Pricing
RunsOn is self-hosted in your AWS infrastructure, so you will pay the cost of the EC2 instances that are spawned, as well as the cost of the AWS AppRunner service. For commercial use, you will also need to buy a license (see License types below).
Most clients will see a return on investment measured in DAYS.
RunsOn vs GitHub
| Runner | Families | RunsOn | GitHub | RunsOn vs GitHub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1cpu-linux-x64 | m7a, m7i | $0.0008 | - | - |
| 2cpu-linux-x64 | m7i-flex, m7a, m7i | $0.0011 | $0.0080 | 7.2x cheaper |
| 4cpu-linux-x64 | m7i-flex, m7a, m7i | $0.0019 | $0.0160 | 8.6x cheaper |
| 8cpu-linux-x64 | c7i-flex, m7i-flex, c7i, c7a, m7i, m7a | $0.0034 | $0.0320 | 9.5x cheaper |
| 16cpu-linux-x64 | c7i-flex, m7i-flex, c7i, c7a, m7i, m7a | $0.0068 | $0.0640 | 9.4x cheaper |
| 32cpu-linux-x64 | c7i-flex, m7i-flex, c7i, c7a, m7i, m7a | $0.0114 | $0.1280 | 11.3x cheaper |
| 48cpu-linux-x64 | c7i, c7a, m7i, m7a | $0.0165 | - | - |
| 64cpu-linux-x64 | c7i, c7a, m7i, m7a | $0.0147 | $0.2560 | 17.4x cheaper |
| Runner | Families | RunsOn | GitHub | RunsOn vs GitHub |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1cpu-linux-arm64 | m7g, t4g.medium | $0.0006 | - | - |
| 2cpu-linux-arm64 | m7g, t4g.large | $0.0010 | $0.0050 | 5.1x cheaper |
| 4cpu-linux-arm64 | m7g, t4g | $0.0014 | $0.0100 | 7.3x cheaper |
| 8cpu-linux-arm64 | c7g, m7g | $0.0029 | $0.0200 | 7.0x cheaper |
| 16cpu-linux-arm64 | c7g, m7g | $0.0048 | $0.0400 | 8.4x cheaper |
| 32cpu-linux-arm64 | c7g, m7g | $0.0098 | $0.0800 | 8.2x cheaper |
| 48cpu-linux-arm64 | c7g, m7g | $0.0141 | - | - |
| 64cpu-linux-arm64 | c7g, m7g | $0.0200 | $0.1600 | 8.0x cheaper |
$/min, us-east-1 prices. Includes compute + storage costs
for the most recent EC2 family types.
Savings are even higher if you
include the speed gains or switch to previous-generation instance types.
Notes:
- GitHub Action runners are free for public repositories, so obviously the GitHub prices only apply for minutes used in private GitHub repositories.
- The RunsOn prices are for the most recent and fastest instance types (m7a/c7a). If you accept to use (still faster than GitHub!) previous-generation instance types, you can get even cheaper prices!
License types
If you are evaluating RunsOn, you can get a demo license, valid for 15 days (see below). If you are unsure about which license is best for you, please contact me at [email protected]. Also contact me for any other questions you might have.
Demo license
Full access for 15 days. Email support.
Free
Get licenseNon-commercial license
For personal use, and non-profit organizations. Email support.
I only ask that you give a shoutout with a link back to RunsOn on one of your project's README, landing page, or blog article.
Free
Get licenseCommercial license
For clever companies that want to reduce their CI bill. Monthly license fee is usually recouped within DAYS of usage. Email support.
300€/year (25€/month)
Buy license❤️ Sponsorship license
Commercial license with dedicated support, sponsor badge + link on homepage, and access to the Server and Agent source code.
1500€/year (125€/month)
Buy licenseTo manage your subscription and billing settings, you can log into the Lemon Squeezy Customer portal ↗.
If you want to avoid adding yet another vendor and invoice, RunsOn is also available for purchase through the AWS marketplace ↗. For now, only the sponsorship license is available on the AWS marketplace.
Total cost of ownership
A detailed breakdown of the expected costs is as follows:
- AWS costs for the RunsOn stack: between $1.5 and $5/month for the AppRunner service.
- AWS costs for the EC2 instances that are spawned (see calculator above for estimates).
Billing is per-second, whereas GitHub bills per minute. - RunsOn license: flat fee (or free for non-commercial use), see License types above.
- GitHub Actions: $0 (GitHub doesn’t bill for self-hosted runners).
Example 1
Assuming you buy the standard commercial license, and use an average of 4000 minutes of 4CPU x64 runners per business days, your costs would be:
| Cost Component | RunsOn | GitHub |
|---|---|---|
| AWS costs for RunsOn stack | $0.15/business day$3/20 | N/A |
| AWS costs for runners | $7.6/business day4000 * $0.0019/min | N/A |
| RunsOn license | $1.25/business day€300/(12*20) | N/A |
| GitHub Actions | $0 | $64/business day4000 * $0.0160/min |
| Total per business day | ~$9 | $64 |
| Total per month | ~$180 | $1280 |
Example 2
If you use larger runners, for instance 4000 minutes of 16CPU x64 runners per business days, the cost breakdown is as follows:
| Cost Component | RunsOn | GitHub |
|---|---|---|
| AWS costs for RunsOn stack | $0.15/business day$3/20 | N/A |
| AWS costs for runners | $27.2/business day4000 * $0.0068/min | N/A |
| RunsOn license | $1.25/business day€300/(12*20) | N/A |
| GitHub Actions | $0 | $256/business day4000 * $0.0640/min |
| Total per business day | ~$28 | $256 |
| Total per month | ~$560 | $5120 |
The more minutes, and the larger runners you use, the more savings you will get, because EC2 storage costs (primarily for EBS volume provisioned throughput, which is the same for all runners) have a magnified effect on smaller runners. The throughput value can also be configured so that it costs nothing, at the cost of slightly higher boot times for runners.
FAQ
What is included in the license?
The license allows access and use of the following:
- a CloudFormation template to setup the required bits of infrastructure in your own AWS account (installation in a sub-account is recommended)
- a Docker image containing the RunsOn server and agent code.
- the base AMIs, to maintain 1-1 workflow compatibility between GitHub and RunsOn.
And regular updates to the points above.
Can I make updates to the source code?
If you buy the Sponsorship license, you will get access to the source code of the RunsOn server and agent components. You can then freely modify the source code for your internal usage, as long as you don’t share the source code with anyone else, and don’t use it for a commercial service.
Can I try before I buy?
Yes, choose the Demo license to get a 15 day free trial.
Do I need to pay for my AWS resources?
Yes, the license only covers access and updates to the RunsOn stack. Any runner started by RunsOn will be billed directly to your AWS account.
You can find the prices you can expect from AWS runners on RunsOn, using the calculator.
How to ensure that I do not spend too much money on runners?
Every day, a cost recap is sent to a specific email that you provide at installation time, with the daily cost over the last 15 days, so that you can quickly see if something weird is happening.
There is also a default CloudWatch alarm set, which will immediately alert you by email if your usage goes over 4000 minutes of runtime per day.
Finally, metrics about your workflow jobs are sent to CloudWatch (under the RunsOn namespace), so you can set more alarms or build a dashboard, to get the monitoring and alerting you need.