GitHub will begin charging for self-hosted action runners on March 2026
Source: Hacker News
Pricing updates
On January 1, 2026, GitHub will reduce the price of GitHub‑hosted runners by up to 39 % — depending on the machine type used — as described in the GitHub Actions runner pricing documentation. The free usage‑minute quotas will remain the same.
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. Any usage subject to this charge will count toward the minutes included in your plan, as explained in the GitHub Actions billing documentation. Runner usage in public repositories will remain free, and there will be no changes in price structure for GitHub Enterprise Server customers.
Deeper investment in the Actions self‑hosted experience
We are increasing our investment into the self‑hosted experience to ensure we can provide autoscaling for scenarios beyond just Linux containers. This will include new approaches to scaling, new platform support, Windows support, and more over the next 12 months.
For more details about the product investments we’re making in Actions, please visit our Executive Insights page.
Recommended resources
- For answers to common questions about this change, see the FAQ in our post on GitHub’s Executive Insights page.
- See the GitHub Actions runner pricing documentation for the new GitHub‑hosted runner rates effective January 1 2026.
- For more details on upcoming GitHub Actions releases, see the GitHub public roadmap.
- For help estimating your expected Actions usage cost, use the newly updated Actions pricing calculator.
- If you are interested in moving existing self‑hosted runner usage to GitHub‑hosted runners, see the SHR to GHR migration guide in our documentation.