GitHub pricing: Can I negotiate a discount?

How much does GitHub cost?

Before we jump into the strategies for securing a discount on GitHub, it’s worth understanding the company’s list pricing.

GitHub is more transparent in terms of its cost than the majority of SaaS vendors, up to 55% of which choose to obscure some of their pricing information. The provider is one of the few that even lists a standard enterprise price point, prior to any add-ons or customizations that customers may opt for.

So, how much should you expect to pay for a subscription?

GitHub pricing plans

According to the GitHub pricing page, there are several different tiers of plan available to suit different company needs.

Free

GitHub offers a free iteration of its flagship product to provide a taste of its functionality. As with most free plans, the features that users can enjoy are limited, but allow unlimited code repositories and some basic storage, collaboration and security options.

Team

The standard paid tier includes each of the Free plan’s features, as well as additional bandwidth, collaborative tools, and access to Codespaces. The Team plan costs $44 per user, per year for the first 12 months, or $4 per user when billed monthly.

Enterprise

The GitHub Enterprise pricing tier consists of the features included in the Team plan, in addition to extra tools to facilitate flexible deployment and security standards, such as auditing and multiple organization management. GitHub’s Enterprise-level plan cost $231 per user, per year for the first 12 months, or $21 per user when billed monthly. It’s also worth noting that a free trial is available for the GitHub Enterprise subscription.

GitHub add-on pricing

In addition to the standard packages that GitHub lists, there are a number of add-on features available for an extra cost. These include:

• GitHub Copilot, starting at $10 per month after a 60-day trial
• Codespaces, starting at $0.18 per hour of computing and $0.07 per GB of storage
• Large File Storage, $5 per month for 50GB bandwidth and 50GB storage
• GitHub Advanced Security, starting at $49 per month per active committer

Is it possible to get a discount on a GitHub subscription?

Even though the company publicly lists its price points, our data shows that there is a high possibility of securing a GitHub discount. At least with the right negotiation strategy, that is.

While each vendor’s willingness to discount will vary, the average fee reduction provided by those in the DevOps space is 23% off of the full list price. That could be a substantial saving for your business.

So, how exactly can you achieve this saving? In short, by following these software negotiation tactics:

Commit to a longer subscription term

Signing up for a longer subscription period can encourage vendors to discount your recurring fee. GitHub provides a flat discount of one month off of the yearly bill for customers that commit to an annual plan compared to those that subscribe monthly. Our data shows that vendors typically provide larger savings for customers that sign on for multi-year subscriptions of two years or more.

In fact, vendors tend to increase their discount by 5% for every additional year that a business commits to. So, you could potentially make large savings if you subscribe to GitHub’s services for longer periods. However, you should only commit to a longer subscription if you’re sure that GitHub is the right service for you. The last thing you need is to be locked into a SaaS contract for multiple years that you’re not going to use.

If you’re unsure, test out the service with a free trial, or subscribe for a shorter period before fully committing.

Use an intermediary

Employing a mediating party between your business and the vendor can help facilitate productive negotiations. This is known as shuttle diplomacy. The use of a ‘middle man’ can help to create a sense of impartiality so that each party involved in the negotiations process can comfortably present their desired terms and reach a fair conclusion.

This third party can act as a go-between to handle proposals for either side, address contract terms and additional details that may have been overlooked, or pass on other information without the buyer needing to engage in direct conversation with the vendor. Competent mediators will have experience in software negotiations and know the tricks of the trade to push a deal through as efficiently as possible.

Gain leverage with pricing benchmarks

Approaching negotiations equipped with competitor pricing information can help to secure you a good price on new software. Negotiations are far more effective when you’re armed with leverage — and if you present your vendor with a competitive price point that has been offered by a rival service provider, they may match the price offered or provide more flexible contract terms to try and sway your decision in their favor.

But to secure the very best deal though, you need to go one step further. You need intel on what other similar companies are paying for their software — in this case, GitHub. This is intel that Vertice can help with.

Let Vertice negotiate on your behalf

With access to an extensive database of vendor pricing information, Vertice we can negotiate with leverage on behalf of your business. Using our SaaS industry experience and the price points and discounting data from over 13,000 global vendors, we’ve successfully negotiated best-in-class software deals for companies of all industries and all sizes.

While it can be challenging to approach negotiations blindly, we can handle the entire process for you and take the stress out of your software procurement.

Learn more about Vertice’s risk-free solution here or see how much you could save today with our free cost saving analysis tool.