GitHub Actions pricing 2026: Linux $0.006, macOS $0.062 per minute

GitHub Actions is free for public repositories and metered by the minute for private ones, with a different rate for every runner type. This page puts all the rates in one place. It explains how included minutes really get used. And it shows why the macOS line is the one that ends up on the invoice.

The per-minute rates

These are GitHub's published rates for hosted runners on private repositories. They are per minute of wall-clock time. Every job is rounded up to the next minute:

  Linux 2-core (x64)          $0.006
  Linux 2-core (arm64)        $0.005
  Windows 2-core              $0.010
  macOS 3-core / 4-core       $0.062
  macOS 12-core               $0.077
  macOS 5-core (M2 Pro)       $0.102

Two things stand out. A standard macOS minute costs about ten times a Linux minute, and the largest macOS runner costs about seventeen times. Everything else on the invoice is small next to that column.

Building iOS or macOS apps? That macOS column is where a dedicated Mac pays off. A flat $139 a month M6 runner covers about 2,242 metered minutes, and every build after that costs nothing. It works with GitHub Actions through a two-line change to your workflow. See pricing, or try it for a day with a day pass.

How included minutes really work

Paid plans include a block of minutes each month, roughly 2,000 on Free, 3,000 on Team and 50,000 on Enterprise. The catch is that the allowance is counted in Linux-equivalent minutes. A macOS minute consumes ten included minutes and a Windows minute consumes two. A single ten-minute iOS build therefore uses a hundred minutes of a 3,000-minute allowance.

In practice, an iOS team on the Team plan uses up its allowance in the first week or two. It pays the metered rate for the rest of the month. The included minutes are not a discount on macOS work so much as a short grace period.

What a real month looks like

Take a small team that runs a 12-minute test suite on every pull request, about 20 pushes a working day. That is roughly 5,000 macOS minutes a month:

  5,000 min  x  $0.062  =  $310/mo   (standard runner)
  5,000 min  x  $0.102  =  $510/mo   (largest runner)
  flat dedicated M6              $139/mo   (unlimited)

The flat machine wins from about 2,242 minutes a month upward at the standard rate, and the gap widens with every build after that. Put your own numbers into the calculator.

Read the full guide, with a worked monthly cost and the FAQ, on macrun.dev.

Full disclosure, I run MacRun, which rents dedicated Mac minis for builds and coding agents.