"My Copilot bill went from \$29 to \$750 overnight" - Reddit, May 2026
Tomorrow, June 1st, GitHub Copilot kills flat-rate pricing. In case you missed it: no more \$10/month unlimited. You now pay per token.
And developers are panicking.
The Math Is Brutal
If you're a heavy Copilot user, here's what's coming:
- Light user (inline completions only): \$15-30/month - manageable
- Medium user (completions + chat): \$80-200/month - painful
- Heavy user (multi-file edits, agent mode): \$300-750+/month - catastrophic
Reddit's r/github is flooded. HN is flooded. Some devs are cancelling immediately.
My Take: It's a Forced Upgrade
Microsoft knows enterprise teams won't blink at \$200/month. Individual devs are the collateral damage. They're not the target anymore.
But here's what nobody's talking about: Copilot's pricing change is actually making developers MORE valuable, not less. Why? Because the ones who know WHEN to use AI vs WHEN to code manually will have a massive cost advantage.
3 Things Every Dev Should Do Now
- Set a spending cap - GitHub lets you limit monthly token spend. Do it TODAY before you wake up to a shock.
- Test one free alternative - Codeium, Tabby, or Continue.dev + local LLM. Just see how it feels.
- Understand your repos before burning tokens - Use analysis tools so you're not asking AI to explain code you could read.
I built a quick tool for #3 - a simple repo analyzer that shows you stars, tech stack, and activity before you go deep with AI assistance. Free, no signup: GitHub Repo Analyzer
Question for the community: Are you cancelling Copilot tomorrow, setting a cap and waiting, or already on an alternative? Drop your plan below.
I'm genuinely curious where everyone lands on this.
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