What is the cheapest GitHub Actions runner?
Which GitHub Actions runner costs the least per minute?
Sengi has the lowest per-minute price of the managed GitHub Actions runners at 2, 4 and 8 vCPU, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D bare metal boosting past 5 GHz: $0.003 a minute for 2 vCPU and 8 GB, $0.006 for 4 vCPU and $0.012 for 8 vCPU. GitHub charges $0.006, $0.012 and $0.022; Blacksmith and WarpBuild list $0.004, $0.008 and $0.016; Depot and Namespace, pay as you go, $0.006, $0.012 and $0.024. Price per build matters more than price per minute, and faster hardware bills fewer minutes: the same Rust, TypeScript and Docker builds cost $0.069 on Sengi against $0.249 on GitHub.
Last checked October 23, 2026, against each provider’s published pricing page and GitHub’s Actions runner pricing reference. Linux x64, USD, list prices.
GitHub Actions runner prices per minute
| Provider | 2 vCPU | 4 vCPU | 8 vCPU | How you pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sengi | $0.003 | $0.006 | $0.012 | Per minute. No subscription, no minimum. |
| Blacksmith | $0.004 | $0.008 | $0.016 | Per minute. |
| WarpBuild | $0.004 | $0.008 | $0.016 | Per minute. |
| GitHub-hosted | $0.006 | $0.012 | $0.022 | Per minute; 4 and 8 vCPU are larger runners for Team and Enterprise Cloud. |
| Depot | $0.006 | $0.012 | $0.024 | Per second, on a plan from $20 a month. |
| Namespace | $0.006 | $0.012 | $0.024 | Pay as you go; $0.004, $0.008 and $0.016 inside a plan from $100 a month. |
GitHub also sells ubuntu-slim at $0.002 a minute, a 1 vCPU, 5 GB container with no Docker and a 15-minute job limit, meant for light tasks rather than builds. RunsOn and self-hosted runners have no per-minute price: you pay for your own cloud machines and, for RunsOn, a yearly licence.
What do the same builds cost on each runner?
A Rust build, a TypeScript typecheck and a production Docker image at 4 vCPU, each run time at the provider’s list price:
| Provider | All three builds |
|---|---|
| Sengi | $0.069 |
| Blacksmith | $0.073 |
| WarpBuild | $0.097 |
| Namespace | $0.098 |
| GitHub-hosted | $0.249 |
Source: RunsOn’s open benchmark harness, run on Sengi October 9, 2026; every other provider’s times are RunsOn’s published results from the same harness. Sengi also includes the Actions cache and Docker layer caching, which some providers meter per GB. Full detail in the runner comparison, with head-to-head pages for Blacksmith, Depot, Namespace and WarpBuild.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a cheaper runner than GitHub's ubuntu-latest?
Yes. GitHub charges $0.006 a minute for its standard 2 vCPU Linux runner on private repositories. Sengi runs the same 2 vCPU and 8 GB for $0.003, half the price, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D bare metal boosting past 5 GHz, and Blacksmith and WarpBuild list $0.004.
What is the cheapest way to run GitHub Actions?
On public repositories, GitHub's standard runners are not billed. On private repositories, use your plan's included minutes, then a lower-priced runner: Sengi's $0.003 a minute halves GitHub's rate, and faster builds bill fewer minutes on top. ubuntu-slim at $0.002 suits only light jobs: 1 vCPU, no Docker and a 15-minute limit.
Are self-hosted runners the cheapest option?
Only at high, steady volume. GitHub charges no minutes for them, but you pay for the machines, including idle time, and the time to patch and secure them. In our worked model, self-hosting stays below Sengi's $0.003 a minute only above about 289,000 minutes a month.
Does a cheaper runner mean slower builds?
Not on Sengi. Its runners are AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D desktop CPUs boosting past 5 GHz with local NVMe: against GitHub's runner of the same size, builds finish up to 1.9× faster, with up to 3× the multi-core CPU and 15× the random-read disk speed, so each build costs up to 74% less.
The fastest hardware for your GitHub Actions.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D desktop CPUs boosting past 5 GHz, on bare metal with local NVMe, a fresh VM for every job, and 2 vCPU jobs ready in 2 seconds. Builds finish up to 1.9× faster than on GitHub’s runners, and at up to half GitHub’s price per minute they cost up to 74% less per build. Change one runs-on line, or give your coding agent one prompt and it opens the pull request for you.