Github Actions Billing

[dasheck0]

Really love github actions and we used it extensively to build android and iOS apps with react native. Currently actions are billed by minute with the mac os machine being 10 times more expensive compared to unix machines. Is there a way to have unlimited minutes and be billed by other criteria (i.e. having only certain concurrent builds). We are hitting our quote every month and sometimes even the fixed spending limit.

P.S.: We also optimised our builds (skipping unnecessary tasks, caching, etc). But this does not solve the issue but only postpones it. Thanks for any recommendations and hints! :)

[francisfuzz]

Hey @dasheck0, it's awesome to hear you and your team love using GitHub Actions!

Currently actions are billed by minute with the mac os machine being 10 times more expensive compared to unix machines. Is there a way to have unlimited minutes and be billed by other criteria (i.e. having only certain concurrent builds). We are hitting our quote every month and sometimes even the fixed spending limit.

I asked our team about this and they let me know that the price is due to the hard cost of running those machines.

As a way of improving costs, they suggested exploring self-hosted runners which offer more control of hardware, operating system, and software tools than GitHub-hosted runners provide. With self-hosted runners, you can choose to create a custom hardware configuration with more processing power or memory to run larger jobs, install software available on your local network, and choose an operating system not offered by GitHub-hosted runners. Self-hosted runners can be physical, virtual, in a container, on-premises, or in a cloud.

Last, they also suggested timeout-minutes (if you are not already, of course) as a way of limiting runtime.

I hope this helps! For any other Actions Billing questions, our lovely Support team is your best bet. 👍

[dasheck0]

Thanks for clarifying 👍