Blacksmith alternatives in 2026: per-minute and flat-price GitHub Actions runners
Blacksmith's alternatives split by how they bill: WarpBuild and Ubicloud by the minute, Depot and Namespace by the minute past what a monthly plan includes, RunsOn by an annual licence on your own AWS account, and Actuated by the month for each server you supply, while Cirrus Runners takes no new customers (each vendor's own page, read on November 9, 2026). Skipbox is the one on this list that runs the machines for a flat price: $39, $79 or $149 a month with unlimited minutes. Above a number of job-minutes a month that depends on the job's size, that flat price is the lower bill against Blacksmith's per-minute rate.
Skipbox publishes this page and sells one of the runners on it. Every cell about another service comes from that service's own page, read on November 9, 2026 and linked under Sources. The tables give billing models and published rates, not monthly totals.
How Blacksmith bills
Blacksmith bills by the minute, by runner size, with "3,000 free min/mo." on each runner type. Its pricing page, read on November 9, 2026:
| Blacksmith runner | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Ubuntu x64, 2 vCPU | $0.004 |
| Ubuntu x64, 4 vCPU | $0.008 |
| Ubuntu x64, 8 vCPU | $0.016 |
| Ubuntu x64, 16 vCPU | $0.032 |
| Ubuntu x64, 32 vCPU | $0.064 |
| Ubuntu ARM, 2 vCPU | $0.0025 |
| Windows x64, 2 vCPU | $0.008 |
| macOS M4 | $0.08 |
Add-ons are billed by the month: "Docker layer caching (+$0.50/GB/mo.)", "Sticky disks (+$0.50/GB/mo.)" and "Static IPs (+$100/IP/mo.)". An Enterprise plan adds a "99.9% SLA" and "24/7 priority support".
The page doesn't say at what size the free minutes count. Past them, jobs keep running and are billed. Forestwalk wrote on June 8, 2026 about a $1,081.45 invoice after its team ran past the free tier; Blacksmith's support had told it, "We don't cut workflows when the free tier is exceeded; they continue running and accrue usage at the published rates." After the post, Blacksmith offered a credit for the overage.
The alternatives, by billing model
| Service | How it bills | Published rate or price, Linux x64 | Who runs the machines | Arm, Windows, macOS | Free tier or trial | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skipbox | A flat monthly price per plan, unlimited minutes, no usage charges | $39, $79 or $149 a month, for jobs up to 4, 8 or 16 vCPU | Skipbox | Linux x64 only | 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, whichever comes first, no card; one 4 vCPU job at a time | Helsinki |
| WarpBuild | "CI runners are billed on a per-minute basis" | $0.008 a minute at 4 vCPU, 16 GB | WarpBuild, or your cloud account (BYOC) | Arm, Windows and macOS listed | Start without a payment method, up to its free usage or credit limits | Not listed; "any region" on its enterprise cloud |
| Ubicloud | "You are billed by the minute" | $0.0025 a minute at 4 vCPU, 16 GB (Standard) | Ubicloud | Arm listed; Windows and macOS not listed | "$2.5/month credit" | "data centers in Germany" |
| Depot | A monthly plan with included minutes, then per minute | Developer $20 a month with 2,000 minutes, Startup $200 a month with 20,000; then $0.006 a minute for its 2-vCPU Linux runner | Depot | Arm, Windows and macOS listed | A 7-day trial | "US & EU regions" |
| Namespace | Per "unit minute" (1 vCPU and 2 GB for a minute on Linux); paid plans include unit minutes, overage past them | Team $100 a month with 100,000 unit minutes; overage $0.0015 a minute at 1 vCPU, 2 GB | Namespace | Arm, Windows and macOS listed | A pay-as-you-go Developer plan with "No monthly commitment" | Not listed on its pricing page |
| RunsOn | A flat annual licence by jobs a month; compute billed by AWS | €300, €900 or €1,800 a year; free for non-commercial use | You, in your AWS account | Arm and Windows listed | A 15-day trial, "payment details collected at checkout" | Your AWS account |
| Actuated | A flat monthly rate per server: "Unlimited build minutes", "Unlimited concurrency" | $150 a month for one server, $125 for each more | You supply the servers | "Linux x86_64 & Arm supported" | Not stated | Your servers |
| Cirrus Runners | A flat monthly price per runner | "We are no longer accepting new customers for Cirrus Runners" | Cirrus Labs | – | – | – |
GitHub has two kinds of runners, GitHub-hosted and self-hosted, so every service above is a self-hosted runner to GitHub. GitHub bills nothing for self-hosted runner minutes and doesn't count them against your included compute. The self-hosted runner fee guide has the dated story of the charge GitHub announced for them and postponed. How the billing models differ, side by side, is in the flat-price runners guide.
Where a flat price is lower than Blacksmith
Skipbox's price is the same however many minutes you run. Blacksmith's bill is its rate at the job's size times the minutes past its free ones. So at each size there's a number of job-minutes a month above which Skipbox's plan is the lower bill, and every minute past it adds nothing to the flat bill.
Where that number sits depends on two things:
- The size. Compare Skipbox's plan S with Blacksmith's 4 vCPU runner, M with 8 vCPU, and L with 16 vCPU. Skipbox's jobs have 2 GB of memory per vCPU.
- How Blacksmith counts its 3,000 free minutes. Its page doesn't say whether they count at the job's size or as 2 vCPU minutes, and the two readings move the number.
The calculator on skipbox.dev sets Skipbox's plans against GitHub's and Blacksmith's rates at each size for the job-minutes you type, with Blacksmith's free minutes counted at the job's size. The cost calculator prices your own last 30 days of jobs on Skipbox's plans.
