On June 1, GitHub Copilot swapped flat-rate subscriptions for usage-based billing. The listed prices didn't move. What they buy did: an opening balance instead of unlimited access. The backlash was almost immediate. One Pro+ subscriber burned roughly 8% of a month's credits in two hours. Another spent $6 on a single change request and called consumption "impossible to predict."
GitHub's chosen safeguard tells you a lot. Set your overage budget to $0 and the agent simply stops working when credits run out. No surprise bill, but no assistant either. The governance mechanism for overspend is denial of service. A defensible choice, sure. Also a concession that nobody, GitHub included, has figured out how to make agent costs legible before they're incurred.