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macOS CI runners pricing compared (2026)

GitHub's standard macOS runner costs $3.72 an hour; the lowest listed Namespace and Tenki shapes start at $2.40 (checked 25 Oct 2026). Compare machine sizes, included usage and monthly commitments before choosing. Macswarm sells agent Pod-hours and is not a drop-in CI runner.

What does a macOS runner cost per hour?

GitHub’s standard macOS runner costs $0.062 a minute, $3.72 an hour, for one job at a time (docs.github.com, checked 25 Oct 2026). Vendors with their own runner label list shapes from $0.04 a minute for Namespace’s 4 vCPU and Tenki’s 2 vCPU shapes, up to $0.20 for Namespace’s 16 vCPU shape; 6 to 8 vCPU shapes cost $0.06 to $0.08 (namespace.so, tenki.cloud, warpbuild.com, depot.dev, blacksmith.sh, checked 25 Oct 2026). Xcode Cloud sells compute hours in monthly tiers from $49.99 (developer.apple.com, checked 25 Oct 2026). MacRun rents one dedicated Mac mini for $139 a month (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026). NoMac rents a root Mac to an agent at $0.80 an hour, billed by the minute (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026). Macswarm sells Pod-hours for Claude Code and Codex sessions: Pro is $99 a month for 300 Pod-hours, up to four Pods at a time, then $0.40 per extra Pod-hour; it is not a drop-in CI runner. Utilization and machine shape, not the rate alone, decide which is cheaper.

These are list-price calculations, not performance benchmarks. Different machine shapes, billing conditions and workflows can change the cost of completing the same task. Prices are in USD; taxes, model usage and required third-party subscriptions are excluded unless stated.

How do macOS runner prices and billing units compare?

