Have you availed Copilot's 30 days free trial but get charged right away? #160195
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Select Topic AreaQuestion BodyCurious if anyone else has experienced this and what should I expect from GitHub. This is the first time I availed GitHub Copilot with a plan that says "Try 30 days free", so I am expecting my first month to be free. However, upon checkout, I was charged right away. I already opened a ticket but it's been 5 days and no one has answered. I am now confused about this "Try 30 days free" label on their landing page. GitHub should have not charged anything on the first place, and I am afraid that the next billing cycle will come and they will again charge me which might make me ineligible for a trial at that point. If that happens, that will be very unfortunate and that's because their customer service is really slow, and I hope they are not being intentional on delaying responses for these kinds of tickets. |
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Replies: 21 comments 14 replies
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Welcome to the GitHub Community, @raymelon, we're happy you're here! You are more likely to get a useful response if you are posting your question(s) in the applicable category and are explicit about what your project entails--giving a few more details might help someone give you a nudge in the right direction. I've gone ahead and moved it for you. Good luck! |
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Hello @raymelon, Thank you for your question about GitHub Copilot's 30-day free trial and the charge you noticed on your account. I understand your concern about being charged despite signing up for what was advertised as a free trial. What's happening with the chargeThe charge you're seeing is most likely a temporary authorization hold (sometimes for $1 or a similar small amount) that GitHub places on your payment method when you sign up for the Copilot Pro free trial. This is a standard practice for verifying that your payment method is valid and active before the trial begins. According to GitHub's documentation about individual Copilot plans:
What this means for your trialThis temporary hold:
Your free trial will still last the full 30 days as advertised, and you won't be charged for the actual subscription until after the trial period ends (unless you cancel before then). Troubleshooting steps
Support for unresolved issuesIf you've already waited 5+ business days and the charge hasn't disappeared, or if your subscription doesn't show as a trial, please follow up on your support ticket. You can also try these additional support options:
For more information about billing for GitHub Copilot, please see the official documentation on billing for individual Copilot plans. I hope this helps clarify the situation! Let me know if you have any other questions. Best regards, |
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I am also having this same issue. I got "charged" $0 and then got charged $10. |
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Same here , i was IMMEDIATELY changed with half of the subscription price. |
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Same story with me. I was charged full amount even directly after activating free plan. |
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Same story here, I actually got charged a $100 for the annual subscription already automatically immediately on signing up, despite expecting on end of trial period. there's no trial period, there's only the subscription direct. |
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Update: The team responded back and it turns out that I signed up for a technical review for Copilot way back. Since my account is part of a technical review, it voided my eligibility for a trial despite me never using the granted features during the technical review launch. Might help to check if you signed up for a technical review before or anything similar @daveraghav @Zero3K @ionutcnu @macxdeep While this clarifies my concern, I still believe that GitHub should be transparent with their users in terms of trial eligibility. To GitHub, I think it's fair for your users to be informed if they are eligible for a trial or anything similar before pushing them to purchase any of your service offerings. Not after, and not after weeks of waiting in the support queue. I will also keep this discussion open until transparency measures are implemented. Until that happens, I expect more people experiencing the same issue as we did. This discussion being open will help them find answers. I'm also tagging the first responders in @Akash1134 @shinybrightstar, you can use this thread as reference for future issues related to our situation. |
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Had same issue but was refunded in few minutes mb hour |
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I totally get your frustration - this is really annoying when you're expecting a free trial and get charged right away. You're definitely right to be concerned about this. What likely happened is GitHub put a temporary hold on your card during signup, but sometimes these holds show up as actual charges on your statement, which is super confusing. Other times it could just be a glitch in their system where the trial wasn't applied correctly. Five days with no response is way too long, and I understand why you're worried about the next billing cycle. I'd suggest reaching out through different channels - try their Twitter support, community forums, or see if there's a phone number. Sometimes social media gets faster responses because it's more public. If you're still concerned about another charge hitting, maybe temporarily switch to a prepaid card or one with a low limit while this gets sorted out, just as a safety net. The good news is that in most cases I've seen, GitHub does make this right once they actually respond. They're usually pretty reasonable about refunding incorrect charges and honoring the free trial properly. The slow response time is definitely frustrating, but it doesn't mean they're trying to rip you off. Keep pushing for that response and don't let them brush you off when they do get back to you. You signed up for a free trial, so you should get exactly that. This kind of billing mix-up happens more than it should, but it's usually fixable once you get someone's attention. |
