26 - Copilot Pricing 2026: Free, Pro, Pro+ and Premium Requests Deciphered

GitHub Copilot Pricing 2026: Let's Decipher Free, Pro, Pro+ and Premium Requests

April 2026 brought a drastic renovation of Copilot plans: stop signups (self-serve and Student), Opus removed from Pro, refunds offered to existing users, and a new cost architecture based on premium requests. If you're confused about which plan to choose, how cost multipliers work, and when Copilot is better than Claude Code, this guide will help you navigate the 2026 landscape with hard data.

In this article from the GitHub Copilot series, we analyze the complete pricing, the premium request system, the use cases for each tier, and the real ROI for an Italian developer.

1. April 2026: The Drastic Restructuring

On April 20, 2026, GitHub announced a radical restructuring of Copilot plans. This is not a simple price change, but a review of the commercial strategy with concrete consequences for all users.

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Plausible reasons

Why such a drastic renovation? Some key factors emerged in Q1 2026:

• Anthropic Opus Capacity: The Opus 4.7 model requires significant computing resources. GitHub has a response time SLA that could not be maintained with the growth of Opus users.
• Profitability:** Copilot Pro at $10/month is not sustainable with the percentage of users using Opus (which costs ~5x more than average). The negative margin prompted the restructuring.
• Cost redistribution:** Premium request multiplier pushes heavy users (Opus, o3) towards Pro+ ($39), increasing Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
• Claude Code Competition:** Anthropic launched Claude Code (Pro $20/month) which is competitive on RAG and code-first. GitHub had to react.
• Alignment with GitHub Copilot Enterprise:** Enterprise ($39/user) is the enterprise target. Business ($19/seat) is the target for SMEs. Pro+ ($39 no seat limit) is the target for individual power users.

2. The Five Plans of Copilot (April 2026+)

Copilot Free (Launch December 2024)

Il Free tiers it remains the free entry point and does not require a credit card. It was a success: it multiplied the user base by 4 in 4 months (from 1M to 4M estimated).

Fitness: Perfect for evaluating Copilot, learning, hobby projects. 50 chats/month = ~1.6 chats/day = 30 min of work with Copilot. Sufficient for simple tasks, insufficient for daily workflow.

Copilot Pro - $10/month (Suspended to New Signups from April 20)

Attention: On April 20, 2026, GitHub has suspended new signups for Copilot Pro. If you are a new user, you can no longer subscribe to Pro. Only existing users can keep the plan (but with refund for Opus).

Cosa è successo? Utenti Pro che usano Opus hanno ricevuto una comunicazione il 20 aprile: "Opus non è più incluso in Pro. Per continuare a usare Opus, upgrade a Pro+ ($39). Altrimenti, continua con i modelli disponibili e chiedi un refund."

Refund: GitHub offre refund pro-rata fino al 20 maggio 2026 per utenti che cancellano Pro a causa della rimozione di Opus. Molti utenti sono migrati a Pro+ o hanno cercato alternative (Claude Code, Cursor).

Copilot Pro+ - $39/mese (Nuovo)

Il nuovo piano flagship per power user individuali. È il prodotto che GitHub vuole spingere aggressivamente poiché ha il miglior margin.

Rapporto qualità-prezzo: 1.500 premium requests = $39. = $0.026 per request. Se usi Opus (10x cost), equivale a $0.26 per chat Opus. Per 150 chat Opus/mese = $39, che è il piano intero. Perfetto se usi Opus 10-15 volte al giorno.

Copilot Business - $19/seat/mese (Non-Individual)

Nota: Business non è disponibile come self-serve dal 22 aprile 2026. Richiede contatto con sales GitHub e minimo 5 seat.

Business vs. Pro+: If it's a team of 5 developers:

• Option A: 5× Copilot Pro+ = 5×$39 = $195/month (+ no audit, no IP indemnification)
• Option B: Copilot Business 5 seat = 5×$19 = $95/month (+ IP indemnification, audit logs, policy management)

Business is 50% cheaper for teams and includes compliance. The choice is obvious for SMEs. Pro+ is only for freelancers/single developers.

Copilot Enterprise - $39/user/month (Team Large)

Enterprise is the premium offering for companies with >100 developers or stringent compliance requirements.

3. The Premium Requests System: How It Works

The concept of premium request is the key to understanding pricing 2026. It is not a simple system, but a system dynamic multiplier which makes the cost of each chat variable depending on the model used.

Definition

Un premium request is a chat (conversation) request to the model. It is not tied to the number of tokens, computation time, or response length. It's simply: "I started a chat, count as 1 request."

The cost of that request varies depending on the model:

Premium Requests Multiplier Table

Practical Examples of Consumption

You have 300 premium requests in Copilot Pro (the new limit after reduction). How are they consumed?

Strategic Change: Why the Multiplier?

GitHub introduced the multiplier system for three reasons:

1. Incentive for low-cost models: Use unlimited GPT-4o instead of Opus to save money.
2. Compute-based dynamic pricing: Opus costs 10x more than Sonnet to compute; the multiplier reflects this.
3. Push towards higher tiers: If you consume Opus heavily, you're forced to Pro+ ($39). Increase ARPU.

4. Impact of Restructuring on Different Users

Free users

Impact: Nobody. 2,000 completions + 50 chats/month remaining.

Opportunity: If you were a Pro user confused by the change, you can downgrade to Free and evaluate whether it is sufficient for your workflow.

