GitHub Actions runners compared (November 2026): how they bill, sizes, free minutes and limits
GitHub Actions runner services bill in five ways, as read on each one's own pages on November 9, 2026: by the minute (GitHub's hosted runners, Blacksmith, WarpBuild, Ubicloud), by a monthly plan that includes minutes and bills per minute past them (Depot, Namespace), by an annual licence for runners in your own cloud account (RunsOn), by a monthly rate per server you supply (Actuated), or by a flat month on machines the service runs. Skipbox is the one on this page that bills that last way; Cirrus Runners did too but takes no new customers, and BuildJet shut down on March 31, 2026. They differ as much in what they run, Linux x64, Arm, macOS, Windows or GPU, and to GitHub every one but its own is a self-hosted runner, whose minutes GitHub doesn't bill.
Skipbox publishes this page and is one of the services in it. Every cell comes from the service's own page, read on November 9, 2026, and linked under Sources; where a page doesn't say, the cell says so. The tables give published rates, not monthly totals: what a month costs depends on your jobs' sizes, minutes and how many run at once, and the cost calculator works yours out.
How each one bills
| Service | How it bills | Published Linux rate or price | Free allowance or trial | Who runs the machines |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub-hosted runners | Per minute by runner, each job rounded up to the whole minute, past the compute your plan includes | $0.006 a minute for Linux 2-core (ubuntu-latest on private repositories); larger runners $0.012 at 4 cores, $0.022 at 8, $0.042 at 16 | $12 to $300 of compute a month, by plan; standard runners free on public repositories | GitHub |
| Blacksmith | Per minute | Ubuntu x64 $0.004 a minute as the page first shows it, with a vCPU selector of 2 to 32 | "3,000 free min/mo", no credit card | Blacksmith |
| Depot | A monthly plan that includes minutes, then per minute | Developer $20 a month with 2,000 minutes, Startup $200 a month with 20,000; $0.006 a minute past them, on a 2-vCPU Linux runner | A 7-day trial on Developer and Startup | Depot |
| Namespace | A monthly plan that includes "unit minutes" (1 vCPU and 2 GB for a minute, times a platform multiplier), then overage | Team $100 a month with 100,000 unit minutes, Business $250 a month with 250,000; its 1 vCPU, 2 GB Linux shape at $0.0015 a minute past them | A $0 pay-as-you-go Developer plan, no credit card | Namespace, on its own hardware |
| WarpBuild | Per minute: "CI runners are billed on a per-minute basis" | Linux x64 $0.004 a minute at 2 vCPU, $0.008 at 4, $0.016 at 8, $0.032 at 16; $0.002 a minute on your own cloud account | No card to sign up; a payment method once you reach its free usage or credit limits | WarpBuild, or your AWS, GCP or Azure account |
| Ubicloud | Per minute: "You are billed by the minute" | Standard x64 $0.00125 a minute at 2 vCPU, $0.0025 at 4, $0.005 at 8, $0.01 at 16 | A $2.50 credit a month, which it equates to 1,250 minutes | Ubicloud |
| RunsOn | "a flat annual fee per legal entity", by jobs a month; AWS bills the compute | Starter €300 a year (under 50,000 jobs a month), Growth €900, Scale €1,800 | "15 days free on Starter, Growth and Scale"; free for non-commercial open source | You, in your AWS account |
| Actuated | A flat monthly rate per server, with "Unlimited build minutes" and "Unlimited concurrency" | $150 a month for the first server, $125 for each additional | Not stated on its pricing page | You supply the servers ("just add servers"); Actuated runs the control plane |
| Skipbox | A flat monthly price per plan, unlimited minutes, no usage charges | $39 a month (plan S, jobs up to 4 vCPU), $79 (M, 8 vCPU), $149 (L, 16 vCPU) | 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, whichever comes first, no card | Skipbox |
What each one runs
| Service | Linux x64 sizes | Arm | macOS | Windows | GPU | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub-hosted runners | 1 to 96 cores: 2 as standard on private repositories, 4 to 96 as larger runners on GitHub Team and Enterprise Cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes: a 4-core runner with a Tesla T4, as a larger runner | Not stated on these pages |
| Blacksmith | 2 to 32 vCPU | Yes | Yes (M4) | Yes | Not on its pricing page | Not on its pricing page |
| Depot | 2 to 64 vCPU, Intel or Arm | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed for Actions runners | "US & EU regions" |
| Namespace | Up to 64 vCPU and 512 GB | Yes | Yes (Apple Silicon) | Yes | Not on its pricing page | Its own hardware "across various sites" |
| WarpBuild | 2 to 32 vCPU | Yes | Yes (M4 or M5 Pro) | Yes | Not on its pricing page | Not on its pricing page |
| Ubicloud | 2 to 30 vCPU | Yes | Not on its pricing page | Not on its pricing page | Not on its pricing page | Data centers in Germany |
| RunsOn | The AWS instance types you choose | Yes (Graviton) | Not on its pricing page | Yes | Yes (g4dn and g5 instances) | Your AWS regions |
| Actuated | Your servers | Yes | Not on its pricing page | Not on its pricing page | "Mount GPUs to jobs" | Your servers |
| Skipbox | 4, 8 or 16 vCPU, with 8, 16 or 32 GB | No | No | No | No | Helsinki |
For GitHub's own sizes, memory and disk, see the ubuntu-latest specs guide.
