Credit-Based vs. Classic SaaS Pricing: what the GitHub and Anthropic billing shifts reveal (opens in new tab)

TL;DR Within two weeks in June 2026, GitHub Copilot moved its monthly plans to metered AI credits and Anthropic pulled programmatic Claude usage out of the flat subscription into a separate credit pool billed at API rates. If you are building an AI SaaS, the question is no longer whether to meter usage, but which billing model fits your cost structure: credit-based or classic subscription. The problem Most AI products still run on the classic billing model: pay a fixed monthly fee, use the pr...