What GitHub announced
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 16 Dec 2025 | GitHub announced a $0.002 per minute platform fee for self-hosted runner usage in private repositories, to start on 1 Mar 2026. Public repositories stay free. |
| 17 Dec 2025 | GitHub postponed the fee. |
| 5 Oct 2026 | GitHub has postponed the fee and has announced no new date. |
Sources: GitHub changelog, 16 Dec 2025 · GitHub community discussion, 17 Dec 2025.
The arithmetic
Private repositories only. Jobs in public repositories stay free. The fee is charged per runner-minute. A runner that is busy all month uses every minute of the month:
30 days × 24 h × 60 min = 43,200 min / month
43,200 min × $0.002/min = $86.40 / monthA Mac host often runs 2 macOS VMs at a time. Each VM is one runner, so the minutes add up per slot, not per machine.
| Load | Runner-minutes | Fee / month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 slot, | 43,200 | $86.40 |
| 2 slots, | 86,400 | $172.80 |
| 2 slots, | 21,120 | $42.24 |
| 4 slots, | 172,800 | $345.60 |
How ushr prices
ushr Pro charges US$49 per month for up to 3 hosts, plus US$19 per month for each extra host. The price does not change with job minutes or with the number of slots on a host. The free tier covers 1 host and 1 GitHub scope (an organisation, or a repository on a personal account). A paid workspace serves any number of scopes.
ushr runners are GitHub self-hosted runners. If GitHub starts to charge the fee, GitHub will charge it for jobs on ushr hosts too. ushr does not remove the fee. The ushr part of your bill stays flat and known in advance.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| GitHub fee, | $172.80 |
| ushr | US$49.00 on Pro (or US$0 on the free tier) |
Next steps
Moving from Cirrus Runners? Read the Cirrus Runners migration guide. To see what ushr sends to its control plane, read the security page.