A complete guide to GitHub pricing in 2025

GitHub is pretty much the default hub for software development these days. It’s where millions of developers and companies, from small startups to massive corporations, build and manage their software. It’s powerful, collaborative, and honestly, most of us can’t imagine working without it.

But let’s face it, trying to figure out GitHub pricing can feel like a bit of a headache. With different tiers, usage-based add-ons, and separate models for individuals and organizations, picking the right plan is a big deal for your budget. If you choose the wrong one, you could end up paying for features you don’t use or, worse, missing out on tools that could really help your team.

This guide is here to help clear things up. We’ll walk through the details of GitHub’s pricing for 2025, covering the main plans, the expensive add-ons, and some of the sneaky costs you might not see coming. By the end, you should have a much clearer idea of which plan makes sense for your team and your wallet.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is way more than just a place to stash your code. It’s a full-blown platform for developers, built around Git for version control, that has grown to support the entire process of building software.

At its core, it’s all about working together through repositories and pull requests. But it also packs in some serious automation with GitHub Actions for CI/CD, project management tools like Issues and Projects, and a marketplace full of integrations. It’s built to make it easier for teams to get work done, from the first line of code to the final deployment.

__IMAGE::https://website-cms.eesel.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/01-A-view-of-the-GitHub-Actions-tab-demonstrating-the-Claude-Code-GitHub-integration-in-action.png::01 , A view of the GitHub Actions tab demonstrating the Claude Code GitHub integration in action.::A look at the GitHub Actions tab, a key feature for automation and CI/CD that factors into GitHub pricing decisions.

GitHub pricing plans

GitHub’s subscription model is based on three main tiers: Free, Team, and Enterprise. Which one is right for you really comes down to how big your team is, how much you need to work together, and what kind of security and compliance rules you have to follow.

The Free plan

The Free plan is exactly what it says on the tin, and it’s surprisingly good. It’s a great fit for individual developers, students, or small teams just getting a project started.

• Who it’s for: Individuals, students, and small open-source projects.

• Key features: You get unlimited public and private repositories, which is a huge deal. It also comes with 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month for public repos and 500MB of storage for GitHub Packages. Support is community-based, so you’ll be digging through forums if you get stuck.

• Limitations: The main downside is the lack of advanced team features. You won’t get tools like requiring reviewers on pull requests, which is pretty important for keeping code quality high once you have a few people working together.

The Team plan ($4/user/month)

As your team gets bigger, you’ll probably start to feel the limits of the free plan. The Team plan adds the essential tools you need for better collaboration and code management.

• Who it’s for: Growing teams and businesses that need more control over how they build software.

• Key features: You get everything from the Free plan, plus important collaboration tools like protected branches, code owners, and the ability to require multiple reviewers on pull requests. The included CI/CD minutes jump to 3,000 per month, and package storage goes up to 2GB. You also get access to web-based support.

• Real-world context: This is where things often get confusing. <quote text="people think their personal "Pro" account unlocks features for their organization's repositories. It doesn't. If you want to use protected branches or require code reviews within an organization, the organization itself needs to be on the Team plan." sourceIcon="https://www.iconpacks.net/icons/2/free-reddit-logo-icon-2436-thumb.png" sourceName="Reddit" sourceLink="https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/17hnh5y/github_pricing_and_protected_branches/"> One person’s paid account won’t cover the whole team.

The Enterprise plan (starts at $21/user/month)

The Enterprise plan is GitHub’s most comprehensive offering, built for large companies that have serious security, compliance, and admin requirements.

• Who it’s for: Large businesses and enterprises that need advanced security, centralized user management, and more deployment options.

• Key features: It includes everything in the Team plan and adds a bunch of features for large-scale operations. This includes SAML single sign-on (SSO), advanced audit logs, automatic user provisioning, and a hefty 50,000 CI/CD minutes per month. You can also choose between GitHub’s cloud or a self-hosted Enterprise Server if you want more control.

• Good to know: This is the only plan that lets you add GitHub’s most powerful security tools, like GitHub Advanced Security.

Plan comparison table

Here’s a quick side-by-side look at the three main plans.

