Report: Microsoft losing money on each GitHub Copilot customer

GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered pair programming tool, provides autocomplete-style suggestions during the coding process. This innovative tool is the result of a collaborative effort between GitHub, OpenAI, and Microsoft. The underlying generative AI model has been trained on a diverse range of programming languages found in public repositories.

There are two subscription plans available for GitHub Copilot:

• Individual Plan: Priced at $10 per month or $100 per year.
• Business Plan: Priced at $19 per user per month.

However, a recent report from The Wall Street Journal indicates that GitHub is experiencing financial losses with GitHub Copilot. It was revealed that, on average, GitHub was losing more than $20 per user each month earlier this year. Some users were even costing GitHub as much as $80 a month. With approximately 1.5 million users, this translates to a substantial monthly loss for GitHub.

In a related development, Microsoft announced the pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 per user per month for enterprise customers. This decision has been met with criticism from many customers who believe the price is steep for a new and untested service. It appears that Microsoft’s pricing strategy is aimed at mitigating significant losses similar to those experienced with GitHub Copilot.