How GitHub bills each kind
GitHub has two kinds of runners, and every service above except GitHub's own connects to your account as the second kind.
| GitHub-hosted runner | Self-hosted runner (any third-party service, or your own machine) | |
|---|---|---|
| What GitHub bills | Per minute by runner, past the compute your plan includes; larger runners on public repositories too | Nothing: usage that "remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage" |
| Included compute a month | $12 on GitHub Free, $18 on Pro and Team, $300 on Enterprise Cloud (in minutes per runner) | Not used |
| Can an Actions budget stop it? | Yes, a budget set to stop usage blocks it (what to do) | Its minutes don't spend from the budget |
| Longest job | 6 hours | 5 days on GitHub's side; the service may set its own limit |
| Jobs at once | 20 on GitHub Free, 40 on Pro, 60 on Team, 500 on Enterprise (standard runners; 5 macOS, 50 on Enterprise) | Set by the runners you have |
GitHub announced a $0.002-a-minute charge on self-hosted runner usage in December 2025 and postponed it the next day. As of November 9, 2026 it hasn't started: the self-hosted runner fee guide has the timeline.
Choosing by job
From the two tables above:
| Your job | Services on this page that list it |
|---|---|
| Linux x64 builds and tests, private repositories | All of them |
| More than 16 vCPU | GitHub (larger runners), Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace, WarpBuild, Ubicloud, RunsOn, Actuated (your servers) |
| macOS | GitHub, Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace, WarpBuild |
| Arm | GitHub, Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace, WarpBuild, Ubicloud, RunsOn, Actuated |
| Windows | GitHub, Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace, WarpBuild, RunsOn |
| GPU | GitHub (larger runners), RunsOn, Actuated |
| Static IP addresses | GitHub (larger runners, on Enterprise Cloud), Blacksmith ($100 per IP a month) |
| Public repositories | GitHub's standard runners are free there. GitHub warns that self-hosted runners "should almost never be used for public repositories on GitHub, because any user can open pull requests against the repository and compromise the environment." |
Docker builds run on any of the Linux runners whose image has Docker; GitHub's ubuntu-latest image and Skipbox's do. Blacksmith sells Docker layer caching at $0.50 a GB a month; Skipbox has no Docker layer cache of its own.
The ones that closed
- BuildJet. "Effective today (February 6th, 2026)", its post said, new sign-ups were no longer accepted, and BuildJet stopped running jobs on March 31, 2026. Its page now reads "BuildJet for GitHub Actions has been shut down."
- Cirrus Runners. Cirrus Labs' site says "We are no longer accepting new customers for Cirrus Runners"; existing customers keep the service "through their existing contract periods". Its post of April 7, 2026 says the team agreed to join OpenAI.
Flat price or per minute: the break-even
A per-minute bill grows with every minute; a flat one doesn't. So a flat price is lower once the same minutes would cost more by the minute. The flat-price runners guide has the formula and how the two billing models differ in a busy month.
Against GitHub's own runners on GitHub Team, which includes $18 of compute a month: Skipbox's plan S is $39 a month however many minutes you run, and above about 9,500 job-minutes a month that is less than the same minutes on ubuntu-latest, or above about 4,800 less than on GitHub's 4-core runner. Plan M ($79) and plan L ($149) against GitHub's 8- and 16-core runners: about 4,500 and 4,000 job-minutes a month.
For your own jobs, the cost calculator prices your recent Linux jobs on GitHub and on Skipbox's plans.
