Short answer
Not as of October 27, 2026, on the pages read. GitHub announced a $0.002 per-minute Actions cloud platform charge for self-hosted runners starting March 1, 2026, then on December 15, 2025 said it was "postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach". The hosted-runner price cuts of up to 39% still took effect on January 1, 2026. Self-hosted runners remain free on GitHub's side; you pay for your own machines. Check GitHub's pricing pages for any new date. Maintained by Vitko, Inc., which sells one of the products measured.
Timeline, from GitHub's own post
| Date | What GitHub said |
|---|---|
| Announced | GitHub-hosted runner prices cut by up to 39% from January 1, 2026, "paired with the addition of a new $0.002 per-minute GitHub Actions cloud platform charge"; the listed hosted rates include the charge, and the charge for self-hosted runners would apply from March 1, 2026. |
| December 15, 2025 | "We’re postponing the announced billing change for self-hosted GitHub Actions to take time to re-evaluate our approach. We are continuing to reduce hosted-runners prices by up to 39% on January 1, 2026." |
| January 1, 2026 | Reduced hosted-runner rates took effect (for example the Linux 2-core x64 rate in GitHub’s pricing reference is $0.006 a minute, read 2026-10-27). |
Sources: GitHub: Pricing changes for GitHub Actions (December 15, 2025) and GitHub Actions runner pricing, read 2026-10-27. GitHub may announce a new date; its pages are the authority.
What it means for self-hosting
- Self-hosting still costs your cloud bill plus operations time; see the measured cost by volume in self-hosted vs managed.
- If a platform charge of $0.002 a minute were applied, it would add that amount to each minute of self-hosted runner use; the list prices of managed services are compared in price per minute.
- Free minutes: free minutes by provider.
More: 12 options compared · ranked by speed · ranked by cost per job · price per minute, 2 and 4 vCPU · self-hosted vs managed · alternatives to GitHub-hosted.
Method: how the runs were made; data: results.json; every raw record: the repository. Maintained by Vitko, Inc., which sells one of the products measured. Page dated October 27, 2026.