Is GitHub Copilot Free in 2026? The Free Tier, Student Access and Paid Plans

Yes, with limits. GitHub Copilot Free costs $0 and includes 2,000 inline completions a month, auto model selection, and a limited allowance of AI credits for chat and agent work. The paid entry point is Pro at $10 a month. Verified students can use Copilot free, and verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects may be eligible for Pro free. For most people, the completion cap decides whether the free tier is enough.

Toolradar data: Toolradar's AI coding ranking tracks 179 AI coding tools as of October 24, 2026, and 153 of them have a free plan. A free tier is common in this category, so the useful question is where it stops. Copilot has its own Toolradar page.

Copilot plans at a glance

Prices are per month in US dollars, as printed on GitHub's plans page in October 2026 (monthly prices; no annual toggle is printed). Business and Enterprise are priced per seat.

AI credits draw down at $0.01 each. Our arithmetic: Pro's 1,500 monthly credits equal $15 of usage, made up of base credits and flex credits. Code completions do not use credits on any paid plan, so the credit math covers chat and agent work.

Is the free plan enough?

Copilot Free includes inline completions capped at 2,000 a month, plus CLI and agent mode. That is more than autocomplete, so a solo developer working in one editor has room to stay on it.

The gaps are specific. Free leaves out code review and the cloud agent. Pro includes code review, the cloud agent and MCP server integration, and it removes the completion cap, with unlimited inline suggestions.

GitHub's plan documentation limits Free to auto model selection, and the plans page names no models for Free. Check the model picker in your editor before you depend on a specific model.

Students, teachers and maintainers

Students can get Copilot free through GitHub Education. GitHub's student setup page, as of October 25, 2026, says: "Verified students on GitHub Education get free access to Copilot's features." The plan that comes with it is Copilot Student. It uses auto model selection and excludes third-party agents. GitHub also says: "GitHub reevaluates your eligibility every month."

Verification and activation are separate steps. The benefit can take several days to apply after verification. If the options shown are all paid, GitHub advises against buying and says to wait a few days before trying again.

Teachers and maintainers follow a different route. GitHub's teacher and maintainer page, as of October 25, 2026, says: "There are two ways to qualify for free access to Copilot Pro:"

• "As a verified teacher on GitHub Education."
• "As a maintainer of a popular open-source repository."

Once a student, teacher or maintainer gets free access this way, GitHub says the plan cannot be canceled, so read the terms before you accept.

Pro, Pro+ and Max

Pro is the first paid plan that changes the usage picture. It adds unlimited inline suggestions, code review, cloud agent work and MCP server integration. The cloud agent takes an assigned task, researches it, plans it and writes the code, with or without a pull request.

Pro+ includes 7,000 monthly credits and delegation of tasks to third-party coding agents, which GitHub marks as a preview. Max is the top individual tier, with 20,000 monthly credits and priority access to premium models.

On individual plans, you can set a dollar budget for additional usage, and Copilot keeps working after the included allowance runs out. You can track usage in Copilot settings, with alerts at 75%, 90% and 100% of any budget you set.

Teams work differently. On Business and Enterprise, admins set usage limits and decide whether extra paid usage is allowed. If extra usage is not allowed, Copilot pauses until the next billing cycle.

Monthly or yearly? What the archived pages show

The current plans page prints monthly prices. The archived plans page dated December 22, 2023 and the one dated June 3, 2025 both print a yearly price for the individual plan. The captures dated June 1, 2026 and October 1, 2026 print none.

• The December 22, 2023 snapshot lists the individual plan at a monthly price or $100 a year.
• The June 3, 2025 snapshot lists Pro at $10 a month or $100 a year, and Pro+ at $39 a month or $390 a year. Extra usage was sold as premium requests at $0.04 each.
• The June 1, 2026 snapshot prints no yearly prices, and it adds Max as a monthly tier.
• The October 1, 2026 snapshot prints Pro at $15 a month in total credits, Pro+ at $70 and Max at $200 in total credits.

Our arithmetic on the 2025 prices: twelve months of Pro at the monthly rate come to $120, so the yearly price saved $20 a year. Confirm the billing terms at checkout before you buy.

One Hacker News commenter noticed the change. They wrote on June 1, 2026 that "some users (annual billing Pro and Pro+) would see their usage bar fill faster." On June 7, another commenter wrote that "The GitHub Copilot pricing change that started a week ago" already affects buying decisions. Both comments are on Hacker News: the June 1 comment and the June 7 comment.

Who should pay and who should skip

Skip the paid plans if you code in one editor and stay under the completion cap. Free covers that workflow.

Pay for Pro when the completion cap gets in the way, or when you need code review, cloud agent work or MCP servers. Our take: Pro is the plan to start with for individuals who hit the completion cap.

Hold off on Pro+ and Max until Pro's monthly credits run out before the month ends. Both cost more, and the extra credits matter mainly for heavy agent use.

Students, teachers and maintainers should check the free routes before paying for anything.

Teams should compare Business at $19 per seat with Enterprise at $39 per seat, starting with the features they need. Both let admins set usage limits.

Closest alternatives

Cursor's Plus plan costs $8 a month on its pricing page, as of October 2026. Cursor is a standalone AI code editor rather than an extension, so compare the usage allowances as well as the monthly price.

For direct comparisons, read Copilot vs Gemini and Copilot vs ChatGPT. If a free tier matters more than the editor, check is Gemini free, is Grok free and the best AI code assistants.

FAQ

Related

• Dupple learning hub
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• Copilot vs ChatGPT
• Best AI assistants
• Best AI code assistants
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• Best AI code review tools
• Is Gemini free?
• Is Grok free?
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Sources: GitHub Copilot plans, Copilot plans documentation, Copilot Student setup, Copilot teacher and maintainer setup, Cursor pricing.