CI build minutes cost calculator
How many CI minutes does your pipeline burn — and what might it cost on GitHub Actions, GitLab, or CircleCI? Defaults assume a small team running Linux builds several times a day.
Enter zero or positive numbers for builds and duration.
Estimated monthly usage
Platform comparison
| Platform | Plan | Included | Overage min | Est. overage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-hosted runners on GitHub Actions are free for minute billing — you pay for the machine (VPS, bare metal, etc.). macOS hosted runners bill at 10× Linux minutes; Windows at 2×.
Public repositories on GitHub often get unlimited Actions minutes for standard runners — this calculator assumes private-repo billing.
Official pricing:GitHub Actions,GitLab,CircleCI.
About this tool
CI minutes are easy to ignore until the invoice arrives — especially when macOS builds or slow test suites multiply usage. This estimates monthly billed minutes (with OS multipliers) and rough overage cost across three common platforms.
Numbers are simplified mid-2026 snapshots. Enterprise discounts, cache hits, concurrency limits, and resource-class multipliers are not modeled — use this for order-of-magnitude planning, not procurement.
Read more
- Deploy to Fly via GitHub action — CI pipeline that burns minutes every push
- Deploy to Netlify with git submodules via GitHub Actions — heavier workflows add up
- Benefits of using Git and GitHub as a solo dev — when free tiers are enough
- What's the best platform to deploy your projects? — CI/CD bundled vs roll-your-own