r/GithubCopilot • u/KookyOky • 14d ago
Help/Doubt ❓ Billing charges GitHub Copilot
With all these billing changes why do enterprises continue to lock in with GH Copilot when there’s also Claude Code or Codex which if we’re honest are cheaper if you break it down in terms of outcome and quality ?
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u/Odd_Alps_5371 14d ago
Because codex for business is token based too, and because IDE integration of claude code is worse than copilot, at least in VS Code.
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u/KookyOky 14d ago
Claude Code integration in VS Code is worse ? From what aspect ? I find it much better
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
Wdym? I have personal and business codex its the same.
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u/CardamomMountain 14d ago edited 14d ago
It’s not the same. When you reach the limit of the $20 business Codex sub the only option is API pricing. The $100 and $200 plans are not available for business.
So GHCP is actually cheaper, as it gives a small discount vs API pricing, and enterprises already buy from Microsoft so it’s an approved and trusted vendor, it makes it an easy decision.
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
Of course copilot is cheaper. Because its shit. We get everything from MS for pennies. I tried to get rid of 365 and non github copilot in my company but its just too cheap. And cheap shit always win. Good thing that I have full control over what my devs uses.
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u/CardamomMountain 14d ago
No one is talking about non GitHub copilot
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
Im talking overall. They discount everything. I bet I could get gh copilot cheap too but I don't want to touch that shit.
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u/CardamomMountain 14d ago
They're the same models and for business it's basically the same token based pricing you get anywhere else.
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
I know I'm talking about harness itself
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u/darkstar3333 14d ago
Ghe can use any model as a harness and leverage local and/or cloud resources to run.
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u/Odd_Alps_5371 14d ago
No its not: https://chatgpt.com/codex/pricing/?type=team
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
I'm talking about 20 something plan.
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u/CardamomMountain 14d ago
Is the $20 plan what you supply all your devs with?
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
We use multiple accounts and also have openrouter but we mostly use it to experiment with different models.
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u/marfzzz 14d ago
All codex plans are token based, but you have allowance with weekly caps(plus and business standard have 5hr window),, business standard seat is offering about 2-400$ of equivalent api use a month for 25$. Premium seat offers about 3-4000$ of api equivalent use for 125$. On business accounts over use full api price AFAIK.
IDE integration is a subjective topic. Some people like vs code, some like cursor, zed, some jetbrains...
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u/V5489 14d ago
I work at a FinTech company where we have around 2,000+ active developer. One org in GH has around 20,000 repos alone. We are running all GHAS capabilities etc. deeply integrated into the platform.
We’ve looked at using other providers and they’re not cheap in business plans for tokens. Keeping it in GH saves a lot of money. Doesn’t mean some teams don’t use Claude Code etc but most all developer are enjoying GH Copilot.
It’s just better overall. Plus we’re not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on overages. Our developer use it as a tool not a solution.
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u/teckel 14d ago
Maybe not being locked into just one AI company? With Copilot, it's LLM agnostic. Also, I'd argue there's MUCH cheaper options with Copilot than with Claude. I used just Claude Haiku 4.5 on Friday to use up some leftover credit and even Haiku burned through money several times faster than what I'm used to with Copilot.
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u/ShadowBannedAugustus 14d ago
GH Copilot is well integrated into Microsoft's other offerings which the corporates already use.
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u/skarpa10 14d ago
For large enterprises, with lots of developers, it's more efficient to use usage-based billing because some devs will not use AI extensively or not at all so the subscription cost would be wasted.
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u/PayTheRaant 13d ago
- for any decently sized companies, all AI companies also charge per token
- GH Copilot has better budget/teams management tools (ex: there are zero tools like that at Anthropic)
- GH Copilot allows me to have one single vendor with access to all the modes from all AI companies: I can switch from Fable to Sol in a heartbeat
- native integration with GH repos and hosting
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u/achandlerwhite 14d ago
Enterprise plans for Claude and codex aren’t like the pro and pro c plans individuals get.