Who should not use Skipbox
Skipbox runs private-repository Linux x64 jobs in Helsinki. Look elsewhere in the tables above for:
- macOS, Windows, Arm or GPU jobs. Skipbox runs none of them.
- Public repositories. Skipbox refuses their jobs and emails the account's owner.
- Jobs larger than 16 vCPU, or that need more than 32 GB of memory. Skipbox's largest job is plan L's. GitHub's larger runners have twice the memory per core of Skipbox's VMs.
- Many jobs at once, for a few minutes a day. Each plan adds vCPU of capacity, and a job that doesn't fit beside your running jobs waits in your account's queue. A workflow that starts 20 jobs of 4 vCPU together needs plans that add up to 20 × 4 vCPU to run them all at once.
- Jobs that talk to servers far from Europe. Every job runs in Helsinki, so each request to a distant server takes longer.
- Static IP addresses, or a cache of the runner's own. Skipbox offers neither.
If your jobs fit, moving one is a one-line change: set its runs-on to skipbox, and set it back to move it back.
You can try it on your own jobs first: free for 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, no card.
FAQ
What are the alternatives to GitHub-hosted runners?
Services that connect their machines, or machines you run, to your account as self-hosted runners. Of those checked on November 9, 2026: Blacksmith, WarpBuild and Ubicloud bill by the minute; Depot and Namespace by a monthly plan with included minutes, then per minute; RunsOn by an annual licence for runners in your own AWS account; Actuated by a monthly rate per server you supply; and Skipbox by a flat month with unlimited minutes. BuildJet shut down on March 31, 2026, and Cirrus Runners takes no new customers.
Which GitHub Actions runner services have a flat monthly price?
Of the services checked on November 9, 2026, Skipbox sells managed runners at a flat monthly price per plan with unlimited minutes. Actuated charges a flat monthly rate per server you supply, with "Unlimited build minutes". RunsOn charges a flat annual licence, and AWS bills the compute it starts in your account. Cirrus Runners also sold a monthly price per runner, but no longer accepts new customers.
Which runner services have macOS runners?
Of the services on this page, GitHub, Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace and WarpBuild list macOS runners on their pricing pages (read November 9, 2026). Ubicloud, RunsOn and Actuated don't list them, and Skipbox runs Linux x64 only.
Does GitHub charge for minutes on a third-party runner?
No. To GitHub, a runner that isn't its own is a self-hosted runner, and GitHub lists self-hosted runners as usage that "remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage" (read November 9, 2026). You pay the service its own price.
Is BuildJet still running GitHub Actions jobs?
No. BuildJet stopped taking new sign-ups on February 6, 2026 and stopped running jobs on March 31, 2026. Its page now says "BuildJet for GitHub Actions has been shut down."
Do these runners need changes to my workflows?
Usually only the runs-on line: each service gives its runners labels, and a job moves when its runs-on names one. Moving back is the same edit. Tools a job expects from GitHub's image may need a setup action if the service's image doesn't have them.
Sources
All read on 2026-11-09.
- GitHub Docs, Actions runner pricing: per-minute rates, rounding up per job, larger runners on GitHub Team and Enterprise Cloud.
- GitHub Docs, GitHub Actions billing: included compute by plan, self-hosted runners free.
- GitHub Docs, GitHub-hosted runners reference and Larger runners reference: sizes, Arm, macOS, Windows, GPU, static IPs.
- GitHub Docs, Actions limits: job length, queueing, jobs at once.
- GitHub Docs, Secure use reference: self-hosted runners and public repositories.
- GitHub Changelog, Update to GitHub Actions pricing: the postponed self-hosted runner charge.
- Blacksmith, pricing: rates, the vCPU selector, 3,000 free minutes, Arm, macOS, Windows, Docker layer caching, static IPs.
- Depot, pricing: plans, included minutes, the per-minute rate past them, sizes, the 7-day trial, regions.
- Namespace, pricing: plans, unit minutes, overage, platforms, sizes.
- WarpBuild, pricing: per-minute rates by size, platforms, its own-cloud rate, free usage.
- Ubicloud, pricing: per-minute rates, the monthly credit, Arm, Germany.
- RunsOn, pricing: the licence tiers, AWS billing, the trial, Arm, Windows, GPU.
- Actuated, pricing: the rate per server, unlimited minutes and concurrency, Arm, GPUs.
- BuildJet, for GitHub Actions and its shutdown post (February 6, 2026).
- Cirrus Labs, cirruslabs.org: no new customers for Cirrus Runners, joining OpenAI.
Updated November 9, 2026