Is GitHub Actions free?
./yes-with-limits --free-tier --2026
Yes, GitHub Actions is free, with limits. On public repositories and personal accounts it is completely free and unlimited. On private repositories the Free plan includes 2,000 Linux minutes per month plus 500 MB of artifact storage. Run past that and you either upgrade (Team is $4/user/month for 3,000 minutes, Enterprise $21/user for 50,000) or pay $0.006 per extra Linux 2-core minute. Windows minutes drain the quota twice as fast and macOS minutes ten times as fast.
GitHub Actions free-tier limits at a glance
Every GitHub Actions free limit in one place. The first three are the allowances you spend; the rest are hard caps that apply on the Free plan no matter how many minutes you have left.
Allowances per docs.github.com billing docs; hard caps per the docs.github.com usage-limits reference. Verified August 2026. Self-hosted runners have separate limits (a job may run up to 5 days; queued jobs drop after 24 hours).
What the free tier includes
Every GitHub plan ships with an Actions allowance. The Free plan is enough for solo developers and small private projects; teams that run more than a couple of pipelines a day usually exceed it within the month.
| Plan | Seat | Free Linux minutes / mo | Free storage | Public repos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 2,000 | 500 MB | Unlimited |
| Team | $4 / user | 3,000 | 2 GB | Unlimited |
| Enterprise | $21 / user | 50,000 | 50 GB | Unlimited |
Free-tier allowances per docs.github.com (about billing for GitHub Actions), verified August 2026. Included minutes are per account, not per user.
What counts against your free minutes
The 2,000-minute allowance is measured in Linux-equivalent minutes. Windows and macOS jobs are multiplied before they are deducted, so they eat the free tier far faster than the wall-clock time suggests.
| Runner | Multiplier | Free minutes you actually get | Overage rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux 2-core | 1x | 2,000 | $0.006 / min |
| Windows 2-core | 2x | 1,000 | $0.010 / min |
| macOS 3/4-core | 10x | 200 | $0.062 / min |
Multipliers deduct from the free quota; overage rates are the post-January-2026 all-in meter prices and include the $0.002/min platform charge. Source: docs.github.com, verified August 2026.
Beyond minutes: the other free-tier limits
The 2,000-minute quota is the limit people hit first, but it is not the only one. GitHub caps how long a single job can run, how many jobs run at once, and how large a matrix can get, regardless of how many minutes you have left. These apply on the Free plan too.
| Limit | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Max job run time | 6 hours | A single job on a GitHub-hosted runner is cancelled at 6 hours |
| Max workflow run time | 35 days | Total including queued and in-progress time, then it is failed |
| Concurrent jobs (Free) | 20 | Standard hosted runners; Team is 60, Enterprise Cloud 500 (Pro 40) |
| Matrix jobs / run | 256 | A matrix cannot expand to more than 256 jobs in one workflow run |
| GITHUB_TOKEN API calls | 1,000 / hr | Per repository, per hour, for the automatic workflow token |
Source: docs.github.com/actions (usage limits reference), verified August 2026. Self-hosted runners have their own limits (jobs queue for up to 24 hours; a self-hosted job may run up to 5 days).
When do you start paying?
A brand-new Free account has a $0 spending limit by default, so once you exhaust the included minutes your private-repo jobs simply stop until the next monthly reset, rather than running up a surprise bill. You have to raise the spending limit deliberately before any overage is charged.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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