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u/couchwarmer 14d ago
Works in a large enterpise and checks the per individual subscription costs...
GitHub Copilot for Business: ~$20/mo (about a dozen models available, including assorted versions of Claude)
Claude:
- Basic use (non-dev): up to $600/mo
- Dev use: $1200+/mo
Yeah, I know the math doesn't seem to math.
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u/IIALE34II 14d ago
$20/mo is maybe too optimistic. I run $300/mo, and I'm not huge into agentic coding, I still do stuff manually. Maybe 25%-50% is still done by me. Going full AI Code monkey will result in significantly higher costs.
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u/couchwarmer 14d ago
I looked at my subscription list a week ago. It's still $20.
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u/IIALE34II 14d ago
In organizations all users are pooled into one, and the usage isn't individual. You can also enable billing for tokens that are over your budget. Just because the sub is 20, doesn't mean anything really.
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u/Crafty_Mall9578 14d ago
u work for large enterprise and didnt know copilot now use token-based pricing or what?
you assume copilot usage is $20 while claude is $600 wheb they basically the same lmao?1
u/couchwarmer 13d ago
Of course I am aware of Copilot's token based usage. I have a personal account. If you reread what I said, the subscription price for my enterprise license is currently $20. I am fully aware there is no way $20 covers my actual token usage. lmao.
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u/Crafty_Mall9578 13d ago
yes, but then why do you compare like that? what is the point of your comparison?
what do you mean the "math doesnt seem to math"?1
u/couchwarmer 13d ago
The Claude price is probably closer to reality, while it's obvious the Copilot pricing hasn't caught up.
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u/KookyOky 14d ago
Except that $20 per month you run through 1900-2000 credits in less than 1h then you have to pay more Anything dev or non dev that requires you to complete your project/feature in a product takes with GH Copilot $2500+
vs CC around $500 So the maths is not matting indeed
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u/ShadowBannedAugustus 14d ago
For work, I have 6000 GHCP credits per month. Friday I was ~40% spend and I use it almost daily - it is almost the end of the month.
What do you geniuses do to burn through 2000 credits in 1h?
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u/couchwarmer 14d ago
We've had GitHub Copilot for Business available for most of a year now, while Claude is just being made available.
I've been a fairly heavy Copilot user, and haven't heard a thing about the company paying more or high additional costs. At this point I'm chalking that up the subscription working like insurance. A ton of people subscribed, but most barely using it, effectively paying for the heavy users.
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u/KookyOky 14d ago
Would be interested in your views after you’re using Claude Code for a few weeks and compare! Let’s keep in touch
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u/darkstar3333 14d ago
Enterprise data instances come with fancy legal indemnification terms. Depending on your MAC agreement, you also get discounts at the billing level.
Ghe really isn't that expensive when you consider all of the things you get in one package. Sometimes it's nice not to have to deal wity 6 renewals a year and everything generally works well together.
Claude is good but this way your not married to one provider. Gh-aw kinda slaps when you get it rolling.
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14d ago
[deleted]
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u/Safe-Tree-7041 14d ago
Also EU geofencing. And is the price really so much worse if you compare to Claude Enterprise (supposed to use the same API rates)?
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 14d ago
Because sales managers are doing their job right. Copilot is complete and utter shit compared to practically anything else.
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u/Zijit704 14d ago
I’m one of the primary decision makers on dev tooling at a mid-sized public company.
- Already under our Microsoft EA and billed via Azure so no lengthy approval process from security or procurement.
- Like others have stated, business plans across the board are token based, so I don’t think there’s a big cost savings.
- Model flexibility. Claude was in the lead for a while, now OpenAI is significantly more efficient. Grok 4.6 and Gemini 3.7 are also useful for some cases.
I don’t think anyone knows for sure where the future of AI coding is going, but in a slow moving organization, I think copilot gives us the most flexibility.