Zed vs GitHub Copilot pricing (October 2026)

Generated from vendor pricing pages, fetched 2026-10-16. Always confirm on the vendor page.

Which is cheaper for you?

Both list a free plan. Zed free: BYOK / external agents. GitHub Copilot free: Limited chat and agent usage.

The cheapest individual paid plans cost the same: Zed Pro and GitHub Copilot Pro at $10/month.

Price is not the whole story: Zed bills as "Free editor (BYOK); Pro includes $5 tokens then API list +10%", GitHub Copilot as "Seat price plus GitHub AI Credits (token-based since June 1, 2026)". Heavy users should compare the limits below.

Try your own numbers in the workload calculator.

Side by side

	Zed	GitHub Copilot
Billing model	Free editor (BYOK); Pro includes $5 tokens then API list +10%	Seat price plus GitHub AI Credits (token-based since June 1, 2026)
Free plan	BYOK / external agents	Limited chat and agent usage
Cheapest paid plan	Pro $10/mo - $5 tokens, unlimited edit predictions, then API +10%	Pro $10/mo - $15/mo total AI credits ($10 base + $5 flex)
Top individual plan	Pro $10/mo - $5 tokens, unlimited edit predictions, then API +10%	Max $100/mo - $200/mo total AI credits ($100 base + $100 flex)

Zed plans

Plan	USD/month	Limits
Free	Free	BYOK / external agents
Pro	$10	$5 tokens, unlimited edit predictions, then API +10%
Business	$30/seat	Per seat org layer

Source: https://zed.dev/pricing, fetched 2026-10-16.

GitHub Copilot plans

Plan	USD/month	Limits
Free	Free	Limited chat and agent usage
Pro	$10	$15/mo total AI credits ($10 base + $5 flex)
Pro+	$39	$70/mo total AI credits ($39 base + $31 flex)
Max	$100	$200/mo total AI credits ($100 base + $100 flex)

Source: https://github.com/features/copilot/plans, fetched 2026-10-16.

Recent pricing changes

2026-06-01 GitHub Copilot: Copilot replaced premium requests with token-based GitHub AI Credits on every plan. Seat prices did not change. source
2026-05-29 GitHub Copilot: GitHub added Copilot Max at $100 a month, its top individual plan. source
2025-06-18 GitHub Copilot: GitHub started enforcing premium request allowances: Pro 300, Pro+ 1,500, Business 300, Enterprise 1,000 a month, with extras at $0.04 each. source
2025-04-04 GitHub Copilot: GitHub launched Copilot Pro+ at $39 a month with 1,500 premium requests. source