9.2 Copilot for Individuals, Business, and Enterprise

Why GH-900 still says Individuals, Business, and Enterprise

The January 2026 GH-900 outline asks you to explain differences between GitHub Copilot for Individuals, Business, and Enterprise. GitHub's 2026 Plans for GitHub Copilot page no longer sells a single retail SKU named “Copilot for Individuals.” Your job on the exam is to map the outline nouns to the current products:

• Individuals = personal Copilot: Free, Student, Pro, Pro+, and Max.
• Business = Copilot Business at $19 USD per granted seat per month.
• Enterprise = Copilot Enterprise at $39 USD per granted seat per month on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

GitHub's plans page adds a note you should treat as a hard fact: Copilot is not currently available for GitHub Enterprise Server. If a stem is an on-premises GHES appliance, Copilot is not the answer there—no matter which personal or Cloud plan you name.

Personal (“Individuals”) plans

Copilot Free is the no-cost way to try AI-powered coding assistance. It includes limited access to a selection of features, limited agents, auto model selection only, an allowance of GitHub AI credits, and 2,000 inline completions per month. GitHub is explicit that Free is personal use only and is only available to individual developers who do not have Copilot through an organization or enterprise. Copilot Free is also unavailable if you have a managed user account or if you already subscribe to Pro, Pro+, or Max. GitHub further says Free is not suitable for enterprises: it does not include access management, audit logs, policy management, file exclusion, usage data, or indemnification coverage.

Copilot Student is free for verified students. It is broader than Free: GitHub documents unlimited code completions, agents except third-party agents, and an AI-credit allowance—but model access is still auto model selection only. Do not treat Student as identical to Free, and do not treat it as a paid Pro picker.

Copilot Pro is $10 USD per month. It is designed for individuals who want a selection of models and a monthly AI-credit allowance. GitHub documents 1,000 base credits (with a 500 flex allotment, 1,500 total). GitHub also notes Pro can be free for some users: verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects may be eligible. Cloud agent and the rest of the paid agent set are in play on Pro, subject to repository settings.

Copilot Pro+ is $39 USD per month: everything in Pro, a higher credit pool (3,900 base, 7,000 total with flex), and access to premium models.

Copilot Max is $100 USD per month: everything in Pro+, the highest individual credit pool (10,000 base, 20,000 total with flex), and priority access to premium models, aimed at sustained high-volume users.

GitHub's overview table states that all current plans include Copilot CLI and the Copilot app. What you pay for on the personal ladder is credit volume, model choice, and agent depth—not a different brand of autocomplete.

Copilot Business: org seats, not a personal upgrade

Copilot Business is $19 USD per granted seat per month. GitHub's plans page: it is made for organizations and enterprises and offers centralized management and Copilot policy control for organization members. Credits are documented as 1,900 per user per month. Models: access to premium models. Agents are included. Billing language is granted seat: you pay for seats you assign, not automatically for every person in the organization.

Starting April 22, 2026, GitHub temporarily paused new self-serve sign-ups for Copilot Business for organizations on GitHub Free and GitHub Team. The documented path is contact sales (and, in practice, an enterprise account that holds the Copilot subscription). If a stem is a small GitHub Team org that wants to click a self-serve Business button after that date, “use the checkout page like Copilot Pro” is the trap; contact sales / enterprise account is the current documented answer. Existing Copilot Business customers are not the same as new self-serve Free/Team sign-ups.

Business is the correct exam pick when the company pays, an organization owner assigns seats, and the company needs policies—not when a hobby developer wants $10 Pro on a personal account. A user who already holds a Business (or Enterprise) seat cannot add Copilot Free on that same GitHub account.

Copilot Enterprise: GitHub Enterprise Cloud plus a larger pool

Copilot Enterprise is $39 USD per granted seat per month, designed for enterprises using GitHub Enterprise Cloud. GitHub's one-sentence distinction: it includes all Copilot Business features, a larger monthly pool of AI credits, and additional enterprise-grade capabilities. Credits are documented as 3,900 per user per month (versus 1,900 on Business). Models: priority access to premium models. Enterprises can mix Business and Enterprise per organization, which is how a company pilots Enterprise in one org without moving every seat on day one.

Older study guides treated Copilot Chat on GitHub.com and codebase indexing as the classic Enterprise extras. Chat on GitHub.com is now documented more broadly across plans, so do not blindly recycle a 2024 “only Enterprise can chat on github.com” claim. What 2026 docs still emphasize is the credit pool, priority models, enterprise-level policy, audit logs, and usage metrics, and the GitHub Enterprise Cloud requirement. Historically those GitHub.com chat and indexing capabilities lived on the Enterprise SKU; if an older item stem still uses that language, map it to Enterprise-grade GitHub.com Copilot rather than inventing a GHES feature.

