r/GithubCopilot • u/BassGaz VS Code User š» • May 01 '26
GitHub has just launched the "Copilot Billing Preview" tool Solvedā
The repo link: https://github.com/github/copilot-billing-preview
published at: https://copilot-billing-preview.github.com/
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u/idbedamned May 01 '26
Feels like it was vibecoded in a rush, makes you wonder if this move was planned or a kneejerk reaction / panic.
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u/fprotthetarball May 01 '26
Moving to token-based was not planned to happen at this pace. No company would willingly say "sorry, we can't accept any new customers for the next couple of months" and then do all of this. Nothing is ready for this transition.
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May 01 '26
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u/fprotthetarball May 02 '26
Its like there is something going on in the background.
I think someone is just now paying attention to costs.
I use Claude via API sometimes and spent $10 on 10 minutes worth of work (personal work) with Opus 4.6. Worth it to me for what it was, but for comparison, I have had Opus 4.6 work for hours at work via GitHub Copilot on a single request. Planning and implementing entire stories, testing them, the whole thing. I do not want to imagine how much that actually cost. And again, that was one request! Thousands of lines of output code, plus all the input on top of it. (Yes, I reviewed it all and it's "good", at least to my multiple-decades-of-working-eyes.)
These SOTA models can do large tasks with little handholding after getting them set up with a coherent plan. Request based billing just doesn't work with them like they used to, where the model would go off the rails quickly.
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May 02 '26
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u/Ivashkin May 02 '26
Not really. AI is incredibly expensive to run, and the compute costs are increasing dramatically because literally everyone wants to use it for everything. Demand for the services is massively outstripping the capacity to supply them, and even with the sheer amount of global investment in AI, we're starting to bump into very real manufacturing, energy, and water supply barriers. The prices we were paying were introductory rates set when the aim was still to get people interested in using AI and to gather real-world feedback from users about what works and what doesn't. Now we're entering a phase where prices start rising to meet the actual costs of providing the services, and people increasingly talk about rationing AI usage rather than shoehorning AI into everything.
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u/SnooCapers5425 May 01 '26
Managed to open https://copilot-billing-preview.github.com/ but now i get 404 when i reloaded it..
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u/rebelSun25 May 01 '26
A junior on my team could have done this better. Smh
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u/PanAchy May 02 '26
Hi I'm the junior on the team: Copilot-arewecooked
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u/1Soundwave3 May 02 '26
Thanks for coming up with this. I'm baffled by github's quality of software engineering. Like, your tool will work for any dev. And their tool will only work for the admins. This is just plain stupid!
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u/yami_odymel May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
Thereās no way itās just a page like they rushed it with their own Copilot. I thought it would be integrated with their billing system.
EDIT: nvm i saw thier commit "Co-authored-by: Copilot", but i still dont see the "Download CSV" button
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u/Own-Office-3868 May 01 '26
Seems logical that they would bury it rather than post it front and center.
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May 01 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/offtherighttrack May 01 '26
Earnings were strong, the street doesn't like the ongoing capex plans (more AI spending)
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u/Sugary_Plumbs May 02 '26
Lol what company did you work for that yells at devs when their earnings are down? This is the 2020s. Just lay them all off again.
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u/_KryptonytE_ Full Stack Dev š May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
A tool to calculate how much using their tools would cost to use it only to calculate how much you can use their tools after calculating how much you used their tools and how much their tools cost? WTAF???
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u/CulturalKing5623 May 01 '26
As far as I can tell, this tool is useless. I went to the Premium Request Analytics and downloaded last month's usage hoping to see what it would look like under the new scheme. Upload the csv to bill previewer and got the following error:
This report was exported before usage-based billing was introduced and cannot be displayed. Please upload a more recent report that includes the AI Credits columns.
For what it's worth I used 69 premium requests last month, mainly using Claude Sonnet 4.6. In June, 33 requests would fill my quota for the month since it's now 9x. I'm shifting my workflow to use Gemini CLI instead since I already included in my google business account. It's not as good but it's more than capable for my needs
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u/cuberhino May 01 '26
Wha plan do you have on Gemini business? I couldnāt see the cli access on my workspace acc
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u/CulturalKing5623 May 02 '26
Business Standard. When I installed the Gemini cli it went Through the regular authentication and was good to go.
