GitHub is no longer pretending: The era of cheap AI programming is over, and from now on, charges will be based on tokens.

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Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot is officially bidding farewell to the era of “burning money subsidies.” This shift in its billing model is redefining the value boundaries of AI programming tools —— Large enterprises may be able to absorb it, but small and medium-sized developers and individual users are facing a real cost shock.

GitHub Copilot will switch its billing method from a fixed subscription model to a dynamic token-based usage model starting June 1. This means users will no longer pay a fixed monthly fee, but will be charged based on the actual number of tokens consumed. This change has triggered widespread dissatisfaction in the developer community, with some users reporting monthly bills rising dozens of times.

For small teams and individual developers who rely on Copilot to complete daily development tasks, this adjustment directly affects their tool usage strategies and cost budgets. Some users have already stated they will cancel their subscriptions, AI assisted programming tools’ payment logic is undergoing a round of market repricing.

Bills soar, community explodes

The shockwave of the new billing rules rapidly spread across Reddit and X and other platforms.

A Reddit user stated, their current monthly fee is about $29, but the new usage-based model will cause their monthly cost to soar to nearly $750. " The new usage model is outrageously expensive. My solution is to cancel my subscription. This price is neither cost-effective nor does it have any practical use value. " Another user posted a screenshot showing their bill jumping from about $50 to approximately $3,000, and commented " Never expected the new pricing to be this absurd " .

These numbers sound extremely exaggerated, but the problems they reflect are real: under the old fixed-rate system, some users were accustomed to high-intensity, high-frequency AI calls; the new model exposes the true costs of this behavior.

"Vibe Coding" — who should pay the bill?

Not all developers are critical of the price hike. Some users believe the root of the soaring bills is users themselves lacking restraint.

"After working all day, my usage is barely over, but some people’s screenshots look like a whole different world. I have a hard time believing it’s just the difference in workload complexity, " a user wrote. " Only pure ' vibe coding ' — repeatedly generating large amounts of redundant iterations — causes such crazy usage. If you just use it as a tool, it’s completely affordable for small teams. "

This debate targets the recent phenomenon of "vibe coding" —— users lacking deep programming knowledge rely on AI to massively generate and repeatedly modify code, consuming tokens at an intense rate. Critics believe this usage is essentially consuming high-cost computing resources with low-price subscription plans.

Microsoft once encouraged "free usage " — now changes the rules

However, some voices point to Microsoft itself. Some developers indicate that it was Microsoft’s product design and market strategy that encouraged high-intensity use, but now unilaterally changes the rules.

"All the blame directed at users ignores the fact: these people are just using it the way Microsoft built the system, and even as Microsoft encouraged, " a user wrote. " Microsoft provided this billing model, kept making high-token advanced requests easier to run, which can last for hours or days and spawn dozens or hundreds of sub-agents. "

This touches on a deeper issue: AI tools in the promotion stage use low prices or subsidies for market penetration, but after users become dependent, then switch to pricing models reflecting true costs. What does this path mean for the developer ecosystem? Another Reddit user’s question is just as sharp: " My god, Copilot how much money did it lose? "

There is currently no public data on how much Microsoft previously subsidized users’ high-intensity usage.

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