Cost center allocation for different products

This article contains reference information for how spending is assigned to cost centers. To create and manage cost centers, see Using cost centers to allocate costs to business units.

Overview

To allocate metered spending to a cost center, you add repositories, organizations, or users to the cost center.

• For metered products like GitHub Actions, cost centers are charged based on the repositories or organizations in the cost center, as this is where the usage takes place.
• For metered license-based products like GitHub Copilot, cost centers are charged based on the users in the cost center.

Cost centers only apply to metered usage, and do not work with volume or subscription billing.

Breakdown by product

Product	A cost center is charged if it contains this resource
GitHub Actions	The repository or organization where the workflow runs.
GitHub Codespaces	The repository or organization where the codespace is created.
GitHub Copilot	The user who receives the license (priority), or the organization that is billed for the Copilot license.
Git Large File Storage	The repository or organization where Git LFS is used.
GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security	The user who receives the license.
GitHub Enterprise	The user who receives the license.
GitHub Packages	The repository or organization that owns the package.

Details for license-based products

To ensure your cost centers reflect spending as intended, it's important to understand how spending is allocated to cost centers for license-based products like GitHub Copilot, and how changes are reflected in your bill.

GitHub Copilot

• If a user belongs to a cost center, all usage associated with the user is charged to the cost center.
• If a user does not belong to any cost center, if the organization that provides the user their Copilot license belongs to a cost center, all usage associated with the user is charged to the cost center.
• If the user receives access to Copilot through multiple organizations, only one of the organizations is billed, and any cost center containing that organization is charged accordingly. See About billing for GitHub Copilot in organizations and enterprises.

GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security

• If a user belongs to a cost center, licenses consumed by the user are charged to the cost center.
• If a user does not belong to any cost center, licenses consumed by the user are charged to the enterprise.

GitHub Enterprise

• If a user belongs to a cost center, the license consumed by the user is charged to the cost center.
• If a user does not belong to any cost center, the license consumed by the user is charged to the enterprise.

Understanding cost center usage and attribution

To view usage by cost center, go to the "Usage" page and group or filter by cost center. Any usage that is not assigned to a specific cost center is categorized as "Enterprise Only" when grouping by cost center. See Gathering insights on your spending.

To understand how usage for a specific resource is being attributed to cost centers, request a detailed usage report and refer to the cost_center_name column. See Usage reports reference.

Effects of changes to cost centers

You can change the included resources of a cost center or delete a cost center at any time. This affects the cost center in different ways.

Deleting a cost center

If a cost center is deleted, future usage of its resources will be charged to the enterprise. Usage before deletion is charged to the cost center.

You can still view the cost center even after you delete it. To do so, select the "Deleted" tab on the cost center page.

Adding or removing a member

If you add a member to a cost center, any future usage will be charged to the cost center. If you remove a member from a cost center, any future usage will be charged to the enterprise. For example:

Date	Scenario	Effect
May 1	An enterprise has three Copilot users.	The charges for all three users are charged to the enterprise.
May 10	You create two cost centers: Cost Center 1 with User A and User B as members, and Cost Center 2 with User C.	Future charges for Users A and B are charged to Cost Center 1, and for User C to Cost Center 2.
May 20	You remove User A from Cost Center 1.	Future charges for User A are charged to the enterprise.

Deleting a user from the enterprise

Removing a user from an enterprise will not remove the user from the cost center. This ensures that the remaining usage attributable to the user will be allocated to the cost center.

Example for license-based products

The following example illustrates how usage is assigned to cost centers for license-based products. Based on four licensed users, their organization membership, and how cost centers are set up, you will see how usage is allocated to cost centers.

The users

There are four users, each a member of one or more organizations in the enterprise.

User	Organization membership
user-1	org-1, org-2
user-2	org-1
user-3	org-1
user-4	org-1, org-2

All users have a license for GitHub Copilot provided by org-1 and GitHub Enterprise (GHE).

GitHub Secret Protection (GHSP) is enabled in org-1, where all users are active committers.

The cost centers

There are two cost centers in the enterprise, each with different users or organizations assigned.

Cost center	Assigned resources
Cost Center A	user-1, user-3
Cost Center B	org-1

user-2, user-4, and org-2 are not assigned to any cost center.

How usage is allocated

The following table illustrates how spending for each user is allocated to a cost center based on their membership of an organization or cost center. Any usage not assigned to a cost center is categorized as "Enterprise Only" spending.