coder who wants unlimited completions, agent mode, and premium models. The upgrade pays for itself the moment the Free caps start interrupting your flow. Concretely, Pro is worth $10/month if you:
If you find yourself exhausting even Pro's credit allotment on frontier-model agent runs, that is the signal to look at Pro+ or Max rather than to keep topping up. And if you are comparing Copilot's economics against other tools before committing, our roundup of the cheapest AI coding assistant puts the options side by side.
Terse compresses the prompts you send into Copilot and tracks per-request token cost — on-device, zero latency, no API calls. Stretch your AI Credits further by cutting the wordiness before it compounds across every agent turn.
Terse for GitHub CopilotFor daily coders, yes. Copilot Pro at $10/month unlocks unlimited code completions, more agent mode and chat, access to premium models, and a larger monthly AI Credit allowance. If you mostly want occasional autocomplete, the Free plan is often enough.
Copilot Free ($0) includes a limited monthly amount of completions and chat plus a small AI Credit allowance. Copilot Pro ($10/month) adds unlimited completions, more agent mode and chat, premium model access, and a much larger monthly AI Credit allotment for agent and chat usage.
Since June 2026, Copilot billing is usage-based on AI Credits. Code completions stay free on every plan, while agent mode and chat requests draw from your monthly credit pool. Higher tiers include larger credit allotments, and heavy frontier usage on premium models draws credits fastest.
Upgrade if you code daily and hit the Free plan's completion or chat limits, want agent mode, or need premium models. Stay on Free if you are a light or occasional user who mostly wants autocomplete and rarely reaches the monthly caps.