# GitHub Actions vs CircleCI vs GitLab CI cost for a 10-person startup, and what to budget for CI/CD

> GitHub Actions, CircleCI and GitLab CI all bill CI by the minute, so a startup's CI budget is its minutes times a rate, and it grows with every push. For a 10-person team at 20,000 minutes a month on 4 vCPU: $222 on GitHub, $300 on CircleCI. Staying on GitHub Actions with a flat-priced runner fixes the number: Skipbox is $39 a month with unlimited minutes.

GitHub Actions, CircleCI and GitLab CI all sell CI the same way: by the minute, at a rate set by the machine's size. So a startup's CI budget is its minutes times a rate, and no platform makes that number hold still. For a 10-person team running 20,000 minutes a month on a 4 vCPU machine, GitHub Actions is $222, CircleCI $300, and GitLab $300 on top of its seats.

You don't have to switch platforms to change that. Skipbox runs your GitHub Actions jobs on your account's own machine for a flat $39 a month, with unlimited minutes. Your workflows stay; one line changes, `runs-on: skipbox`.

- A 10-person team at 20,000 minutes a month on 4 vCPU: $222 on GitHub, $300 on CircleCI, $39 on Skipbox
- The budget line is the same every month: more pushes, re-runs and agents add nothing
- No migration: the same workflows, actions and secrets, on GitHub Actions

**GitHub Actions at a flat price, unlimited minutes** Skipbox runs your GitHub Actions jobs on your own dedicated machine: $39 a month, however many minutes you run. Docker layers and dependency caches stay between jobs, so the next job starts right away.

A 4 vCPU runner, 20,000 minutes a month: GitHub $222 → Skipbox $39. You save $183 every month.

Moving takes one line: `runs-on: skipbox`.

[Start my 7-day free trial](https://app.skipbox.dev/sign-in?ref=g-github-actions-vs-circleci-cost-en)

## How each one bills

Read on each vendor's pricing page on November 14, 2026. Linux x64, US dollars, before tax.

| | Plan | Unit | What's included a month | Price of more | A 4 vCPU minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | GitHub Team | Minutes, by runner size | $18 of usage | $0.006 a minute at 2 cores, $0.012 at 4 | $0.012 |
| CircleCI | [Performance](https://circleci.com/pricing/) | Credits | 30,000 credits, 5 active users | $15 for every 25,000 credits; each additional user is 25,000 credits a month | 20 credits ([Large](https://circleci.com/product/features/resource-classes/)) |
| GitLab CI | [GitLab.com Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/), $29 per user a month, billed annually | Compute minutes | 10,000 compute minutes | $10 per 1,000 compute minutes | 2 compute minutes ([medium runner](https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/)) |

Three units, one model. Each run, re-run and failed run is counted, and the bill arrives after the month.

## The worked example: 10 people

A team of 10, every job on a 4 vCPU machine:

| Minutes a month (4 vCPU) | GitHub Actions | CircleCI Performance | GitLab Premium, compute minutes | Skipbox S |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $102 | $180 | $100 | **$39** |
| 20,000 | $222 | $300 | $300 | **$39** |
| 30,000 | $342 | $420 | $500 | **$39** |

How each column is counted:

- **GitHub Actions:** the minutes at the 4-core runner's rate, less GitHub Team's included usage.
- **CircleCI:** the minutes at 20 credits each, plus 5 additional users at 25,000 credits each, less the 30,000 included credits, bought in blocks of 25,000 at $15.
- **GitLab:** the minutes at 2 compute minutes each, less Premium's 10,000, bought in packs of 1,000 at $10. Premium's seats for 10 people, $290 a month, are on top.
- **Skipbox:** one S machine, 4 vCPU and 16 GB. The price doesn't move with the minutes.

GitHub's and GitLab's seats for hosting the code are outside these figures. Put your own minutes in the [calculator on the home page](https://skipbox.dev/?ref=g-github-actions-vs-circleci-cost-en#cost).

## How much to budget

On any per-minute platform, the budget is a forecast:

1. **Find your minutes.** On GitHub: Settings → Billing & Licensing → Usage, filtered to Actions, by runner size.
2. **Multiply by the rate** of the size your jobs run on, and subtract what your plan includes.
3. **Add room.** A second E2E suite, a matrix build or a coding agent that pushes each fix multiplies the jobs behind every change. Minutes grow faster than headcount.

A 10-person team that budgets $222 for 20,000 minutes is at $342 when the minutes reach 30,000. A cap on the spend doesn't fix it: a GitHub budget that stops usage stops your CI until the next month ([what a budget really does](https://skipbox.dev/guides/github-actions-fixed-monthly-cost)).