Existing Pro Users

Massive impact: This is the affected group. If you were registered before April 20th:

• Se DO NOT use Opus: Stay on Pro (but limit reduced from 300 to 250 requests). Virtually no impact if you use GPT-4o/Sonnet.
• Se use Opus regularly: Opus is REMOVED. You have two options:
  1. Upgrade to Pro+ ($39, +3.9x cost) and continues with full access to templates.
  2. Ask for refund (pro-rata until May 20th) and switches to alternatives (Claude Code, Cursor).

New Users

Critical Impact: You can NO longer subscribe to Pro. Your options are:

1. Copilot Free ($0) - Limited, but free evaluation
2. Copilot Pro+ ($39) - The new "Pro", 5x the cost of the old Pro
3. Copilot Business ($19/seat, minimum 5) - If you're a team
4. Alternative: Claude Code Pro ($20/month) - Fewer templates, but strong on RAG and code-first

Strategic implication: GitHub is eliminating the Pro “entry” price tier ($10). Pushes early adopters towards Pro+ ($39) or towards alternatives (Claude Code). It is an "upmarket" strategy that collects fewer users but with a higher revenue.

5. Direct Comparison: Copilot vs. Claude Code 2026

Copilot's restructuring creates an opportunity for Claude Code (Anthropic) to gain market share. Let's compare realistically.

When Copilot is convenient

• Full-stack web/mobile development: Copilot inline completions + chat is fast
• Multi-language support: 7+ models vs. 2 by Claude Code
• Team management: Business plan with audit, IP indemnification
• Enterprise governance: Enterprise plan with custom knowledge base

When it's convenient Claude Code

• Terminal-first workflow: Bash integration native, no IDE required
• RAG on project: @file mention + context manager vs. Copilot requiring Enterprise
• DevOps/Infrastructure: Bash scripts, Docker, Terraform - Claude Code is more comfortable
• Cost-sensitive (no Opus heavy): $20/month vs. $39
• Headless automation: Claude Code `--print` mode for CI/CD

Hybrid: When to Use Both

Many senior developers choose to use:

• Copilot Free (IDE completions always on) + Claude Code Pro ($20, RAG terminal)
• Total cost: $20/month, full coverage, no vendor lock-in
• Trade-off: No premium models (Opus at 10x cost), but Sonnet is enough for 90% of tasks

6. ROI Calculation: Is It Worth Paying?

Basic Data

Average Italian developer in 2026:

• Annual salary: 35,000 EUR (average net)
• Hourly cost: 35,000 / 1,760 hours = ~19.8 EUR/hour (gross, with contributions ~25 EUR/hour)
• Billing time (customer): 22 EUR/hour (margin take)
• Opportunity cost: If you save 1 hour, you can do another one which is worth 22 EUR

Average earnings with Copilot

Internal study GitHub (2024) and Anthropic (2025) suggest:

• Developers Copilot-savvy: +25-35% productivity vs. baseline
• Task dependent: Code completion boilerplate = +50%; architecting = +10%
• Sector: REST API Backend > DevOps > Frontend > Data Science

For an Italian developer who works 8 hours/day:

Conclusion on ROI

For Italian developers:

• Copilot Free: Always convenient (0 cost)
• Copilot Pro+ ($39): Cost effective IF you save ≥15 min/day (3.1x ROI). Realistic if focus on boilerplate/scaffolding.
• Claude Code Pro ($20): Cheaper alternative for terminal-first developers
• Hybrid (Copilot Free + Claude Code Pro): Best cost/benefit ratio for the majority

7. Best Practices to Minimize Consumption and Maximize Value

Weekly monitoring

• Go to GitHub Copilot Dashboard → **Usage**
• View premium requests consumed vs. available
• If trend = exhaustion within 25 days, change strategy

Context-Aware Switch Model

# Task Type → Model Scelto

TASK SEMPLICE (boilerplate, script, test):
  → GPT-4o (0x cost, illimitato)

TASK MEDIO (refactoring, bug fix, review):
  → Claude Sonnet (1x cost, bilanciato)

TASK COMPLESSO (architecting, review profondo):
  → o3 o Opus (2-10x cost, solo se necessario)

TASK REASONING (problem-solving matematico, logico):
  → o3-mini (0.33x cost, fast reasoning)

TASK URGENTE (production bug):
  → o3 (2x, reasoning completo = fix più sicuro)

TASK PROMO (fino 30 aprile):
  → Opus 4.7 (7.5x sconto, 40 chat per 300 budget)

Copilot Free for Simple Tasks

Idea: If you have access to Free tier, use it for warm-up tasks before paying for premium requests.

• Morning: Copilot Free for 50 chats = 50 simple tasks
• Afternoon: Pro+ premium requests only for complex tasks
• Savings: ~20 premium requests/day if well organized

Aggressive IDE Configuration

• VS Code Setting: `"copilot.enable.inline": false` if you don't need it → save on auto-trigger completions
• Chat-only mode: Request Copilot only via sidebar (Cmd+I), no inline suggestions
• Model selection UI: Add visible picker to select model before sending (no default Opus)

Batch Prompting

Instead of N separate chats, combine related questions into 1 chat:

• Wrong: 5 separate chats for 5 utility functions = 5 premium requests (1x each)
• Right: 1 multi-turn chat "Generate these 5 utility functions in one file" = 1 premium request + follow-up in the same chat
• Savings: 4 premium requests/batch

8. Conclusion: Navigating Pricing 2026

The April 2026 restructuring created a bifurcated market: on the one hand i power users who pay $39 (Pro+ or Enterprise) for unlimited access to premium templates; on the other i budget-conscious developer who choose Free or alternatives like Claude Code. The Intermediate tier Pro ($10) has disappeared deliberately to push upmarket.

Last tip: If you were a Pro user before April 20th and use Opus, the refund is available until May 20th 2026. Don't procrastinate.