Credit-based pricing: what GitHub, Notion and Warp's quiet October change teach SaaS teams

Credit-based pricing only earns trust when a customer can read three things on your pricing page: what one credit is worth, when it expires and how you will tell them it changed. GitHub Copilot and Notion now publish the first two and gave dated notice of their switches. Warp cut its Max plan's included usage by about 17% in early October 2026 without a public announcement we could find.

By the end of this guide you will know how GitHub, Notion, HubSpot and Warp actually price their credits as of October 2026, what Warp's own pricing page showed before and after its change, and the five policies to write down before you sell credits yourself. Every number links to the vendor's page it came from.

Credit-based pricing vs usage-based pricing: the difference is an exchange rate

Credit-based pricing sells a prepaid unit that the vendor converts into work at rates it sets. Usage-based pricing, also called consumption pricing, bills metered use directly in money. In practice the labels overlap: GitHub titled its April 2026 post "GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing", yet the unit it bills in is the GitHub AI Credit.

A credit carries two exchange rates, and only one of them is usually fixed. GitHub's Copilot plans page states the first plainly: "1 AI credit = $0.01 USD." The second, how many credits a task burns, moves: the same page says usage "depends on the model you choose and the complexity of the task."

That second rate is where customers lose track. A seat price tells a buyer the bill in advance; a credit balance tells them the bill only if they can predict how many credits their work will consume.

Why SaaS companies are moving to credits in 2026

AI features have a cost that rises with every run, which a flat seat does not track. The vendors in this guide have converged on hybrid pricing for SaaS: keep the seat price, include a monthly credit allowance, and sell top-ups. GitHub's announcement kept Copilot Pro at $10 a month, Business at $19 per user and Enterprise at $39 per user, and replaced premium request units with AI Credits "consumed based on token usage" at each model's published API rates.

Here is how four credit pricing models compare, as of October 23, 2026:

Sources: GitHub's plans page, Notion's credits help page and October 19 announcement, HubSpot's product and services catalog, and Warp's pricing page.

Note what the table cannot tell you. HubSpot's catalog prices individual actions too: resolving one customer-agent conversation costs 50 credits, and recommending outreach for one lead costs 100. A buyer comparing allowances without the rate sheet is comparing the wrong number.

GitHub Copilot AI credits pricing change: five weeks of notice

GitHub announced the switch on April 27, 2026 and moved all plans on June 1, 2026, about five weeks later, with a preview bill promised for early May. The announcement spelled out what stayed free: "Code completions and Next Edit suggestions remain included in all plans and do not consume AI Credits."

It also handled the awkward cases in writing. Annual Pro and Pro+ subscribers stayed on request-based pricing until their plan expired, and admins got budgets at the enterprise, cost center and user level, with the choice to allow extra usage at published rates or cap spend.

The plans page today adds a nuance worth copying. Copilot Pro's $15 of monthly credits is $10 of base credits plus a $5 "flex allotment", and Max at $100 a month includes $200: $100 base plus $100 flex. The page labels flex as "variable additional usage on top of your base" and warns that "flex allotments may change over time." GitHub separates the guaranteed part of the allowance from the part it may adjust, so a later cut to flex is a change customers were told to expect.

Notion: two weeks of notice and an email to every admin

Notion published "Agents, rebuilt to do more for less" on October 19, 2026. Business and Enterprise seats now come with "1,500 Standard credits per month, for work where Notion picks the model" and "500 Select credits per month, for work where you pick the model or to run your Custom Agents."

The rollout is dated. The post says the new system "is live today for new customers" and that "existing customers move over on November 2, and admins will get an email with the details." That is fourteen days of public notice plus a direct message to the person who pays.

Notion's help page on credits covers the runout case: Standard and Select credits reset monthly and do not roll over, the page prices 1,000 Notion credits at $10, and workspace Custom Agents "will pause automatically until credits reset or an admin adds more credits." A customer can read the cost of running out before it happens.

Warp's pricing change in October 2026: what its own pages show

Warp's change shows what happens when credits move without public notice. On the Internet Archive's September 29 capture of Warp's pricing page, Build included "1,500 credits ($20 of included agent usage at API rates)" and Max, at $200 a month, included "18,000 credits (12× the included usage of Build)." Both plans offered "Reload credits with volume-based discounts, auto-reload, and team-wide spend cap."

