The foundation of your bill is the number of user accounts using your organization or enterprise.
GitHub uses a unique-user licensing model. With the GitHub Enterprise plan, you're entitled to use both GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Enterprise Server. Your GitHub Enterprise Cloud allowance includes one deployment, on either GitHub.com or GHE.com.
GitHub determines how many licensed seats you're consuming based on the number of unique users across your deployments. Each user only consumes one license, no matter how many GitHub Enterprise Server instances the user uses, or how many organizations the user is a member of on your GitHub Enterprise Cloud deployment. This model allows each person to use multiple GitHub Enterprise deployments without incurring extra costs.
To ensure the same user isn't consuming more than one license for multiple enterprise deployments, you can synchronize license usage between your GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud environments. See About licenses for GitHub Enterprise.
In addition to licensed seats, your bill may include other charges, such as GitHub Advanced Security. See About billing for your enterprise.
Two billing models for GitHub Enterprise licenses
With usage-based billing, you pay for the number of licenses you use each month. You do not need to buy a predefined number of licenses in advance. See, About usage-based billing for licenses.
You are already enrolled in usage-based billing if you created a trial of GitHub Enterprise Cloud on or after August 1, 2024.
If you currently pay for your GitHub Enterprise licenses by invoice with a volume, subscription, or prepaid agreement, you will continue to be billed in this way until your agreement expires. At renewal, you have the option to switch to the metered billing model.
People that consume a license
Note
If your enterprise uses managed user accounts, the outside collaborator role is called "repository collaborator." Generally, the documentation for outside collaborators also applies to repository collaborators. For the distinctions that apply, see "Roles in an organization."
GitHub bills for the following accounts for each deployment of GitHub Enterprise.
Accounts that consume a license on GitHub Enterprise Cloud
GitHub bills for each of the following accounts on GitHub Enterprise Cloud:
- Enterprise owners who are a member or owner of at least one organization in the enterprise
- Organization members, including owners
- Outside collaborators on private or internal repositories owned by your organization, excluding forks
- Dormant users who are a member or owner of at least one organization in the enterprise
If your enterprise does not use Enterprise Managed Users, you will also be billed for each of the following accounts:
- Anyone with a pending invitation to become an organization owner or member
- Anyone with a pending invitation to become an outside collaborator on private or internal repositories owned by your organization, excluding forks
Note
- GitHub counts each member or outside collaborator once for billing purposes, even if the user account has membership in multiple organizations in an enterprise or access to multiple repositories owned by your organization.
- If an invitee does not accept the invitation within seven days, the pending invitation expires automatically. If a SCIM request from your identity provider (IdP) generates the invitation, the invitation will not expire.
- Inviting an outside collaborator to a repository using their email address temporarily uses an available seat, even if they already have access to other repositories. After they accept the invite, the seat will be freed up again. However, inviting them using their username does not temporarily use a seat.
GitHub does not bill for any of the following accounts:
- Managed user accounts that are suspended
- Enterprise owners who are not a member or owner of at least one organization in the enterprise, except for the user who set up the enterprise
- Enterprise billing managers
- Billing managers for individual organizations
- Anyone with a pending invitation to become a billing manager
- Anyone with a pending invitation to become an outside collaborator on a public repository owned by your organization
- Guest collaborators who are not organization members (see Roles in an enterprise)
- Users of Visual Studio subscriptions with GitHub Enterprise whose accounts on GitHub are not linked, and who do not meet any of the other criteria for per-user pricing
- Users who have been provisioned with a managed user account, but are not members of any organizations in the enterprise
Accounts that consume a license on GitHub Enterprise Server
After a user successfully authenticates to a GitHub Enterprise Server instance for the first time, the user consumes a seat.
Suspended users are not counted when calculating the number of licensed users consuming seats. For more information, see "Suspending and unsuspending users" in the GitHub Enterprise Server documentation.
Dormant users do occupy a seat license. Administrators can suspend dormant users to free licenses. For more information, see "Managing dormant users" in the GitHub Enterprise Server documentation.
About changes to your subscription
If you use usage-based billing, you can reduce the number of licenses you use by removing users from your enterprise account. See Removing a member from your enterprise.
If you use an enterprise account and have questions about changes to your subscription, contact GitHub's Sales team.
If you use an individual organization on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, you can upgrade or downgrade your subscription. See Upgrading your account's plan or Downgrading your account's plan. If you have questions about your subscription, you can contact us through the GitHub Support portal.