GitHub just made Copilot more expensive — for some people. For others, they just locked the door.
On April 20, 2026, Microsoft paused new signups for Copilot Pro, Pro+, and Student plans. Then they removed Opus models from the Pro tier entirely and restricted Claude Opus 4.7 to Pro+ only. If you're trying to figure out which plan makes sense, or whether you can even sign up right now: here's the actual breakdown.
GitHub Copilot Pricing Tiers (April 2026)
| Plan | Price | Who It's For | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Individual devs, hobbyists | Available |
| Pro | $10/month | Working developers | New signups paused |
| Pro+ | $39/month | Power users, Opus access | New signups paused |
| Business | $19/seat/month | Teams, organizations | Available |
| Enterprise | $39/seat/month | Large organizations | Available |
Free gives you 2,000 code completions per month and 50 agent mode/chat requests. You get Haiku 4.5 and GPT-5 mini. Enough to kick the tires. Not enough for daily dev work.
Pro ($10/month) was the obvious starting point for working developers: unlimited completions, unlimited agent mode with GPT-5 mini, and 300 premium model requests per month. It was a reasonable deal. Notice the past tense — and notice "was."
Pro+ ($39/month) includes 1,500 premium requests monthly and GitHub Spark access. It's also, as of April 20, the only tier with access to Claude Opus 4.7.
Business ($19/seat/month) gets your team Copilot in the IDE, CLI, and GitHub Mobile, plus centralized license management and policy controls. The signup pause doesn't affect this tier.
Enterprise ($39/seat/month) is Business plus codebase indexing, custom fine-tuned models, and deeper customization controls. If you're running GitHub Enterprise at scale, this is where you land.
What Microsoft Just Changed
Three things happened at once on April 20, and they're all connected.
First, new signups for Pro, Pro+, and Student plans are paused. No timeline given. "Temporarily" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in Microsoft's official language. Existing subscribers keep their plans — nothing's being revoked.
Second, Opus models are gone from the Pro tier. If you'd built workflows around Opus inside GitHub Copilot at $10/month, those workflows are broken now. Microsoft confirmed the removal without much ceremony.
Third, Claude Opus 4.7 — Anthropic's current top model — is now exclusively available at the Pro+ tier. At $39/month.
Why the changes? Operational costs. Running large language models at scale is expensive, and Microsoft's inference costs have reportedly nearly doubled since January. The signup pause and model restrictions are cost management dressed up in product language. GitHub's free tier is still free. The $10 middle tier just got hollowed out.
Existing Pro users aren't being downgraded. But they've lost Opus access, and they can't share that plan with new teammates even if they wanted to.
Which Tier Makes Sense for You?
If you're evaluating Copilot for the first time: The Free tier is a real product, not a demo. 2,000 completions and 50 chat requests per month is enough to understand whether Copilot fits into your workflow. Start there. You can't sign up for Pro or Pro+ right now anyway, so the choice is made for you.
If you're an existing Pro subscriber: Check what models you were actually using. If Opus wasn't in your rotation — and honestly, most devs weren't defaulting to it — you're fine. Pro at $10/month is still a solid deal for completions and basic model access. If you were relying on Opus for complex reasoning or long-context tasks, you're either upgrading to Pro+ or shopping around.
Pro vs. Pro+: Is $10 to $39 worth it? That's $348/year extra. The math only works if you actually need Opus 4.7 or you're burning through your 300 monthly premium requests fast. The 5x request increase (1,500 vs. 300) is real value for heavy users. For everyone else, you're paying for ceiling you won't hit.
Business/Enterprise: The $19/seat Business tier is unaffected by the pause and coherently priced for what it delivers. If you're managing a team and your primary concern is IDE integration with organizational controls, this tier is available and stable. Enterprise at $39/seat earns its keep when you need codebase indexing and custom fine-tuned models — not before.
GitHub Copilot vs. Cursor AI
If the signup pause locked you out, or if losing Opus access broke something in your workflow, Cursor AI is the obvious place to look.
Cursor built its whole product around the IDE in a way GitHub Copilot hasn't. Cursor's recent xAI deal adds Grok models to an already competitive lineup. If you've been running into GitHub Copilot not working issues on top of the model changes, that's probably your signal.
GitHub Copilot wins on GitHub ecosystem integration — if you live in GitHub's pull request and code review workflow, Copilot is a tighter fit. Cursor wins on IDE depth and model flexibility. The pricing gap has also narrowed: Cursor's individual plans are competitive with Copilot Pro+, and they haven't paused signups.
Bottom Line
New developers: You can't sign up for Pro or Pro+ right now. Start with Free, learn your usage patterns, and revisit when signups reopen.
Existing Pro users who used Opus: Your workflow changed. Pro+ at $39/month is your Copilot option, or you look at alternatives. Cursor is the most direct comparison.
Existing Pro users who didn't use Opus: Stay where you are. $10/month is still fair for what Pro delivers.
Teams: Business at $19/seat is available, unaffected, and competitively priced. Sign up normally.
Power users: Pro+ at $39/month is where Opus 4.7 lives. If that model matters to your work, it's now the price of entry.
Microsoft's bet is that enough developers care about Opus access — or will eventually care — to justify the $39 price point. Whether that bet pays off depends entirely on how long the signup pause lasts and how the model access story evolves over the next few months.
Pricing reflects GitHub's published rates as of April 21, 2026. TechSifted has no affiliate relationship with GitHub or Microsoft.
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