A GitHub Actions cost calculator helps engineering teams track and forecast CI/CD spending before receiving a surprise bill. GitHub Actions pricing depends on runner type (Linux, macOS, Windows), minutes consumed, storage for artifacts, and which plan's free minute allowance applies. Enter your workflow details below to get an instant monthly estimate.
Total Minutes
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Billable Minutes
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Monthly Cost
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Annual Cost
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Plan & Configuration
Storage beyond your plan's free tier (1 GB for Team)
Workflow Usage
Runner Cost Breakdown
Optimization Suggestions
How to Use the GitHub Actions Cost Calculator
GitHub Actions billing can be surprisingly complex — minutes are multiplied by runner type, free allowances differ by plan, and storage is billed separately. This GitHub Actions cost calculator makes it easy to estimate your monthly spend and identify where your CI/CD budget is going.
Step 1: Select Your GitHub Plan
Your GitHub plan determines how many free minutes you receive each month. GitHub Free gives 2,000 minutes; Pro and Team give 3,000 minutes; Enterprise gives 50,000 minutes. These free minutes apply only to Linux runners. macOS minutes count as 10× and Windows minutes count as 2× against your free quota — so 100 macOS minutes consumes 1,000 minutes from your free allowance.
Step 2: Configure Your Workflows
For each workflow, enter the number of runs per month, the average duration per run in minutes, and the runner type. To find these values for existing workflows: go to your GitHub repository → Actions tab → click a workflow → check run history for average duration. Multiply runs/day × 30 for monthly run count.
Step 3: Add Storage Usage
If your workflows upload artifacts (test results, build binaries, coverage reports), enter the total storage you maintain. GitHub charges $0.008/GB/day (about $0.25/GB/month) beyond your plan's free tier. Artifacts auto-expire after 90 days by default, but accumulate quickly if you run many builds per day.
Understanding the Minute Multiplier
GitHub Actions charges different rates per minute by runner type: Linux runners cost $0.008/minute, Windows runners cost $0.016/minute (2×), and macOS runners cost $0.08/minute (10×). The free minute quota is consumed at the same multiplied rate — 100 macOS minutes uses 1,000 from your free allowance. The calculator applies this multiplier automatically.
When to Use Self-Hosted Runners
If your monthly bill consistently exceeds $200–500, self-hosted runners may be cheaper. A single Hetzner VPS at €10–20/month can replace thousands of GitHub-hosted minutes. The trade-off is infrastructure management, security hardening, and runner maintenance. GitHub also offers larger hosted runners (4–64 vCPUs) that cost more per minute but complete jobs faster — the math depends on your specific job CPU profile.
Common Ways to Reduce GitHub Actions Costs
The highest-impact optimizations are: (1) Cache dependencies — use actions/cache to cache npm, pip, Maven, or Gradle packages and reduce job time by 50–80%. (2) Filter triggers — use paths filters so frontend-only changes don't trigger backend tests. (3) Skip macOS where possible — use cross-compilation or Docker to test on Linux first. (4) Parallelism — split test suites across matrix jobs to reduce total wall-clock time (though total minutes remain the same).
FAQ
Is this GitHub Actions cost calculator free?
Yes, completely free with no signup required. All calculations run entirely in your browser — no workflow or billing data is sent anywhere.
Is my data private?
Yes. Everything runs locally in your browser using JavaScript. No workflow details or cost estimates are transmitted to any server.
What are the free minutes included in GitHub plans?
GitHub Free includes 2,000 minutes/month. GitHub Pro includes 3,000 minutes/month. GitHub Team includes 3,000 minutes/month. GitHub Enterprise Cloud includes 50,000 minutes/month. These free minutes apply only to Linux runners — macOS runners consume 10× and Windows runners consume 2× the minutes from your quota.
Why do macOS runners cost so much more?
macOS runners require Apple hardware (physical Mac machines or Apple Silicon VMs). GitHub charges 10× the Linux minute rate for macOS — $0.08/minute vs $0.008/minute. This means 100 macOS minutes costs the same as 1,000 Linux minutes. For this reason, many teams run most of their CI on Linux and use macOS only for Xcode/iOS-specific builds.
What is a GitHub Actions larger runner?
GitHub offers larger runners with more vCPUs and RAM. Standard Linux runners have 2 vCPUs and 7 GB RAM. Larger Linux runners are available in 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 vCPU configurations. Larger runners cost more per minute (typically 2–16× the standard rate) but can dramatically speed up CPU-intensive jobs — reducing wall-clock time enough to offset the higher per-minute cost.
Does GitHub Actions charge for storage?
Yes. GitHub charges for artifacts and cache storage beyond the plan's free allowance. GitHub Free includes 500 MB; Pro and Team include 1 GB; Enterprise includes 50 GB. Beyond the free tier, storage costs $0.008 per GB per day (approximately $0.25/GB/month). Artifacts are automatically deleted after 90 days by default.
How can I reduce my GitHub Actions bill?
Key strategies: (1) Use Linux runners instead of macOS/Windows where possible — they are 10–2× cheaper. (2) Cache dependencies (node_modules, pip packages) to reduce job duration. (3) Use path filters to skip workflows when irrelevant files change. (4) Split long-running tests across parallel matrix jobs. (5) Set timeout-minutes to prevent runaway jobs from consuming minutes. (6) Self-hosted runners have no per-minute cost but require infrastructure management.
What are self-hosted runners and are they free?
Self-hosted runners are machines you manage yourself that run GitHub Actions workflows. GitHub does not charge per-minute for self-hosted runner usage — you only pay for the underlying infrastructure (your VPS, AWS EC2, etc.). Self-hosted runners are ideal for teams with predictable, high-volume CI workloads where the infrastructure cost is lower than GitHub's per-minute rate. The break-even point is typically around 10,000–50,000 minutes per month.