CI/CD Pipeline Cost Estimator
Estimate GitHub Actions or GitLab CI costs based on your pipeline configuration, runner types, and expected run frequency.
Platform
Pipeline Jobs
Frequency
Cost Breakdown by Job
Optimization Tips
Frequently Asked Questions
How does GitHub Actions billing work?▼
GitHub Actions charges per minute for jobs running on GitHub-hosted runners. Public repos are free. Private repos: Linux runners cost $0.008/min, Windows $0.016/min, macOS $0.08/min. Free tier included with each plan: Free (2000 min/mo), Pro (3000 min/mo), Team (3000 min/mo), Enterprise (50000 min/mo). Unused minutes don't roll over.
What is GitLab CI compute cost?▼
GitLab CI uses 'compute minutes' (formerly CI/CD minutes). SaaS plans include a monthly allotment. Shared Linux runners cost 1 minute per pipeline minute. macOS runners cost 2 minutes per CI minute. Paid additional compute is $10 per 1000 minutes. Self-hosted runners don't consume compute minutes.
How can I reduce CI/CD costs?▼
Key strategies: (1) Cache dependencies aggressively — cache node_modules, pip, maven between runs. (2) Run only affected tests — monorepo tooling like Nx or Turborepo skips unaffected projects. (3) Use self-hosted runners for heavy workloads. (4) Optimize job parallelism — avoid unnecessary matrix builds. (5) Move slow tests to nightly scheduled runs.
Should I use self-hosted runners?▼
Self-hosted runners make sense when: you run 10,000+ minutes/month (break-even vs. GitHub Actions costs), you need specific hardware (GPU, high memory), or you have security requirements that prohibit cloud runners. Drawback: you own infrastructure maintenance, security patching, and scaling.
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