The next archived capture, dated October 7, 2026, shows Max with "$200 of agent usage included each month (10× Build)" and the reload line rewritten as "Add-on agent usage, auto-reload, and team-wide spend cap." The volume-discount wording is gone from both Build and Max. Max still costs $200 a month.

At Warp's own old rate of 1,500 credits for $20, 18,000 credits were worth $240. Max's included usage therefore fell from $240 to $200, a cut of about 17%, while Build's $20 allowance did not change.

We found no announcement. Warp's 2026 changelog entries for October 7 and October 15 do not mention pricing, although the same changelog announced Max in February with "12× more monthly credits than Build." Warp's pricing FAQ, last updated October 20, logs a dated May 21 update but nothing for October. Warp may have emailed subscribers; we cannot see that, and we found no public notice.

As of October 23, 2026, Warp's live pricing page still disagrees with itself: the Max card says $200, while the plan comparison table on the same page lists Max's included monthly usage as "$240 (18,000 credits)."

In fairness to Warp, stating allowances in dollars at API rates is easier for a buyer to check than a credit count, and the change sits in plain sight on the pricing page. The problem is the method: a customer who bought Max for 12× Build now gets 10× Build, and the page still shows both figures.

Five decisions to write down before you sell credits

These are the policies the examples above either publish or leave out. Write each one on your pricing page before launch.

How much is one AI credit worth?

Publish the dollar value of one credit and a rate sheet for common actions. GitHub ($0.01), HubSpot ($0.010) and Notion ($10 per 1,000) all do. If credits per action can change, say so up front, as GitHub does by labelling part of the allowance "flex."

Should credits expire?

Decide separately for included and purchased credits. Included credits resetting monthly is the norm: HubSpot's catalog says "Unused credits do not roll over" and Notion's Standard and Select credits reset monthly. Purchased credits are a different promise, because the customer paid cash for them; if they expire, print the date at checkout.

What happens when a run fails?

None of the GitHub, Notion or HubSpot pages cited above say whether a failed or errored agent run is charged. Decide whether a run that produces nothing costs credits, and publish the answer before a customer asks.

What happens when the balance hits zero?

Pick pause, overage or auto-reload, and make it the customer's setting. Notion pauses workspace agents. HubSpot's catalog offers Pay-as-You-Go at $0.010 per credit or capacity packs at $10 per 1,000, and with automatic upgrades on, an account that goes over its limit "will automatically be upgraded for the remainder of your term." That keeps work running, but it is a commitment the customer should choose knowingly.

How to announce a pricing change to customers

Give a date, a reason and a direct message. GitHub gave about five weeks and a preview bill; Notion gave fourteen days and an email to admins. Add a changelog entry, update every table on the page at once, and keep the old terms visible until the switch.

How do you account for prepaid credits?

Under ASC 606, a prepayment for future services is a contract liability, and revenue is recognized as the credits are used. Unused credits are "breakage": per the guidance reproduced in Deloitte's revenue recognition roadmap, if you expect to keep some, you recognize that amount "in proportion to the pattern of rights exercised by the customer"; if not, only when the chance of use "becomes remote." Your expiry policy feeds this estimate, so involve your accountant before you set it.

Should my SaaS use credits or seats?

The strongest case against credits is that they make the buyer do your cost accounting. A seat price is one number; a credit price needs the dollar rate, a rate sheet and a guess at usage, and every change to any of them is a price change. If your AI cost per customer is small and steady, a seat with a fair-use limit is simpler for everyone.

Credits make sense when cost varies widely between customers, as with agent runs that differ by model and task length. GitHub's own structure points to a middle path: keep the seat, keep the cheap high-volume features unlimited, and meter only the expensive work in credits.

Your next step

Before you change a number, write the five policies above on your pricing page and date them. Then pick the billing tool that can enforce them: Upfynd lists 124 payments and billing tools as of October 23, 2026, including Lago, whose wallets set a credit value per wallet and void remaining credits on an expiration date you define, and Stripe, whose credit grants can be expired or voided through its API. If you make billing or pricing software, you can list it on Upfynd for free.