Claude vs GitHub Copilot: plan limits and pricing

GitHub Copilot has the lower entry price. Claude Pro is $20/mo; GitHub Copilot Pro is Docs: "$10 USD per month (free for some users)"; verified teachers and maintainers of popular open source projects may qualify for free access. Prices from the vendors' pricing pages, checked 2026-10-30.

Claude: Every plan has usage limits that reset on a rolling five-hour session window; paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, seat-based Enterprise) add weekly limits that reset at a fixed time assigned to the account, and Max plans (and Team premium seats) have a separate weekly limit for Fable. Usage across Claude on web, desktop, mobile, Claude Desktop and Claude Code draws from the same pool. Anthropic publishes no fixed message count: usage depends on conversation length and complexity, attached files, the model, effort level and features used. Anthropic publishes multipliers instead: Pro is at least 5x Free per session, Max is 5x or 20x Pro, Team standard is 1.25x Pro and Team premium is 6.25x Pro. Anthropic may also apply weekly and monthly caps or model/feature limits at its discretion. When a limit is reached, paid users can enable usage credits billed at standard API rates. Usage-based Enterprise seats include no usage allowance; all tokens are billed at API rates. GitHub Copilot: Copilot usage is measured in GitHub AI Credits (1 AI credit = $0.01 USD). Each interaction's cost depends on the model and on the input, output and cached tokens used. Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, Copilot cloud agent, Copilot Spaces, Spark and third-party coding agents use credits. Code completions and next edit suggestions do not use credits and are unlimited on paid plans. Paid individual plans (Pro, Pro+, Max) include base credits matching the subscription price plus a variable flex allotment. Base credits are used first, and the flex allotment 'may change over time'. Copilot Free and Copilot Student include an unpublished allowance with auto model selection only. Copilot Business and Enterprise seats add a per-user monthly allowance to a shared organization/enterprise pool. Usage beyond the pool costs $0.01 per credit, and paid extra usage is enabled by default. Copilot access (eligible enterprises) has no included allowance and is metered from first use. Included credits do not roll over and reset at 00:00:00 UTC on the 1st of each calendar month. Additional usage budgets are set in USD and 'may be capped'. Paid plans get a 10% discount on model costs when using auto model selection. Copilot Pro and Pro+ subscribers on an existing annual plan who stayed on legacy billing after June 1, 2026 continue on premium requests.

Claude Free is free: Session usage, Free covers everyday questions; limit resets on a rolling five-hour window; Claude Code, Not included; Projects, Up to 5; Context window, Up to 1M, varies by model; Fable, Not available. GitHub Copilot Free is free: Code completions, 2,000 per month; Chat and agent, Limited chat and agent usage; credit amount not published; Models, Auto model selection only; Purchase additional AI credits, Not included.

Claude: five-hour window, week, month. GitHub Copilot: month. The figure inside each window is listed per plan on this page, or marked "not published" where the vendor gives none.