GitHub has rolled out significant expansions to its billing APIs, giving enterprises and teams new tools to programmatically manage budgets, track usage, and access cost center data. The updates address long-standing requests for better automation around GitHub’s billing infrastructure.
Full Budget Lifecycle via API#
Previously limited to the web UI, budget management can now be handled entirely through API calls. Organizations can programmatically create, update, and delete budgets, adjust amounts, and configure alert notifications—all without touching the GitHub interface.
The API supports up to 50 budgets per account during the public preview period. This opens the door for infrastructure-as-code approaches to budget governance, letting teams version-control their spending limits alongside their actual infrastructure configurations.
New Usage Summary Endpoint#
A new Usage summary API lets organizations retrieve detailed usage information with flexible filtering options. Teams can query usage data by:
- Entire account or specific organizations
- Individual repositories
- Cost centers
- Products or SKUs
- Time periods (year, month, or day)
This granular access enables custom dashboards, automated reporting, and integration with existing financial systems—capabilities that were previously difficult to achieve with GitHub’s billing data.
Cost Center and Usage Report Changes#
The cost center API now includes an optional state parameter, letting teams filter for only active cost centers by appending ?state=active to their requests. This small addition simplifies workflows for organizations managing complex cost allocation structures.
GitHub also streamlined its usage report API by removing the hour parameter and adjusting the day parameter to return daily totals instead of hourly breakdowns—a change that reduces API response complexity while still providing actionable data.
Who Can Access These Features#
The new billing APIs are available to enterprise owners and billing managers on GitHub Enterprise plans, organization owners on GitHub Team plans, and individuals managing their personal accounts. All features are currently in public preview, with GitHub actively gathering feedback through its community forums.