Guide · prices read October 20, 2026
Third-party GitHub Actions runners cost comparison: price per minute and cost per job vs GitHub’s 2 vCPU runner
List price per minute for a 2 vCPU Linux runner from each provider’s own page, what rounding does to short jobs, and how to work out the cost per job.
In short
The cost per job of third-party GitHub Actions runners is their price per minute times the minutes billed, and listed 2 vCPU prices run from $0.0012 to $0.006 a minute against $0.006 for GitHub’s 2 vCPU runner. GitHub’s standard 2-core Linux runner costs $0.006 a minute, rounded up to a whole minute for every job; managed alternatives list the same size at between $0.0012 and $0.006 a minute, and the cost per job is that rate times the minutes billed, plus any plan fee. Vitko Runners costs $0.002 a minute billed per second, a third of GitHub’s rate. Vitko sells that runner, in private beta; every other figure below is the provider’s own published price.
List price per minute, 2 vCPU Linux
| Runner | Per minute | Cost of a 3-minute job | Notes and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub-hosted, standard 2-core Linux | $0.0060 | $0.018 | Each job is rounded up to a whole minute. GitHub Actions runner pricing |
| Vitko Runners, up to 2 vCPU and 8 GB | $0.0020 | $0.0060 | Billed per second, no per-job minimum, queue time not billed. 2,000 free minutes a month. Private beta. Vitko pricing |
| Depot, 2 vCPU Linux | $0.0060 | $0.018 | Plans start at $20 a month and include 2,000 runner minutes. Depot pricing |
| Blacksmith, Ubuntu x64 (2 vCPU) | $0.0040 | $0.012 | Add-ons such as sticky disks and static IPs are priced separately. Blacksmith pricing |
| WarpBuild, 2 vCPU 8 GB Linux x86-64 | $0.0040 | $0.012 | A bring-your-own-cloud option is listed at $0.002 a minute; snapshot and cache add-ons are priced separately. WarpBuild pricing |
| Ubicloud, 2 vCPU 8 GB standard | $0.0012 | $0.0036 | A premium tier is listed at $0.0020 a minute. Ubicloud GitHub Actions pricing |
Prices are each provider’s published list price for its entry-level 2 vCPU Linux x64 runner, read on October 20, 2026. They change; check the linked page. The last column of job cost assumes every runner takes the same three minutes. In practice durations differ, which is why the cost per job also depends on how fast a runner finishes.
Rounding and fixed fees change the answer
- GitHub rounds every job up to the nearest whole minute, so a 30-second job is billed as $0.006. On Vitko Runners it is billed for 30 seconds: $0.0010.
- Plan fees matter at low volume: Depot’s plans start at $20 a month; Vitko Runners has no seats.
- Add-ons such as persistent disks, cache storage, snapshots and static IPs are separate line items at several providers.
- Queue time: Vitko Runners does not bill it. Check what each provider bills while a job waits.
A worked example
5,000 jobs a month of 3 minutes each, at list price with included minutes ignored on every side: GitHub-hosted 2-core Linux costs $90.00 (15,000 minutes at $0.006); Vitko Runners costs $30.00 at $0.002 a minute. For measured time and cost per job across twelve open-source workloads, see CI Bench v1, which Vitko maintains and which publishes its method and raw data; results by runner and workload are on cibench.com.
What Vitko Runners includes
$0.002 a minute for up to 2 vCPU and 8 GB, billed per second with no per-job minimum, 2,000 free minutes a month, no seats and no sizes to pick. Switch by changing runs-on from ubuntu-latest to your Vitko label, issued per organization at onboarding (usually vitko-ubuntu-24.04). Ubuntu 24.04 on x64 only, private repositories, private beta. Related: GitHub Actions pricing explained, a cheaper alternative to GitHub-hosted runners, cap your spend.
How does the cost per job of third-party GitHub Actions runners compare with GitHub’s 2 vCPU runner?
GitHub’s standard 2-core Linux runner lists at $0.006 a minute, rounded up to a whole minute per job. Third-party managed runners list their 2 vCPU Linux runner between $0.0012 and $0.006 a minute on their own pricing pages (read October 20, 2026); Vitko Runners lists $0.002 a minute billed per second, a third of GitHub’s rate. Cost per job is the per-minute price times the minutes the job takes, so a runner that finishes sooner costs less again.
Does the lowest price per minute give the lowest cost per job?
Not always. Per-minute price ignores how long the job takes, how time is rounded, and plan fees or add-ons. Compare the price for your own jobs: minutes billed times the rate, plus fixed fees.
Does Vitko Runners have the lowest price per minute?
No. Ubicloud lists a lower standard rate for a 2 vCPU runner. Vitko Runners is a third of GitHub’s list price and bills per second.
Is there a charge from GitHub on top of a third-party runner?
Not today. GitHub announced a $0.002 a minute platform charge for self-hosted runners and postponed it with no new date. If it starts, it would appear on your GitHub bill in addition to the runner provider’s price.
How do I price my own usage on Vitko Runners?
Use the calculator on this site, or run vitko runners estimate on GitHub’s billing usage report. It runs on your computer and uploads nothing.
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.