Metered Usage Reports

  • 3 minutes

In this unit, you'll learn how to monitor and manage billing for GitHub’s metered products, including Actions minutes, storage, licenses, and advanced features like Copilot and GHAS.

GitHub provides detailed billing and consumption reports to track the usage of metered products. These reports help administrators monitor costs, allocate resources efficiently, and ensure compliance with organizational policies.

GitHub Actions Minutes

GitHub Actions is a CI/CD automation tool where workflows run on virtual machines. The minutes consumed in these workflows are metered based on repository type, runner type, and usage.

Tracking Consumption

  • Navigate to Settings → Billing in your GitHub organization or account.
  • Under the GitHub Actions section, you can see the number of minutes used.
  • Usage is broken down by repository, runner type (Linux, macOS, Windows), and remaining quota.

Billing Details

  • Free Allocation:
    • Public repositories get unlimited free minutes.
    • Private repositories receive free minutes based on the plan:
      • GitHub Free: 2,000 minutes/month
      • GitHub Pro: 3,000 minutes/month
      • GitHub Team: 3,000 minutes/month
      • GitHub Enterprise: 50,000 minutes/month
  • Pricing per Runner Type (as of 2024):
    • Linux: $0.008 per minute
    • Windows: $0.016 per minute
    • macOS: $0.08 per minute

Optimization Strategies

  • Use self-hosted runners for high-volume workflows to reduce costs.
  • Optimize workflow scripts by caching dependencies and reducing redundant jobs.
  • Limit workflows to only trigger when necessary (e.g., push to main branch only).

Storage for GitHub Packages

GitHub Packages allows storing artifacts, container images, and dependencies. Storage is metered based on the volume of stored data and data transfer usage.

Tracking Consumption

  • Navigate to Settings → Billing → GitHub Packages to view storage usage.
  • Breakdown includes storage (GB) and data transfer (GB) used per repository.

Billing Details

  • Free Allocation:
    • Public repositories: Free storage and bandwidth.
    • Private repositories:
      • Storage up to 2GB
      • Data transfer up to 1GB per month

For details on storage limits and usage beyond the free allocation, see GitHub’s pricing page.

Optimization Strategies

  • Regularly delete unused packages or enable retention policies.
  • Store frequently accessed images in a centralized registry to reduce duplication.
  • Use compressed formats to reduce storage consumption.

GitHub Enterprise (GHE) Licenses

GitHub Enterprise provides advanced features for organizations, and the number of active users determines license consumption.

Tracking Consumption

  • Go to Enterprise Settings → Billing to view license usage reports.
  • Monitor active users vs. allocated licenses.

Billing Details

  • Pricing Model:
    • Each user with access to private repositories consumes one license.
    • Organizations pay per user annually or monthly.
  • Inactive Users:
    • If an admin removes a user, the license remains assigned for the billing period but can be reallocated.

Optimization Strategies

  • Audit inactive users and revoke access to free up licenses.
  • Use SSO and SCIM provisioning to automate user management.

GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) Licenses

GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) offers code scanning, secret scanning, and dependency review for enhanced security.

Tracking Consumption

  • View reports in Settings → Billing → GHAS Usage to see active committers.
  • The report shows unique committers per billing period.

Billing Details

  • Pricing Model:
    • Charged per unique committer per month.
    • If a committer contributes to multiple repositories, they only count once.
  • Free Tier: Not available (only for public repositories).

Optimization Strategies

  • Restrict GHAS to repositories that truly need advanced security.
  • Use branch protections to limit unnecessary scans on feature branches.

GitHub Copilot**

GitHub Copilot provides AI-driven code completion and suggestions, billed per user.

Tracking Consumption

  • Admins can track Copilot usage under Billing → Copilot in organization settings.
  • The report shows active users and monthly billing estimates.

Billing Details

  • Access Model:
    • Available for individuals and businesses with different subscription options.
  • Free Access:
    • Free for students and verified open-source maintainers.
    • Free for select enterprise customers (trial-based).

For current Copilot plans and subscription details, see GitHub Copilot pricing.

Optimization Strategies

  • Regularly review and deactivate Copilot for users who don’t need it.
  • Encourage developers to disable Copilot in projects where AI-generated code is unnecessary.

Large File Storage (LFS)

GitHub LFS is used for storing large binary files separately from Git repositories.

Tracking Consumption

  • View LFS usage in Billing → LFS Usage.
  • Report includes storage (GB) and bandwidth usage (GB).

Billing Details

  • Free Tier:
    • 1GB of storage per repository
    • 1GB of bandwidth per month

For more information on Git Large File Storage (LFS) usage and limits, see GitHub's LFS documentation.

Optimization Strategies

  • Use external storage services (e.g., AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage) for large files.
  • Delete unused large files to optimize storage.
  • Enable Git LFS file pruning to remove unreferenced objects.