GitHub Copilot premium requests are about to matter for your budget. Starting December 2, 2025, GitHub will remove the auto‑created $0 premium‑request budgets from Enterprise and Team accounts that existed before August 22, 2025. Once that happens, your org’s “premium request paid usage” policy becomes the gate: enabled means overages can be billed; disabled means premium access is blocked when the included allowance is used up. If you haven’t reviewed this setting, you might be minutes away from unexpected invoices—or, worse, developer outages when premium models suddenly stop.
What exactly is changing on December 2?
Until now, many older Enterprise and Team accounts were protected by a default, account‑level $0 budget for Copilot premium requests. That guardrail is being removed and replaced with a policy switch: allow paid premium requests (enabled) or block them when you hit your allowance (disabled). If you want a hard cap, you can still set plan or SKU budgets above $0 to define the ceiling. If you want zero surprise bills, set the policy to disabled and add a realistic budget guardrail later.
There’s another nuance worth flagging. GitHub is splitting premium‑request accounting across dedicated SKUs for certain AI products, starting with the coding agent and Spark. That’s good for visibility and chargeback, but it also means your historical “one budget” won’t cover everything going forward unless you update it.
What are GitHub Copilot premium requests?
Premium requests are metered actions that use higher‑cost models or features—think richer agent workflows, multi‑file edits, code review, or specific third‑party models. On paid plans, you get unlimited chat and completions with included models, but when you switch to a premium model or feature, you start debiting from your monthly premium‑request allowance. Run out, and Copilot either blocks premium usage or bills overage, depending on your policy and budgets.
Model multipliers apply. A “1×” model consumes one premium request per interaction. Some heavy models consume more (for example, a 10× model would burn ten requests per message). That’s why teams that default to premium models can chew through allowances in days.
How many premium requests do you get per plan?
Here’s the current monthly allowance by plan (per user unless noted), plus the included chat/completions context you can use without touching premiums:
- Copilot Free: 50 premium requests; limited chat and completions.
- Copilot Pro: 300 premium requests; unlimited chat/completions with included models.
- Copilot Pro+: 1500 premium requests; unlimited chat/completions with included models.
- Copilot Business: 300 premium requests per user; unlimited chat/completions with included models.
- Copilot Enterprise: 1000 premium requests per user; unlimited chat/completions with included models.
Unused premium requests don’t roll over, and counters reset at 00:00:00 UTC on the first of each month.
How much does a premium request cost?
Over your allowance, premium requests bill at $0.04 each. Multipliers apply to the per‑interaction math, so a 10× model interaction costs ten requests (i.e., $0.40) if you’re in overage. Spark prompts, for instance, currently consume four premium requests per prompt—so $0.16 per prompt in overage scenarios. The coding agent also pulls from this bucket, and it can consume GitHub Actions minutes during agent‑driven tasks. If Actions minutes are scarce, you might throttle the agent regardless of premium‑request headroom.
Primary keyword: GitHub Copilot premium requests—do they affect included models?
No—on paid plans, included models (for example, GPT‑4.1 and GPT‑4o) don’t consume premium requests. Premium requests kick in when you opt into specific premium models or features, or when an agent or tool requires them. On Free, almost all chat interactions count as premium requests, which is why Free users hit limits early.
Will my costs actually go up?
It depends on defaults, behavior, and policy. Let’s run a few quick scenarios:
Scenario A: Copilot Business with premium usage allowed by policy. Your team mostly uses included models for chat and completions, and switches to a 1× premium model a couple of times per day. At 300 requests per user per month, many devs won’t ever hit overage. Your cost is stable—unless power users ratchet up agent sessions or start using higher‑multiplier models.
Scenario B: Copilot Business, three power users rely on high‑multiplier models. They burn through 300 requests during the first week and keep building with premium models. Expect metered charges. If their usage regularly tops ~800 requests per month each, Copilot Enterprise can be cheaper than sustained overage.
Scenario C: Copilot Enterprise, policy disabled. Nothing bills over allowance—but premium models stop when devs run out. You’ll avoid surprise costs but risk productivity hits mid‑sprint. Often the right answer is a small budget cap and good defaults (auto‑model selection) to stretch the allowance.
People also ask: What happens if we disable paid premium usage?
Premium features and models will hard stop when a developer hits their monthly allowance. Included models still work. If you’re doing a controlled rollout or preparing a budget, turning paid usage off is a safe default—just communicate the behavior to your team and offer a request path to get a temporary budget bump when needed.
People also ask: How do we see who’s burning requests?
Admins can download usage reports from billing settings and track premium‑request consumption by user, org, and (increasingly) by dedicated SKU. Developers can also see remaining premium requests in their IDE via Copilot’s status indicator. Combine both views for a weekly pulse check.
People also ask: Do we need to budget per tool now?
Yes, that’s where the dedicated SKUs come in. Coding agent and Spark already report against their own premium‑request SKUs, with more tools expected to follow. It’s a win for chargeback and alerts—but only if you actually create those budgets.
A 30‑minute Copilot Cost Guardrail Playbook
Grab an admin and a finance partner. Set a timer. You can ship these guardrails before lunch.
1) Decide your default policy (5 minutes)
Pick one:
- Block overage for now (set premium request paid usage to disabled). This eliminates surprise bills and buys time to analyze usage.
- Allow overage with a cap. Enable paid usage but add per‑SKU budgets (coding agent, Spark) and a modest account‑level ceiling. You can raise caps later.
2) Set plan‑appropriate budgets (5 minutes)
Create budgets that reflect reality. If most Business users never exceed 150 premium requests, set a low budget cap. For Enterprise teams that routinely use agents, align budgets with actual monthly need (e.g., 800–1200 per power user) and monitor for drift.
