Ship on GitHub Free: Issues, Projects, and Actions minutes
Land a Free release skeleton with Issues, Projects, and short Actions, then decide Team from official minutes and the $4/user month price.
Indie developers often keep bugs in chat apps and release steps in their heads. That works alone until a contractor arrives or a week off breaks context. GitHub keeps code, Issues, Projects, and Actions in one place. This article ignores editor choice and focuses on how to land release and defect workflow on GitHub Free, and when Team is worth paying for. Prices and Actions minutes are anchored to GitHub Pricing and the Actions billing docs observed on 2026-09-25.
Build the smallest release skeleton first
Private repositories are available on Free. Pricing lists Free at $0 per month with unlimited public and private repositories, 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month for private GitHub Actions usage, free Actions minutes for public repositories on standard hosted runners, 500MB of Packages storage, plus Issues and Projects. Do three things first. Add a README and one release checklist Issue template. Create a Project with To do, In progress, and Ready to release. Keep Actions on test and build only before you wire complex multi-environment deploys.
Write Issue titles as verifiable outcomes, not moods. A note that the submit button overlaps on a narrow login is actionable; a vague complaint is not. Each Issue needs one close condition. Without that, the Project board becomes a mood wall.
How to spend Actions minutes without billing surprises
Actions billing docs state that usage is free for self-hosted runners and for public repositories on standard GitHub-hosted runners. Private repositories receive free minutes, artifact storage, and cache storage by plan; overage is billed. Minutes reset each billing cycle. Minute cost is charged to the repository owner, not the person who clicked run. If Copilot code review is enabled, it also consumes Actions minutes: still free on public repos, drawn from plan entitlement on private repos.
The indie default is simple. Prefer public repos when you can, trading for free minutes and visible external contribution. For private repos, keep workflows short, cache dependencies, and avoid full matrices on every tiny commit. Failures you can catch locally should not be paid for again in the cloud. If you steadily approach 2,000 private minutes, slim workflows before you buy a higher plan.
Upgrade triggers from Free to Team
Pricing lists Team at $4 USD per user per month, including everything in Free plus stronger collaboration features and Codespaces access entry points. Billing docs map Team private repos to higher minute and storage allowances. One founder shipping alone with occasional PR reviewers usually stays on Free. Move toward Team when you need clearer permission layers, steady multi-person collaboration, or when Free minutes and storage stay maxed after workflow diet. Do not buy Team in week one for optics.
Codespaces is usage-based, with pricing calling out starting compute and storage unit prices. It solves cloud dev environments; it does not invent release discipline. Without Issues and workflows, Codespaces is just another metered computer.