Enterprise owners decide which organizations in the enterprise may use Copilot. Organization owners then decide which members receive a seat. A locked enterprise policy cannot be overridden at the organization.

Org-wide Copilot policy, file exclusions, and exam traps

Preview of Domain 6: policy lives on Business and Enterprise

Organization-wide Copilot policy is also a Domain 6 objective (D6.3, next to Enterprise Managed Users). For D4.3 you only need the Foundations picture: policy is a Copilot Business / Copilot Enterprise capability, not something Copilot Free gives a personal account. GitHub's administrator features list is the checklist:

• Policy management — organization or enterprise owners enable or disable Copilot features (cloud agent, code review, CLI, MCP servers, preview features, third-party coding agents, and related controls). GitHub documents Copilot cloud agent and third-party MCP servers as disabled by default for members who receive a Business or Enterprise license until an admin turns them on.
• Models policy — which models beyond the included set are allowed; some models incur additional credit cost.
• Access management — enterprise owners pick which organizations can use Copilot; organization owners pick which members get a seat.
• File exclusions (content exclusion) — configure Copilot to ignore specified files so those paths are not used as context. Repository administrators, organization owners, and enterprise owners manage exclusions; people with the Maintain role can view them. This is a Business/Enterprise control. GitHub currently documents that Copilot CLI and Agent Mode in Copilot Chat in IDEs do not support content exclusion.
• Usage data — review activity so you can manage adoption and access.
• Audit logs — especially at enterprise, see which Copilot admin actions happened and who performed them.

Enterprise administrators can enable a feature everywhere, disable it everywhere, or let organizations decide. Organization owners cannot override a setting the enterprise locked. For Copilot cloud agent, enterprises can select exactly which organizations receive access. That is enough for Domain 4; Domain 6 will add EMU constraints (managed users authenticate through the IdP and cannot use Copilot Free on the side).

Agent Mode itself is an IDE feature; organizations still influence it through client and Copilot policies (enable/disable agentic IDE behavior where GitHub exposes a policy) and through file exclusions on the surfaces that honor them. If a stem is “stop Copilot from seeing secrets.env in ordinary completions and Chat,” file exclusion is the Business/Enterprise tool. If the stem is “do not let anyone assign issues to Copilot,” that is the cloud agent policy, not a personal Free toggle.

Privacy is another Business/Enterprise reason companies buy seats instead of reimbursing Pro: GitHub documents that Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customer data is covered under GitHub's Data Protection Agreement, and the individual “allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training” control is not shown for those licensed org users. Individual Free/Pro/Pro+/Max subscribers have their own policy page, including a training-data control GitHub has been rolling forward in 2026. GH-900 will not grade the fine print of a privacy addendum; it will grade “personal plan versus org plan with policy.”

How to pick the plan in a GH-900 scenario

Use the actor and the GitHub product, not the word “team” in casual English:

• Solo developer, no org seat → Free (limited) or paid Pro / Pro+ / Max.
• Verified student → Copilot Student, not “just use Free forever.”
• Company wants assigned seats and a policy for octo-org → Copilot Business.
• Company is on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and wants the larger credit pool plus enterprise policy/audit → Copilot Enterprise.
• Company is on GitHub Enterprise Server → Copilot is not currently available.
• User already has an org Copilot seat and asks for Free “on the side” → not available.
• GitHub Team org after April 22, 2026 wants new self-serve Business → paused; contact sales / enterprise account.

Pro+ at $39 and Enterprise at $39 per seat are easy to mix up. One is a personal power-user plan; the other is a granted GHEC seat with org and enterprise administration. Business at $19 per seat is cheaper than Enterprise and is the policy-capable org plan, not “Pro for companies.”

Exam traps for D4.3

• Map Individuals → personal Free / Student / Pro / Pro+ / Max. Do not insist the 2026 product page still uses the exam's older brand string as a SKU name.
• Free is blocked when the account already has org Copilot, is an EMU, or already has a paid personal plan.
• Scrambled prices: Pro $10, Business $19/seat, Pro+ $39 personal, Enterprise $39/seat, Max $100. Pro is not $19. Business is not $39.
• April 22, 2026 pauses new self-serve Business for GitHub Free and GitHub Team orgs; it does not discontinue Copilot.
• No Copilot on GitHub Enterprise Server.
• Policy, file exclusion, audit logs, and usage dashboards are Business/Enterprise, not Copilot Free.
• Granted seat means assigned licenses, not “every org member is billed automatically.”
• Student ≠ Free: Student is verified, has broader agents (still no third-party), unlimited completions, and still auto-selects models.
• Do not dump Domain 6 EMU click-paths here, but do remember managed users cannot treat Copilot as a personal Free add-on.