With a flat-priced runner, the budget is a line you can write down today: the number of machines times $39.

## Stay on GitHub Actions, fix the price

Moving CI from one platform to another means rewriting every workflow in another syntax, moving secrets, and re-learning caching, for a bill that is still minutes times a rate. Moving the runner means changing one line.

GitHub doesn't bill minutes on self-hosted runners, and to GitHub a Skipbox job is a self-hosted job. So the minutes leave GitHub's bill, and Skipbox's price is flat:

| Plan | Machine | Price |
|---|---|---|
| S | 4 vCPU · 16 GB | $39 a month |
| M | 8 vCPU · 16 GB | $79 a month |
| L | 16 vCPU · 32 GB | $149 a month |

- **Unlimited minutes.** No usage charges, no credits, no packs to buy.
- **Faster jobs.** The machine is your account's own and is kept between jobs, so Docker layers, package caches and tools are on its disk when the next job starts.
- **Jobs at once you choose.** Jobs run at once while they fit in your plans' vCPU; one past that waits its turn and costs nothing while it waits. Add a plan to run more at once.
- **Nothing to operate.** Skipbox provisions the machine, updates its image, cleans up after every job and rebuilds it when its health check fails.

## Moving is one line

```yaml
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: skipbox # was ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci && npm test
```

1. Sign in to Skipbox with GitHub.
2. Install the Skipbox GitHub App and pick the repositories.
3. Change `runs-on` and push.

## Security

- The machine is your account's alone. No other company's jobs run on it.
- After every job, the runner's credentials, processes and containers are wiped. Clean every job gives each job a fresh machine instead.
- Code from people without write access (such as pull requests from forks) runs on a fresh, throwaway machine.

The details are in [how jobs are isolated](https://docs.skipbox.dev/isolation).

## Try it before you set the budget

The trial is free for 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, whichever comes first, and takes no card. Move your busiest job to `runs-on: skipbox`, and write the budget line from what you see.

## FAQ

### GitHub Actions vs CircleCI vs GitLab CI cost for a 10-person startup: which is cheapest?

All three bill by the minute, so it depends on your minutes. For 10 people running 20,000 minutes a month on a 4 vCPU machine: GitHub Actions is $222 after GitHub Team's included usage, CircleCI's Performance plan is $300 with its 5 extra users, and GitLab.com Premium is $300 in extra compute minutes on top of $290 of seats. The lowest number comes from staying on GitHub Actions and moving the jobs to a flat-priced runner: Skipbox S is $39 a month with unlimited minutes.

### How much should a startup budget for CI/CD per month?

On per-minute pricing, budget your minutes times the rate, and add room: the minutes grow with every push, re-run and coding agent. A 10-person team at 20,000 minutes a month on 4 vCPU pays GitHub $222, and $342 at 30,000. With a flat-priced runner the budget is a fixed line: $39 a month for each Skipbox S machine, whatever the minutes.

### Is CircleCI cheaper than GitHub Actions for a small team?

At 4 vCPU the per-minute price is close: CircleCI's Large class is 20 credits a minute, and credits cost $15 per 25,000, so $0.012 a minute; GitHub's 4-core runner is $0.012. CircleCI's Performance plan also charges 25,000 credits a month for each active user past 5. Either way the bill follows your minutes. A flat-priced runner on GitHub Actions doesn't: Skipbox S is $39 a month however many minutes run.

### How does CircleCI pricing work?

In credits. The Performance plan includes 30,000 credits a month and 5 active users; more credits are $15 for every 25,000, and each additional user uses 25,000 credits a month. A job uses credits per minute by machine size: 10 for a 2 vCPU Medium, 20 for a 4 vCPU Large. So 20,000 minutes on Large is 400,000 credits.

### How does GitLab CI pricing work?

In compute minutes per top-level group. GitLab.com Premium is $29 per user a month, billed annually, and includes 10,000 compute minutes a month; more are $10 per 1,000. A minute on the medium runner (4 vCPU) counts as 2 compute minutes, so 20,000 minutes of jobs use 40,000.

### Do we have to leave GitHub Actions to get a fixed CI price?

No. Your workflows stay as they are. Skipbox runs GitHub Actions jobs on your account's own machine for a flat $39 a month; you move a job by changing its runs-on line to skipbox. The trial is 7 days or 3,000 job-minutes, whichever comes first, with no card.

Updated 2026-11-14 · https://skipbox.dev/guides/github-actions-vs-circleci-cost