Guide · GitHub documentation read November 1, 2026
GitHub Actions minutes usage and cost: where to see it and how to cut it
See which workflows use your minutes, understand how GitHub counts them, and cut the bill with the changes GitHub documents.
In short
Open Billing, then the Usage view, and request the detailed usage report: it covers up to 31 days and names the workflow behind each line (workflow_path). GitHub rounds every billable job up to a whole minute, at $0.006 a minute for a 2-core Linux runner. To cut the bill, start with the workflows at the top of that report: cancel superseded runs, skip runs that do not need to happen, and look at short jobs. If minutes are still the cost, a runner billed per second is another lever: Vitko Runners lists $0.002 a minute, billed per second; Vitko sells it and it is in private beta.
See your usage
- Personal account: open github.com/settings/billing. Organization: click Billing & Licensing under Access in the sidebar. Enterprise: the Billing & Licensing tab at the top.
- Open the Usage (metered usage) view. Use the filter box, the Group options and the time frame; the chart and the table follow your choices.
- For one run: open the repository’s Actions tab, the workflow, then the run, and click Usage under Run details to see its billable minutes.
- For everything: click Get usage report, then Email me the report. The link expires after 24 hours.
Sources: GitHub Docs, viewing your usage, billing reports reference and the page on viewing job execution time (read November 1, 2026).
What the usage report contains
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| date | Day the usage occurred (UTC) |
| sku | The specific SKU used, for example a runner type |
| quantity, unit_type | Amount used and its unit |
| applied_cost_per_quantity | Unit price |
| gross_amount, discount_amount, net_amount | Before discounts, discounts (including included minutes), and what is billable |
| repository, organization | Where the usage came from |
| workflow_path | Path of the workflow that generated the usage (detailed report only) |
The detailed report covers up to 31 days; the summarized report covers up to one year and leaves out workflow_path. Only one report can be requested per account at a time. GitHub removed the older workflow_name field: use workflow_path.
How GitHub counts the minutes
Billable job execution minutes are rounded up to the next minute, per job, and appear only for jobs on private repositories that use GitHub-hosted runners. A 20-second job costs a full minute: $0.01 for a 2-core Linux runner at the published rate of $0.006 a minute. For rates by plan and runner, see GitHub Actions pricing explained.
Ways to cut the bill
- Start with the top lines of the detailed report: sort by quantity or net_amount to see which workflows carry the most minutes, and fix those first.
- Cancel superseded runs. GitHub documents a concurrency group with
cancel-in-progress: true, which cancels the currently running job or workflow in the same group when a new one starts. - Skip runs that change nothing relevant. The
pathsfilter on push and pull_request runs a workflow only when a changed file matches;paths-ignoreskips it when every changed file matches an ignore pattern. - Combine very short jobs: each job is rounded up to a whole minute.
- Keep usage inside the minutes your plan includes: free minutes per plan.
- Set a budget with alerts so a spike shows up early: how to cap GitHub Actions spend.
- Compare a runner with a lower per-minute rate and no per-job rounding, using your own report (below).
A worked example: short jobs
10,000 jobs a month of 20 seconds each, on 2-core Linux, at list price with no included minutes on either side:
| GitHub-hosted 2-core Linux ($0.006 a minute, rounded up per job) | Vitko Runners ($0.002 a minute, per second) | |
|---|---|---|
| Billed minutes | 10,000 | 3,333 |
| Monthly cost | $60.00 | $6.67 |
This isolates the price and the rounding; it does not include the time a job takes on each runner. Vitko Runners offers Ubuntu 24.04 on x64, up to 2 vCPU and 8 GB, for private repositories; Arm, Windows, macOS and GPU jobs stay on GitHub. Measured time and cost on twelve workloads: cost per job (Vitko maintains that benchmark and sells one of the runners measured).
Price your own report on Vitko Runners
Download the usage report as above, then run vitko runners estimate usage-report.csv from the CLI. It runs on your computer, uploads nothing, and shows what your Linux x64 minutes would cost on Vitko Runners next to what GitHub charged. Or use the calculator.
Where do I see my GitHub Actions minutes usage?
In your billing overview: personal accounts at github.com/settings/billing, organizations under Billing & Licensing in the Access section of the sidebar. Open the Usage view, filter and group it, or click Get usage report and choose Email me the report; the download link goes to your primary email address and expires after 24 hours (GitHub Docs, read November 1, 2026).
How do I find which workflow uses the most minutes?
Request the detailed usage report. It covers up to 31 days and includes the workflow_path field, which names the workflow that generated the usage, along with repository, SKU, quantity and net_amount. The summarized report covers up to a year but has no workflow_path.
How does GitHub count Actions minutes?
Billable minutes are rounded up to the next minute for each job, and are shown only for jobs on private repositories that use GitHub-hosted runners. Public repositories and self-hosted runners have no billable minutes.
What is the quickest way to cut a GitHub Actions bill?
Find the workflows that account for the most minutes in the detailed report, then cancel superseded runs with a concurrency group, skip runs that do not need to happen with path filters, and look at very short jobs, because each is rounded up to a whole minute.
Can I price my usage on a cheaper runner before switching?
Yes. Vitko Runners’ vitko runners estimate command reads GitHub’s usage report on your own computer and shows what your Linux x64 minutes would cost at $0.002 a minute next to what GitHub charged. Vitko Runners is in private beta.
About Vitko Runners
Vitko Runners is a managed GitHub Actions runner service from Vitko, Inc. It costs $0.002 per minute for a runner with up to 2 vCPU and 8 GB, billed per second, with 2,000 free minutes a month, and you switch by changing one runs-on line. It is in private beta; join the waitlist at runners.vitko.inc. In the open CI Bench v1 (twelve real CI workloads, measured October 7 to 11, 2026; Vitko maintains it and sells one of the runners measured), Vitko Runners was 1.7x as fast as GitHub-hosted 2 vCPU on median job time, 2.3x with warm starts and test splitting, at 84% lower cost per job. Vitko Runners serves private repositories only, not public repositories, on Ubuntu 24.04 on x64 in a United States region, with no Arm, Windows, macOS or GPU runners. Facts, price and limits.