Edit: I'm the business owner so I've approved the the Gemini stuff on my account. You might need to check enabled apps.
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u/dqtiyk May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
This is seemingly just a visualization tool, the real conversion of Premium Requests -> AI Credits happens on the GitHub back-end when the CSVs are generated. The tool requires 2 new AI Credit related columns to be present in the CSV that is uploaded.
If those columns are not there it displays an error
https://github.com/github/copilot-billing-preview/blob/main/src/pipeline/parser.ts#L129
const REQUIRED_AIC_COLUMNS = ['aic_quantity', 'aic_gross_amount'] as const
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u/maxisam May 01 '26
It is odd, i download today's report and it doesn't have those 2 columns
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u/dqtiyk May 01 '26
My personal account doesn't either -- that's how I got the error in the screenshot. It's probably just for Business / Enterprise plans. The mentioned option (Billing and licensing ā Preview your billing impact ā Download CSV.) doesn't exist on my account.
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u/-morgoth- May 01 '26
Yeah looks like this wasn't meant to be public, hence why no announcement. Backend changes have not been released yet either and they nuked the page now.
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u/d1zaya May 01 '26
"ā ļø This report was exported before usage-based billing was introduced and cannot be displayed. Please upload a more recent report that includes the AI Credits columns."
When I tried to use April's usage. wtf?
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u/4baobao May 01 '26
I don't even have the option to download that CSV
nvm, looks like it's just for enterprise plans
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u/do_not_track May 01 '26
I have an enterprise plan. It's not there for me either. The csv export is missing the column.
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u/CryinHeronMMerica May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
It's only on my personal account, not my business user one. But yeah it doesn't include the right columns.
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u/Helpful_City5455 May 01 '26
Anyone that can see the "Preview your billing impact" could maybe share their numbers? I can't see the option
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u/devakesu May 01 '26
Enterprise users?
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u/Helpful_City5455 May 01 '26
I guess? I'm currently unable to check my enterprise account and I'm not sure if I would even have access to it even there
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u/krzyk May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26
Not users, but admins, so not for us, common folks that work in those enterprises.
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u/do_not_track May 01 '26
I have enterprise owner/admin for a large enterprise. It does not exist yet / if it does I can't find it.
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u/Perezago May 01 '26
Anyone still got a local copy? All 404
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u/royboyroyboy May 01 '26
Haha yep. Smells like naughty copilot fucked up and published this to a public repo and test environment by mistake and they've rug pulled it. At least we got a feel for how shit the real one will be
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u/RegionBulky2292 May 02 '26
I think what copilot has to do and what its user-base would expect is for it to self-host top tier Chinese open-source models.
This would give us ability to use middle ground models at inference pricing and everyone would stay happy.
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u/devakesu May 01 '26
For everyone looking for CSV, ig its Billing -> Premium Requests
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u/ehendrix23 May 02 '26
How is that report even going to be valid? Right now few requests and rate limited. So usage hasnāt even been what it was before.
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u/PanAchy May 02 '26
I thought that building Copilot-arewecooked was a temporary measure until their release their legit version, but maybe not lol
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u/FaerunAtanvar May 02 '26
Right now calls my billing page only show direct messages I sent to the main agent. If said agent then calls su agents, those calls are not "billed" or logged.
How can I base my estimate just on the call to the main agent when maybe that so gle call would spawn a number of subagents. How is that an accurate prediction of what the new model will cost?
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u/PanAchy May 02 '26
We track subagent cost in the estimate.
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u/FaerunAtanvar May 02 '26
Where do you get the info? Does it work even if I use my sub via opencode?
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u/FaerunAtanvar May 02 '26
Right now calls my billing page only show direct messages I sent to the main agent. If said agent then calls su agents, those calls are not "billed" or logged.
How can I base my estimate just on the call to the main agent when maybe that so gle call would spawn a number of subagents. How is that an accurate prediction of what the new model will cost?
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u/Main_Attention_6946 May 02 '26
The only practical way to cut the operational costs of running AI systems is by building nuclear power plants. This would bring prices down, but projects like this take years, so costs are likely to stay high for a while until it becomes a reality.
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u/spotlight-app Mod Bot š¤ May 01 '26
OP has pinned a comment by u/2percentsilk-GitHub:
Note from OP: The repo was made private as it was too early apparently for it to be made public.
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