Every $20 AI subscription costs about $100 to serve

An analysis finds that $20/month AI subscriptions cost labs roughly five times more to serve: Anthropic reportedly burns about $8 of compute per $1 of subscription revenue, and Microsoft lost over $20 a month on each GitHub Copilot seat. GitHub moves Copilot to usage-based billing on June 1, 2026, as agentic workloads break the flat-fee model.

• Anthropic reportedly burns about $8 of compute per $1 of subscription revenue
• Microsoft lost over $20 a month on each GitHub Copilot seat
• GitHub moves Copilot to usage-based billing on June 1, 2026
• The $20 subscription price has not changed since 2022 despite major model upgrades