A flat plan has a ceiling of its own: capacity, not money. A job runs while it and your running jobs fit in your plans' vCPU, and the rest wait in your account's queue. To run more at once, you add plans.
What Blacksmith has that Skipbox doesn't
From Blacksmith's own pages on November 9, 2026, set against what Skipbox runs:
- Arm, Windows and macOS. Blacksmith lists Ubuntu ARM, Windows x64 and macOS M4 runners. Skipbox runs Linux x64 only.
- Caching. Blacksmith sells Docker layer caching and sticky disks and lists "4x faster cache downloads". Skipbox has no cache of its own, and every job starts in a fresh VM;
actions/cachestill works, through GitHub's cache service. - Larger sizes. Blacksmith goes to 32 vCPU. Skipbox's largest job is 16 vCPU and 32 GB.
- Static IPs as an add-on. Skipbox doesn't offer them.
- Observability. Blacksmith lists "GitHub Actions observability". Skipbox's account page shows which jobs wait and how long the oldest has waited, not test or job analytics.
- Regions. Blacksmith says its machines come "from data center providers in the US and EU". Every Skipbox job runs in Helsinki.
- Compliance. Blacksmith states it is "SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR compliant". Skipbox has no SOC 2 report.
- Public repositories. Blacksmith has an open-source program. Skipbox runs private repositories only and refuses a public repository's jobs.
The permissions each GitHub app asks for
| App | What it asks for on GitHub |
|---|---|
| Blacksmith | "Read and write access to actions, code, pull requests, and workflows", which its security page says is for a migration wizard that opens pull requests |
| Skipbox CI, for organizations | Organization Self-hosted runners: write, repository Actions: read and Metadata: read, account Email addresses: read. It never asks for repository contents. |
| Skipbox (personal), for personal accounts | Repository Administration: write, because GitHub files a repository's runners under it; Skipbox calls only the runner endpoints with it. Administration also covers a repository's settings, collaborators and deploy keys. |
Try one workflow on both for a week
- Pick a workflow that runs often and whose jobs are Linux x64 in a private repository.
- Copy one job. Point one copy at a Blacksmith label from Blacksmith's docs and the other at
runs-on: skipbox. - Sign in at skipbox.dev with GitHub and install the Skipbox CI app on the organization, or the Skipbox (personal) app on your own account.
- Run both for a week, then compare each job's duration in the run logs and each service's usage page.
- Keep the one you want and delete the other copy. Moving back is the same
runs-onchange.
Skipbox's trial runs one job at a time at 4 vCPU and 8 GB, so test a 4 vCPU job; skipbox-8x16 and skipbox-16x32 need plan M or L.
You can try it on your own jobs first: free for 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, no card.
FAQ
Is there a Blacksmith alternative with a flat monthly price?
Yes. Skipbox runs the machines and charges a flat monthly price per plan with unlimited minutes. Actuated charges a flat monthly rate per server, on servers you supply, and RunsOn a flat annual licence, with compute billed by AWS in your own account. Cirrus Runners sold a flat monthly price too, but no longer accepts new customers (read November 9, 2026).
Does Blacksmith charge past the free minutes?
Yes. Its pricing page lists "3,000 free min/mo." and per-minute rates by size. Jobs keep running past the free minutes and are billed: Blacksmith's support told Forestwalk in 2026, "We don't cut workflows when the free tier is exceeded; they continue running and accrue usage at the published rates."
Can I use a Blacksmith alternative on a personal GitHub account?
Skipbox works on personal accounts as well as organizations: its personal app registers a runner on each private repository that runs a job. For the other services, check each one's documentation before you sign up; their pricing pages don't say.
Do Blacksmith alternatives cost anything on the GitHub side?
No. To GitHub, every third-party runner is a self-hosted runner, and GitHub lists self-hosted runners as usage that remains free and doesn't reduce your included compute (read November 9, 2026). You pay only the runner service.
What does Blacksmith have that Skipbox doesn't?
Arm, Windows and macOS runners, Docker layer caching and sticky disks, static IPs, GitHub Actions observability, sizes up to 32 vCPU, and a SOC 2 Type 2 report, all stated on Blacksmith's own pages on November 9, 2026. Skipbox runs Linux x64 jobs from private repositories in Helsinki, up to 16 vCPU.
Sources
All read on 2026-11-09.
- Blacksmith, pricing: per-minute rates by size and operating system, "3,000 free min/mo.", add-ons, the Enterprise plan.
- Blacksmith, security: its GitHub app's permissions, SOC 2 Type 2, US and EU data centers.
- Forestwalk (Allen Pike), the post on the invoice (June 8, 2026): the $1,081.45 invoice, support's reply, the credit.
- WarpBuild, pricing: per-minute billing, rates by size, operating systems, BYOC, starting without a payment method.
- Ubicloud, pricing: billed by the minute, rates by size, the monthly credit, Germany.
- Depot, pricing: plans and included minutes, the overage rate, operating systems, regions, the 7-day trial.
- Namespace, pricing: unit minutes, plans, overage rates, operating systems, the Developer plan.
- RunsOn, pricing: the annual licence by jobs a month, compute billed by AWS, the 15-day trial.
- Actuated, pricing: the flat rate per server, unlimited minutes and concurrency, Arm.
- Cirrus Labs, cirruslabs.org: no new customers for Cirrus Runners.
- GitHub Docs, GitHub Actions billing: self-hosted runners remain free and don't reduce the included compute.
Updated November 9, 2026