Pricing
RunsOn is self-hosted in your AWS infrastructure. It launches EC2 instances to act as self-hosted GitHub Actions runners, therefore you will have to pay:
- the EC2 costs directly to AWS, as well as the cost of running the RunsOn stack.
- a software license fee, to cover for the use of the RunsOn software, and ensure the project is sustainable.
Most users will see a return on investment measured in DAYS. Examples of total cost of ownership are provided below.
EC2 costs for self-hosted runners
Section titled “EC2 costs for self-hosted runners”The table below shows the per-minute prices of various runner types using EC2 instances launched by RunsOn, against comparable official managed GitHub runners. Cost includes compute + storage using the default RunsOn stack parameters. Networking costs can vary depending on your usage but all ingress traffic on AWS is free. Most users can significantly reduce egress traffic by using the Magic Cache feature, as well as ECR for storing docker images.
$/min, us-east-1 spot prices, for the instance type selected at the time of the calculation. Prices can vary based on time of day, region, and instance type selected. Savings are higher if you include the speed gains (your jobs will consume less minutes) or use previous-generation instance types.
License types
Section titled “License types”If you are evaluating RunsOn, you can get a demo license, valid for 15 days. If you are unsure about which license is best for you, please reach out at [email protected].
All licenses cover:
- the use of the RunsOn software ↗,
- access to the base AMIs ↗
- unlimited number of jobs and minutes
- email support
In addition, the sponsorship license includes:
- priority support
- private Slack Connect channel with the founder
- access to the private source code of the RunsOn software
- shoutout on landing page (optional)
Demo license
Full access for 15 days. Email support.
Start with this license to evaluate RunsOn for free.
Free
Get licenseNon-commercial license
ONLY for personal use, and non-profit organizations. Best-effort email support.
It is free, but you must 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
Default license for companies. Email support.
300€/year
Buy license❤️ Sponsorship license
Help drive the development of RunsOn! Dedicated support by email and Slack Connect. Access to the Server and Agent source code. Sponsor badge on the homepage (optional).
1500€/year
Buy licenseTo manage your subscription and billing settings, you can log into the Lemon Squeezy Customer portal ↗.
Total cost of ownership
Section titled “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 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
Section titled “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
Section titled “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.
What is included in the license?
Section titled “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?
Section titled “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?
Section titled “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?
Section titled “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?
Section titled “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.
How to update the license key?
Section titled “How to update the license key?”After your demo period, once you have purchased a new license, you can just update the LicenseKey parameter in the stack parameters. No need to re-install the stack.