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The same happened with me here. I signed up for the Copilot Pro trial and they immediately tried to charge me 10$ for the month. The payment failed due to bank issues on my end, but now I have an outstanding payment warning on my account and the word "trial" is nowhere to be seen on the Copilot Pro on my account. Raised a support ticket, let's see what comes of it. |
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same happened to me - even worse - i got charged straight when i activated the trial pro and still have no access to ... "you have reached your monthly...." i dont believe how insecure the whole process is with github - never again and waiting to get my money back! |
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The billing and payment is not even in my history - this feels very much like wirecard in germany at the end... they quickly charge you because they have a serious financial issue... i guess they received a big bill of tokens! |
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Same here, @Akash1134 please review my case, I have created an account and added my payment method, same case as @archisman-rakshit I had only enough for the verification, but not enough for the monthly pay and same I was charged $(unsuccessfully). I would like to have my trial and then continue paying for it after my trial period ends not before. Thanks in advance. P.D.: This message in image was visible a second after I was charged for verification. |
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Yes, a few users have faced this issue before. Normally, when you see the “Try 30 days free” label, it means you shouldn’t be billed until after the trial period ends. If you were charged immediately, here are a few things to consider:
👉 In short: It looks like either an authorization hold or a billing misstep. Waiting for GitHub Support to respond is the right approach, but meanwhile you can monitor your billing settings and cancel if you want to avoid future charges until things are clarified. |
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Same here, I have created this new account and clicked on 30 days free trial. I added my paypal account and I have been charged $1 and $10. Now the transaction is not showing in GitHub payment history even in paypal transactions. It's showing not authorised payment and payment is cancelled if I open payment details from mail. But $11 is deducted from my bank account. I don't know if I will get refund or it's a scam. |
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Yea its a bunch of BS, as I have no technical review for Copilot for my account an it wants to bill me the full amount immediately. Luckily I used a card that I put just enough for just the 1 USD charge, the amount bounced and I have no free trail. This feels like Copilot wants to get you to pay for a charge, that most people who wants to check it out and does not code for a job or income, with what it looks like there is no refund possibility. It's extremely sus and up to the last confirmation the 30 day free trail is mentioned then changes to it will be charging the full subscription amount, so you technically accepted the charges without reading what it does and expecting a free trail. It looks like they are desperate to grab some money because they need to pay the investors for the billions that was invested to get these architecture in place. Just my 2 cents and the sus subtle change at the final checkout that I noticed only after the checkout was done and the insufficient funds from my bank notice. |
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same issue, iv never used github before and they charged me for a full month too, but my bank auto declined thankfully. wtf?? free trial but its the same cost as a whole months sub? lol wtf? |
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I just opted for GitHub Pro after losing access to Claude Models in the Student Developer Pack; there was a 30-day free trial, yet I was charged for a whole month on the same day of signing up for the free trial. I can't see any mention of a free trial since the sign-up, and I've been charged already. |
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Hi, I just opted one month free subscription and it charged twice USD 10. I dont know why they are misleading. Created a ticket. lets wait for the reply. Has anyone got the solution? |
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Update: The team responded back and it turns out that I signed up for a technical review for Copilot way back.
Since my account is part of a technical review, it voided my eligibility for a trial despite me never using the granted features during the technical review launch.
Might help to check if you signed up for a technical review before or anything similar @daveraghav @Zero3K @ionutcnu @macxdeep
While this clarifies my concern, I still believe that GitHub should be transparent with their users in terms of trial eligibility.
To GitHub, I think it's fair for your users to be informed if they are eligible for a trial or anything similar before pushing them to purchase any of your service…