GitHub Copilot Switches To Token-Based Billing, Driving Microsoft Price Hikes For Developers

Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot pricing overhaul is moving from a flat subscription fee to a usage-based system tied to tokens, a change discussed on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast and framed by a Reddit user as the start of a “Tokenpocalypse.”

“Bad news, announced in April, is now effective”

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The shift is described as part of a broader end to “cheap, subsidized artificial intelligence,” with the Copilot model now passing more compute costs directly to users through token consumption.

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In the Spanish-language account of the change, GitHub is said to have moved from request limits to a credits system where “cada crédito equivale a USD $0,01 de uso de IA,” and the plan examples include Pro at USD $10 per month with 1.500 credits and Pro+ at USD $39 with 7.000 credits.

That same account says users reported rapid consumption, including “840 créditos en un primer día” and “5.000 créditos en un par de commits asistidos por Copilot,” while another example cited a single instruction consuming “alrededor de 94 créditos.”

On TechCrunch’s Equity, Sean O’Kane asked how many token-related risk factors will appear in Anthropic’s S-1, pointing to Uber’s “full arc in the span of a month and a half” from blowing through its budget to imposing caps and limiting usage.

Kirsten Korosec tied the controversy to speed, saying “the whole tokenmaxxxing thing has become a thing, peaked, and now is seen disfavorably, within six months,” and she asked how to write risk factors when they are “evolving before our eyes.”

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In French coverage, developers are described as seeing monthly AI credits quotas shrink within hours after GitHub set the move for June 1, and one developer wrote on the GitHub forum that with Copilot Pro he consumed “8% of his monthly AI credits allocation in 2 hours.”

That same local report says some users threaten to move projects to Anthropic, OpenAI, or alternatives like RooCode, LM Studio, or OpenRouter, while also noting that code completions and Next Edit suggestions remain included without consuming credits.

The pricing shift is repeatedly linked to IPO pressure, with TechCrunch’s Equity framing it as an issue for AI labs preparing to go public and answer difficult questions about profitability.

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Anthony Ha said the ecosystem is “heavily, heavily subsidized by investor money,” and he argued that more of those costs will be passed on to end consumers and customers, creating “a lot of pain.”

Local coverage adds that GitHub justified the model change by saying Copilot has evolved “from an editor assistant to a platform equipped with AI agents for longer and more complex programming sessions,” and it states that “a simple question asked via chat and a multi-hour autonomous coding session can cost the user the same price.”

As a result, the sources describe new governance and budgeting mechanics, including that once credits are exhausted users can buy additional credit packs, and that administrators can set budget caps and receive email notifications as thresholds approach, while Copilot code review consumes GitHub Actions minutes in addition to AI credits.