Feature	Free Plan	Team Plan	Enterprise Plan
Price	$0	$4/user/month	Starts at $21/user/month
Private Repositories	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
CI/CD Minutes	2,000/month (Public Repos)	3,000/month	50,000/month
Package Storage	500MB	2GB	50GB
Protected Branches	Public repos only	Yes	Yes
Required Reviewers	No	Yes	Yes
SAML SSO	No	No	Yes
Support	Community	Web-based	Web-based + optional Premium

Beyond the subscription: Understanding add-on costs

Your monthly subscription is just the beginning. Many of GitHub’s most useful features, especially its AI tools, are sold separately as add-ons. These can really add up, so it’s good to know what you’re paying for.

GitHub Copilot: The AI assistant add-on

GitHub Copilot is the AI pair programmer that everyone’s been talking about. It suggests code, finishes your comments, and can even help you write whole functions right inside your editor. It’s a huge productivity boost, but it isn’t free.

• Copilot Business: Costs $19 per user per month and is made for organizations.

• Copilot Enterprise: Costs $39 per user per month and adds more features, like suggestions tailored to your company’s own code.

__IMAGE::https://website-cms.eesel.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/02-A-screenshot-of-GitHub-Copilot-code-completion-in-action.png::02 , A screenshot of GitHub Copilot code completion in action.::GitHub Copilot’s code completion feature, a powerful add-on that impacts overall GitHub pricing.

Using AI to help developers work faster is a no-brainer. But writing code is just one part of a developer’s day. While Copilot helps with the code itself, many questions are about internal processes, build environments, or team wikis. An internal knowledge assistant like eesel AI can answer those questions right in Slack, so developers don’t get sidetracked and can stay in the zone.

GitHub Advanced Security: An add-on

This is an add-on for Enterprise customers that gives you a set of tools to help secure your code from start to finish.

• Key features: It includes code scanning with CodeQL to spot vulnerabilities before they go live, secret scanning to stop developers from accidentally committing API keys and other secrets, and dependency review to flag known issues in your open-source libraries.

• Pricing model: The cost is based on the number of "unique committers," which means you pay for every developer who pushes code to a repository where Advanced Security is turned on. This cost can change from month to month depending on who is active.

Usage-based costs: Actions, Packages, and Codespaces

Several of GitHub’s services give you a certain amount for free with your plan, but you’ll have to pay if you use more than your allotment.

• GitHub Actions: If you burn through your monthly CI/CD minutes, you’ll be billed for the extra time.

• GitHub Packages: Go over your storage limit, and you’ll get a bill for the additional space.

• GitHub Codespaces: These are cloud-based development environments, and you’re billed for how much compute time and storage you use.

These metered services can lead to some surprising bills if you’re not keeping a close eye on your team’s usage.

The hidden costs: What’s not on the page?

The price you see on the website doesn’t always tell the whole story. The real cost of using a tool like GitHub often includes other expenses you should probably budget for.

• Training and Onboarding: Getting a team comfortable with all the advanced features, especially in an Enterprise setup, takes time. That’s developer time that isn’t being spent on your product.

• Migration: Moving your entire codebase and development history from another platform like GitLab or Bitbucket isn’t as simple as copying and pasting. It can be a big project that needs a lot of planning and work to get right.

• Maintenance (Enterprise Server): If you opt for the self-hosted version of GitHub Enterprise, you’re responsible for everything. That includes paying for the servers, doing the maintenance, applying security patches, and making sure it stays online. Those operational costs can pile up.

The complexity of enterprise software often means a lot of setup and training. In contrast, some tools, like eesel AI, are built to be simple. You can connect your knowledge sources and have it working in minutes, not months, without needing a developer or sitting through long onboarding calls.

Making the right choice for your budget

GitHub’s pricing has a few layers to it. You start with a base subscription, then you can add powerful (and pricey) AI and security tools, and finally, you have variable fees for things like Actions and storage. The best plan is always the one that fits what your team actually needs for collaboration, security, and automation.

As you plan your budget, it helps to think about your entire tech stack. Investing in good developer tools is important, but real efficiency comes from making workflows better across the whole company. This isn’t just about how you build software, but also how you support your customers and your own team.

This video breaks down the features and costs of GitHub's Free, Pro, Team, and Enterprise plans to help you decide which is right for you.

While you’re looking at your development budget, don’t forget about your support costs. The most efficient teams use AI everywhere to keep things moving smoothly. eesel AI can plug into your existing help desk and knowledge bases to help automate support, with predictable pricing that won’t leave you with a surprise bill. You can even simulate its impact on your past support tickets to see how it could work for you.