With usage-based billing, you pay monthly for the number of GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security licenses you use. You do not need to buy a predefined number of licenses in advance.
Usage-based billing for licenses provides flexibility and cost savings compared to more traditional licensing models, such as volume or subscription models.
Do I have usage-based billing?
You are already enrolled in usage-based billing if you created a trial of GitHub Enterprise Cloud on or after August 1, 2024.
If you currently pay for your GitHub Enterprise licenses by invoice with a volume, subscription, or prepaid agreement, you will continue to be billed in this way until your agreement expires. At renewal, you have the option to switch to the metered billing model.
Visual Studio subscriptions with GitHub Enterprise is currently not supported for usage-based billing.
Can I use GitHub Enterprise Server?
Although you can sync licenses with GitHub Enterprise Server, usage-based licensing is a cloud-first license model where users must first be added to an organization on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
For a detailed comparison between usage-based and volume licensing models, see Combined GitHub Enterprise cloud and server use.
How are metered licenses measured?
With metered billing, the cost of a license is calculated by measuring consumed licenses and billable licenses.
- Consumed licenses: The number of licenses currently in use.
- Billable licenses: The unique licenses billed in a billing cycle. If a user stops consuming a license within the month, the adjustment is reflected in your next month's bill.
If a user starts consuming a license in the middle of the billing cycle, you will pay pro rata for the user's license usage that month.
For example: The billing cycle begins on the first day of the month, and the account starts with 0 licenses.
- Day 1: The administrator adds 10 licensed users.
- Day 2: The administrator adds 20 licensed users.
- Day 3: The administrator removes 5 licensed users.
- Day 4: No change.
At the end of day 4, there will be:
- 25 consumed licenses
(10 + 20 - 5). This is the number of users actively consuming licenses. - 30 billable licenses
(10 + 20). This is the number of distinct users that consumed a license at some point during the month.
Pending invitations to join an organization that belongs to your enterprise on GitHub do not consume a license.
Which payment methods can I use?
You can use the following payment methods for usage-based billing for licenses:
- Invoiced and self-serve GitHub Enterprise customers can pay using a credit card or PayPal
- Invoiced customers can also pay using prepaid credits (only available to customers who have a volume subscription with or without metered add-ons)
- You can connect an Azure subscription to your enterprise account
- For purchase orders, you can contact your account manager in GitHub's Sales team