I have a growing list of concerns about GitHub Copilot's shift to usage‑based billing. Until today (1st June), the official changeover, Copilot has comfortably held the top spot in my AI toolkit. I'm not a power‑user by any stretch; I use AI regularly, and I rely on Copilot's cloud features to get work done, but I've never felt I was pushing the limits.
Since the initial announcement, I've been monitoring my usage closely using GitHub's own dashboards. Over the past two months, my estimated usage sat around $12 and $9. With a $10 subscription, that felt manageable, a small top‑up here or there, or simply easing off for a few days, didn't seem unreasonable.
But this morning, on changeover day, I downloaded the new usage report with predicted costs. Suddenly, my historical $9-12 usage was being projected as over $165. I still have no idea how they arrived at that number or how it relates to the much lower usage values previously shown.
That jump has forced me to seriously reconsider whether GitHub Copilot still has a place in my workflow.
Of course, this is only day one. I'll reserve final judgement until I've seen how things settle over the next few weeks. But if these projections hold, I may need to broaden my horizons and explore other providers, because the tool that was once cost‑effective may now be pricing me out.