3) Turn on model governance (5 minutes)
Publish a simple model policy for your IDEs and repos: included models by default; allow premium models for code review, refactors, or multi‑file edits; require justification (or a label) for 10× models. If your team uses auto model selection in Copilot Chat, keep it on—there’s a small multiplier discount and fewer accidental upgrades to heavier models.
4) Tame the coding agent + Actions minutes (5 minutes)
Review your GitHub Actions minutes: many orgs forget that the coding agent consumes them during agent tasks. If minutes are tight, consider:
- Running agents on self‑hosted runners for heavy tasks.
- Putting max‑duration limits on agent sessions.
- Using the agent for repetitive, bounded chores (dependency bumps, test fixes), not open‑ended refactors.
5) Create dedicated SKUs and alerts (5 minutes)
Add separate budgets for the coding agent and Spark. Set email and Slack alerts at 50/80/100% thresholds. If you charge back internally, tag the budget names with cost centers.
6) Train the team with one page (3 minutes)
Post a single page in your handbook: included vs premium models, when to use premium, how to check remaining requests in‑IDE, and how to request a temporary budget bump.
7) Review weekly (2 minutes)
In your eng leads’ meeting, scan the usage report. If one dev is burning 10× models all day, coach on workflow or bump them to Enterprise if it’s actually productive.
Practical, real‑world tips from running this in production
Make “included model first” the default everywhere. Most code chat, tests, and small refactors are fine on included models. Save premium for the tasks that actually warrant it—deep code review on critical services, multi‑file edits, or agent‑driven chores that would otherwise take hours.
Enforce model hints in PR templates. A simple checkbox—“Used premium model? yes/no; why?”—changes behavior immediately and gives managers a paper trail when budgets go fast.
Segment licenses by behavior, not title. Your staff engineer who spends all day spelunking legacy services may deserve Enterprise; others may be perfectly fine on Business. If a Business user repeatedly exceeds ~800 premium requests per month, Enterprise often pencils out versus paying per‑request overages.
Don’t forget privacy and SSO. As you expand access to premium models and agents, make sure your SSO, file exclusion rules, and knowledge base permissions are tight. You’re not just managing cost—you’re managing risk.
The numbers developers keep asking for
• Cost per premium request: $0.04 over your allowance.
• Spark prompt cost in overage: four premium requests (i.e., $0.16 per prompt).
• Counters reset: 00:00:00 UTC on the first day of each month.
• Business allowance: 300 per user; Enterprise allowance: 1000 per user.
• Free: 50 per month; Pro: 300; Pro+: 1500.
• Included models on paid plans (e.g., GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4o) don’t consume premium requests; heavier models do, with multipliers.
Risks, limitations, and edge cases
• Multiple licenses: if a user belongs to multiple orgs, they need to pick the “Usage billed to” entity or their premium requests may appear to vanish. Educate your power users.
• Mobile in‑app purchases: individuals who subscribed via mobile may not be able to buy extra requests; migrate to web billing if needed.
• Dedicated SKUs: premium usage for coding agent and Spark now tracks separately; you must create budgets for each to keep alerts honest.
• Rate limits and model lineup: included models and multipliers can change. Build alerts and review usage weekly, not quarterly.
What to do next (this week)
• Before Tuesday, Dec 2, 2025: verify your premium‑request paid‑usage policy. Decide: disabled (block overage) or enabled (allow) with caps.
• Create budgets today: account‑level cap plus dedicated SKUs for coding agent and Spark.
• Audit usage reports: identify power users; move heavy users to Enterprise or give them a larger budget.
• Ship a one‑page team guide: defaults, how to check remaining requests, and how to request a bump.
• Set alerts at 50/80/100%. Tie them to Slack channels owned by eng leads, not just finance.
Zooming out: treat AI like any other cloud line item
AI tooling is quickly becoming the new “compute and storage” line in your budget. You wouldn’t run EC2 without guardrails; don’t run Copilot without them either. The happy path is simple: good defaults, visible budgets, weekly reviews, and clear guidance on when to reach for premium models. Done right, you’ll reduce the fear of surprise bills while keeping developers unblocked.
If you want help standing this up fast, our team has shipped similar guardrails for clients rolling out Copilot, Actions, and model‑based tooling. See how we work on the what we do page, and if you’re optimizing cloud and AI spend together, our take on platform costs in Cloudflare containers pricing pairs well with this playbook. If your concern is resilience when agents touch CI/CD, skim our resilience playbook. And if you liked deadline‑driven checklists, our npm token migration guide shows how we run tight rollouts under pressure.
FAQ your CFO will ask
Can we cap spend to exactly $0 and avoid every charge?
Yes, set premium request paid usage to disabled and remove any non‑zero premium budgets. Just know that developers will hit a hard stop when they exhaust their allowance. If that’s too blunt, set a small budget (e.g., $20) and monitor alerts.
How do we compare Copilot Business overages vs Enterprise seats?
Do a simple crossover analysis: if a Business user often exceeds ~800 premium requests per month, an Enterprise seat typically wins on cost and convenience. That also unlocks better governance (knowledge bases, deeper code review) many teams value.
Will auto‑model selection really save us money?
It helps by keeping developers on included models most of the time and only elevating when the context warrants it. In practice, it reduces “oops I left it on that expensive model” waste and makes the allowance stretch further.
Do we need separate budgets for each AI tool?
Yes. With dedicated SKUs, budgets and alerts per tool (coding agent, Spark, and whatever ships next) give you clean reporting and fewer surprises. Treat them like separate micro‑services in your FinOps dashboards.
Final thought
This isn’t about turning Copilot off—it’s about turning your org’s defaults from “surprise” to “intentional.” Make a call on policy, set smart caps, coach model choices, and check the report once a week. Your developers keep moving, and your finance team keeps breathing. That’s a win.
