Cost comparison
GitHub Copilot vs Windsurf: cost comparison in 2026
GitHub Copilot Business is a flat $19 per seat per month with no platform fee. Windsurf — rebranded to Devin Desktop by Cognition in June 2026 — charges $40 per developer seat on top of an $80/month Teams platform base. Both bill per assigned seat, so the headline numbers are only the floor: the spend that leaks is the seats nobody uses and the tiers nobody needs.
Prices verified against official vendor pages — GitHub Copilot on 2026-06-12, Windsurf on 2026-06-27. Waste figures are estimates from your own inputs.
Plans and per-seat prices, side by side
VENDORGitHub Copilot
| Plan | Price / seat / mo |
|---|---|
| Copilot FreeIndividuals | $0 |
| Copilot ProIndividuals | $10 |
| Copilot Pro+Individuals (premium models) | $39 |
| Copilot BusinessTeams and organizations | $19 |
| Copilot EnterpriseGitHub Enterprise Cloud orgs | $39 |
Windsurf
| Plan | Price / seat / mo |
|---|---|
| FreeIndividual developers | $0 |
| ProIndividual professional developers | $20 |
| MaxHeavy individual / power users | $200 |
| TeamsTeams and organizations | $80/mo base + $40/seat |
| EnterpriseLarge organizations | Custom |
Which is cheaper — and where the real cost hides
On per-seat price GitHub Copilot Business ($19) undercuts Windsurf Teams ($40 per seat), and Windsurf’s $80/month platform base means small teams pay a fixed premium before the first seat. Copilot’s cost layer is pooled AI-credit overage; Windsurf’s is the $200 Max tier and quota overage billed at API pricing. Neither drops an idle seat automatically — an admin has to reclaim it. DevSpend reconciles seats purchased vs assigned vs active on both so the comparison reflects real utilization, not the list price.
Estimate your spend on both
The calculator below is prefilled with a typical setup for each — together about $1,380/month with an estimated $375/month lost to inactive seats. Swap in your own seats and prices — nothing is saved until you create a free workspace.
Tool inputs
Seats, price, active estimate, and usage/API spend. Nothing is saved yet.
Active is your best estimate of seats in real use — the gap to assigned seats is your recoverable waste. Active can’t exceed seats, so it’s capped automatically.
GitHub Copilot vs Windsurf: cost FAQ
Is Windsurf or GitHub Copilot cheaper?
GitHub Copilot Business is $19 per seat per month with no platform fee. Windsurf Teams is $40 per developer seat plus an $80/month platform base, so Copilot is lower per seat and avoids the base charge. Windsurf rebranded to Devin Desktop in June 2026, but the plans and prices carried over.
Does Windsurf have a platform fee that GitHub Copilot does not?
Yes. Windsurf Teams bills an $80/month platform base on top of $40 per developer seat. GitHub Copilot Business is a flat $19 per seat with no separate platform fee, which makes Copilot relatively cheaper for small teams where the base is spread across few seats.
Which has more seat-waste risk?
Both bill every assigned seat in full regardless of activity, so idle seats waste money on either. Windsurf adds over-tiering risk through its $200 Max plan and pooled quota overage; Copilot adds pooled AI-credit overage. Reconciling assigned seats against actual activity is the fix for both.
How do I track spend across GitHub Copilot and Windsurf?
A DevSpend AI workspace tracks seats purchased, assigned, and active for each vendor side by side, with the reclaimable dollars attached — so total AI-tool spend and waste across both show up in one place.
Track both in one free workspace
Up to 5 subscriptions, waste number always visible. Need unlimited tracking or a print-ready reclaim report? See Pro — $39/mo.