Why your Copilot bill went up in September 2026
If your organization is an existing Copilot Business or Enterprise customer, the promotional AI credit allowance ended on September 1, 2026. Nobody raised a price and nobody on your team changed how they work; the included credit pool shrank by 37% (Business) or 44% (Enterprise), and the usage that no longer fits bills as overage at $0.01 per credit. Allowances verified against GitHub's billing docs on 2026-07-14.
The mechanism
Copilot Business
- Included through August 3,000 credits/user
- Included from September 1,900 credits/user
- Usage that became overage up to 1,100 credits/user
- Extra cost at flat usage up to $11/user/mo
Copilot Enterprise
- Included through August 7,000 credits/user
- Included from September 3,900 credits/user
- Usage that became overage up to 3,100 credits/user
- Extra cost at flat usage up to $31/user/mo
A worked example: 20 seats
An organization whose 20 seats used the full promotional pool in August, with usage unchanged in September:
| Plan | August pool | September pool | Overage | Extra per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Business | 60,000 credits | 38,000 credits | 22,000 credits | $220 |
| Copilot Enterprise | 140,000 credits | 78,000 credits | 62,000 credits | $620 |
Credits pool at the billing entity, so light seats offset heavy ones; the table is the worst case where the whole promotional pool was in use.
How to confirm it on your bill
- Open the usage page in your organization's billing settings and compare August and September AI credit consumption. Flat usage with a new overage line item is the promo cliff, not a usage spike.
- Divide September credit usage by seats. Above 1,900 per Business user (or 3,900 per Enterprise user), the difference times $0.01 should match the new line item.
- Check who consumed the pool: code review runs and agent sessions burn far more credits than chat. Copilot code review also meters GitHub Actions minutes separately, a second line item that promo credits never covered.
What actually cuts the number
Upgrading Business to Enterprise for the bigger allowance does not: Business plus overage reaches the Enterprise seat price at exactly 3,900 credits per seat, which happens to be exactly the Enterprise allowance, and past that point both plans buy extra credits at the same $0.01. What moves the bill is the model mix (a lightweight model costs a fraction of a powerful one per request), auto model selection (10% off), and budgets that cap overage. The GitHub AI credits calculator prices your per-seat workload against the standard allowance, per model.
FAQ
- Why did my Copilot bill go up in September 2026?
- Most likely because the promotional AI credit allowance for existing Business and Enterprise customers ended on September 1, 2026. Included credits returned to the standard 1,900 per Business user and 3,900 per Enterprise user. Usage that fit inside the promotional pool in August now spills into overage at $0.01 per credit.
- How much more does my organization pay per seat?
- Up to $11 per Business seat and $31 per Enterprise seat per month: that is the lost headroom (1,100 and 3,100 credits) priced at $0.01. Seats that stayed inside the standard allowance all along pay nothing extra.
- Did GitHub raise Copilot prices in September 2026?
- No. The seat prices ($19 Business, $39 Enterprise) and the $0.01-per-credit overage rate did not change. What changed is the included credit amount: a three-month promotion for existing customers expired on schedule.
- Should we upgrade from Business to Enterprise for the bigger allowance?
- Not for credits alone. Business plus overage reaches the Enterprise seat price at exactly 3,900 credits per seat, and beyond that point the two plans cost the same per extra credit. Upgrade for Enterprise features; the credit math never favors it.