Are GitHub Actions self-hosted runners free in 2026? The $0.002-a-minute charge, announced and postponed
No. GitHub announced a $0.002-a-minute "GitHub Actions cloud platform charge" on self-hosted runner usage on December 16, 2025, to start on March 1, 2026, and postponed it the next day "to take time to re-evaluate our approach". As of November 9, 2026, GitHub's billing docs list self-hosted runners as usage that "remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage", and nothing GitHub has published since gives the charge a new date.
Skipbox publishes this guide. It sells self-hosted runners that it operates for you at a flat monthly price, so it has a stake in the answer. Every fact below links to GitHub's own page, read on November 9, 2026.
What GitHub bills today, by runner
| Where the job runs | Billed by GitHub? | Reduces your included compute? |
|---|---|---|
| A self-hosted runner, private repository | No | No |
| A self-hosted runner, public repository | No | No |
| A standard GitHub-hosted runner, public repository | No | No |
| A standard GitHub-hosted runner, private repository | Yes, per minute past your included compute, rounded up per job | Yes |
| A larger GitHub-hosted runner, any repository | Yes, public repositories too | On GitHub Team and Enterprise Cloud |
GitHub's billing page puts it in one list: "The following usage remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage", followed by self-hosted runners and standard runners on public repositories.
The timeline, in GitHub's words
| Date | What happened | GitHub's words |
|---|---|---|
| December 16, 2025 | The changelog announces the charge, under the title "Coming soon: simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions" | "On March 1, 2026, GitHub will introduce a new $0.002 per minute GitHub Actions cloud platform charge that will apply to self-hosted runner usage." Usage subject to it would "count toward the minutes included in your plan". "Runner usage in public repositories will remain free." "There will be no changes in price structure for GitHub Enterprise Server customers." |
| December 17, 2025 | GitHub's community account posts "Updates to GitHub Actions pricing" (discussion #182186) | "We're postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach." |
| Later (the page gives no date) | The changelog is retitled "Update to GitHub Actions pricing" and opens with the same sentence | "We are continuing to reduce hosted-runners prices by up to 39% on January 1, 2026." |
| December 18, 2025 | GitHub's Japanese blog posts the same news | 「GitHubでは、セルフホスト型GitHub Actions向けに発表していた課金内容の変更を延期し、アプローチを再検討するための時間を設けることにしました。」 |
| January 1, 2026 | The hosted-runner price cut takes effect; the changelog says nothing about self-hosted runners | "Reduced costs for GitHub-hosted runners are now in effect." |
| March 1, 2026 | The date the charge would have started. Nothing started | – |
| November 9, 2026 | The billing docs list self-hosted runners as free and name no platform charge | "remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage" |
So the hosted-runner half of the December announcement happened, and the self-hosted half didn't.
Is the charge cancelled?
Not in those words. GitHub said it was "postponing" the change, and it hasn't said "cancelled" or "withdrawn" since. As of November 9, 2026, no GitHub changelog entry, blog post or docs page re-announces the charge, gives it a date, or retires it.
What that means for a plan made today: self-hosted runner minutes cost nothing on your GitHub bill, and GitHub has committed to no date for that to change.
Why some AI answers and articles still say you pay
Two of GitHub's own pages still carry the original text below a short postponement note:
- GitHub's 2026 pricing FAQ (2026 pricing changes for GitHub Actions) opens with the postponement note, then keeps the announcement in its body: "This will impact self-hosted runner pricing starting March 1, 2026", and in its FAQ, "The new charge for self-hosted runners will apply beginning on March 1, 2026."
- The December 16 changelog keeps its original paragraph under the new note, so a reader or a crawler that skips the note reads "On March 1, 2026, GitHub will introduce a new $0.002 per minute… charge".
An answer built from either page can read the charge as in force. GitHub's billing docs, which describe what is billed now, don't.
Two changes people mix up with it
The minimum runner version. GitHub also enforces a minimum version of the self-hosted runner application. It paused that enforcement on March 13, 2026, then announced on September 28, 2026 that enforcement on GitHub Enterprise Cloud starts on September 29, 2026: "Self-hosted runners below version 2.329.0 won't be able to register or reregister." This is what searches for "self hosted runner enforcement date" are about. It costs nothing, but a runner you maintain yourself has to keep up with it.
Included minutes are now dollars. GitHub's billing docs say "The included compute usage is expressed as a monetary amount, not a fixed number of minutes": $12 a month on GitHub Free, $18 on Pro and Team, and $300 on Enterprise Cloud. Self-hosted runners don't draw on it either way.
What the charge would have cost
At the announced $0.002 a minute:
| Self-hosted job-minutes a month | The postponed charge |
|---|---|
| 5,000 | $10 |
| 20,000 | $40 |
| 100,000 | $200 |
The announcement said this usage would "count toward the minutes included in your plan", so it would have drawn on your plan's allowance before any bill. Today all three rows are $0.
If it comes back, who pays
The announced charge applied to the GitHub account whose jobs used the runner: it would have counted toward that account's included minutes. Under that model, whoever owns the machine, your own server or a runner service, the charge would reach your GitHub account. A runner service's own price wouldn't include it: Skipbox's prices include no GitHub charge.
Self-hosted, without running the server
A self-hosted runner is any machine you register with GitHub to run your jobs. GitHub bills none of its minutes. What you take on is the machine and keeping it running: the runner application has to stay above GitHub's minimum version, each job should start on a clean machine so one job can't leave anything for the next, and GitHub warns that self-hosted runners "should almost never be used for public repositories" because "any user can open pull requests against the repository and compromise the environment".
Skipbox is a self-hosted runner that Skipbox operates. Its runners register with your GitHub organization or personal account as self-hosted runners, so GitHub bills none of their minutes and they don't reduce your included compute. Each job runs in a fresh Linux VM in Helsinki that is destroyed after it, for a flat $39, $79, or $149 a month with unlimited minutes and no usage charges. It runs private repositories only; macOS, Windows, Arm and public-repository jobs stay on GitHub. You move a job by changing its runs-on line to skipbox, and move it back the same way.
The flat price pays off as your minutes grow. Plan S runs jobs of 4 vCPU; against GitHub's 4-core runner at $0.012 a minute on GitHub Team, which includes $18 of compute a month, it pays off above about 4,800 job-minutes a month. The flat-price runners guide has the same numbers for every plan, and how flat and per-minute billing differ. The free trial runs for 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, whichever comes first, from your first job on Skipbox, with no card.
FAQ
Are GitHub Actions self-hosted runners paid now?
No. GitHub's billing docs list self-hosted runners under usage that "remains free independently and does not reduce the included compute usage" (read November 9, 2026). The $0.002-a-minute charge announced for March 1, 2026 was postponed on December 17, 2025 and never started.
Does GitHub charge $0.002 per minute for self-hosted runners in 2026?
No. That was the rate of the "GitHub Actions cloud platform charge" GitHub announced on December 16, 2025. GitHub postponed it the next day, and its billing docs mention no platform charge for self-hosted runners. On GitHub's price list, $0.002 a minute is the rate of its own 1-core Linux runner, which is a different thing.
Was the self-hosted runner fee cancelled?
GitHub's word was "postponing", not cancelling: "We're postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach." As of November 9, 2026, no GitHub changelog, blog post or docs page gives the charge a new date or says it is withdrawn.
Will GitHub start charging for self-hosted runners again?
GitHub hasn't said. It postponed the charge "to take time to re-evaluate our approach" and has published nothing on it since. If it comes back, the announcement's model would bill the GitHub account the jobs run for, whoever owns the machine.
Do self-hosted runner minutes count against my included minutes or my Actions budget?
No. GitHub lists self-hosted runners as usage that doesn't reduce the included compute, so jobs on them can't use up your plan's allowance or run an Actions budget out. GitHub's budgets page describes a budget blocking GitHub-hosted runners only.
Do runners from third-party services pay a GitHub platform fee?
No GitHub charge applies to any self-hosted runner today, whoever operates the machine. A service that connects its machines to your account as self-hosted runners, as Skipbox does, bills you its own price, and GitHub bills nothing for those minutes.
Sources
All read on 2026-11-09.
- GitHub Changelog, Update to GitHub Actions pricing (December 16, 2025; first titled "Coming soon: simpler pricing and a better experience for GitHub Actions"): the $0.002 charge, March 1, 2026, the postponement note, public repositories, Enterprise Server, the 39% hosted-runner cut.
- GitHub Community, #182186 "Updates to GitHub Actions pricing" (December 17, 2025): the postponement.
- GitHub Blog (Japanese), GitHub Actionsの価格改定について (December 18, 2025).
- GitHub Changelog, Reduced pricing for GitHub-hosted runners usage (January 1, 2026).
- GitHub Docs, GitHub Actions billing: what remains free, included compute by plan, in dollars.
- GitHub Docs, Actions runner pricing: per-minute rates, rounding up per job.
- GitHub Resources, 2026 pricing changes for GitHub Actions: the FAQ that keeps the March 1, 2026 sentences under its postponement note.
- GitHub Changelog, Self-hosted runner minimum version enforcement paused (March 13, 2026) and Self-hosted runner version enforcement date has moved (September 28, 2026).
- GitHub Docs, Secure use reference: self-hosted runners and public repositories.
Updated November 9, 2026