Service What you get Price (list) Billing unit Minimum or plan Free to start Xcode and Simulators, as stated on the checked page What runs at once Regions Source
GitHub-hosted macOS One job per runner on GitHub’s shared fleet: standard 3- or 4-core, 12-core, or 5-core M2 Pro; a job runs for up to 6 hours (Actions limits, checked 25 Oct 2026) $0.062, $0.077 or $0.102 a minute, which is $3.72, $4.62 or $6.12 an hour (docs.github.com, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute, rounded up per job None 2,000 included minutes a month on GitHub Free, 3,000 on Pro and Team (docs.github.com, checked 25 Oct 2026); how macOS jobs draw on them is set by GitHub’s billing rules, which the current pages state as per-minute rates rather than a multiplier Not stated on the pricing page 1 job per runner; not an agent product GitHub’s choice docs.github.com, Actions runner pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Namespace GitHub Actions runners on M5 Max and M4 Pro bare metal, 4 vCPU/7 GB to 16 vCPU/56 GB; also sandboxes and devboxes for agents, macOS devboxes at $0.06 (M) or $0.12 (L) a minute $0.04 a minute for 4 vCPU/7 GB and $0.06 for 6 vCPU/14 GB prepaid ($2.40 and $3.60 an hour), $0.12 for 12 vCPU/28 GB, $0.20 for 16 vCPU/56 GB; overage $0.09 on the 6 vCPU shape (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute (unit minutes) Developer $0 pay as you go, macOS concurrency 12 vCPU and a 3-hour job maximum; Team $100 a month, 5-hour jobs; Business $250 a month, 24-hour jobs (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) 30-day trial Xcode images (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) 1 job per runner Not stated on the pricing page namespace.so/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
WarpBuild GitHub Actions runners on M4 Pro, 6 vCPU/14 GB or 12 vCPU/28 GB $0.08 a minute for 6 vCPU/14 GB ($4.80 an hour); $0.16 for 12 vCPU/28 GB (warpbuild.com/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute None stated No card to start; free usage not stated on the pricing page Not stated on the pricing page 1 job per runner Not stated on the pricing page warpbuild.com/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Depot GitHub Actions runners on M4 (8 vCPU/24 GB) or M2; Depot says macOS capacity is not fully elastic; its agent sandboxes are Linux $0.08 a minute ($4.80 an hour) (depot.dev runner types, checked 25 Oct 2026), plus a plan: Developer $20 a month, Startup $200 (depot.dev/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute Developer plan, $20 a month Developer includes 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes a month (depot.dev/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); whether they apply to macOS runners is not stated on the checked pages Not stated on the checked pages 1 job per runner Not stated on the checked pages depot.dev runner types and pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Blacksmith GitHub Actions runners on M4 $0.08 a minute ($4.80 an hour) (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute None stated 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Not stated on the pricing page 1 job per runner Not stated on the pricing page blacksmith.sh/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Tenki GitHub Actions runners on M4 Pro bare metal, single-use VMs, 2 vCPU to 8 vCPU/32 GB $0.040 (2 vCPU) to $0.160 (8 vCPU/32 GB) a minute, $2.40 to $9.60 an hour (tenki.cloud/products/runners, checked 25 Oct 2026); Tenki’s docs show per-vCPU rates that differ from the product page Minute, as listed None $100 starter credit, no card (tenki.cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026) Not stated on the product page 1 job per runner Not stated on the product page tenki.cloud/products/runners (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Codemagic Mobile CI with its own workflows on Mac mini M2 or M4; M4 Max on fixed plans Pay as you go $0.095 a minute on M2 and $0.114 on M4 ($5.70 and $6.84 an hour) (codemagic.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); fixed plans are yearly commitments, see the note under the table Minute None on pay as you go 500 free M2 minutes a month (codemagic.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Not stated on the pricing page 1 build per machine; not an agent product Not stated on the pricing page codemagic.io/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Bitrise Build Hub Hosted GitHub Actions runners (macOS M4 Large, Linux) run by Bitrise; Bitrise CI, with its own workflows, is a separate product with its own plans Basic tiers $15, $45, $90 and $180 a month billed monthly; Pro tiers $210, $300, $600 and $810. Each fee is a budget spent at machine rates, M4 Large at $0.03 a minute, so up to 6,000 M4 Large minutes on Basic’s top tier and 27,000 on Pro’s; paid yearly, the fees are 10% lower (bitrise.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute, against the tier’s monthly budget; pay as you go at 2x the machine rate is off by default $15 a month 14-day trial (bitrise.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026) Not stated on the pricing page 1 job per runner Not stated on the pricing page bitrise.io/pricing (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Xcode Cloud Apple’s CI and delivery service built into Xcode and App Store Connect 100 h $49.99, 250 h $99.99, 1,000 h $399.99, 10,000 h $3,999.99 a month (developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026) Compute hour, in monthly tiers Apple Developer Program membership, $99 a year (developer.apple.com/programs, checked 25 Oct 2026) 25 compute hours a month with the Developer Program (developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026) Apple-managed Workflows only; not an agent product Not stated on the checked page developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud (checked 25 Oct 2026)
MacRun One dedicated M6 Mac mini per customer with Xcode, the Simulator, Claude Code and Codex preinstalled, sold as a CI runner or an Agent Mac $139 a month (CI runner) or $169 (Agent Mac); first month $104 or $127 at launch pricing (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026) Month, cancel anytime One month None stated Xcode and the Simulator preinstalled (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026) What one Mac carries; one tenant Not stated on the checked page macrun.dev (checked 25 Oct 2026)
NoMac A disposable root macOS session on Apple silicon with Xcode, Homebrew and the iOS Simulator; signs, uploads to TestFlight and submits to App Review; MCP, CLI, API and SSH; a 20 GB encrypted drive persists across sessions $0.80 an hour, billed by the minute (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026) Minute, 1-minute minimum $10 of prepaid credit that never expires (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026) None stated; 7-day money-back on the first purchase (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026) Xcode and the iOS Simulator (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026) A session with root access; any agent that connects over MCP, CLI, API or SSH; $5 default cap per session Not stated on the checked page nomac.app (checked 25 Oct 2026)
Macswarm Pods on dedicated Apple silicon Mac minis with the Latest Xcode, pre-booted Simulators, Claude Code, Codex and XcodeBuildMCP, for one developer’s agents Free: 3 Pod-hours once, one Pod, no card. Pro: $99 a month, 300 Pod-hours, up to four Pods, $0.40 per extra Pod-hour. Team: $399 a month, 1,500 Pod-hours, up to ten Pods, $0.30 extra, audit log and usage by developer. Enterprise: from $3,000 a month, reserved Macs, SSO/SAML, invoice billing, EU or US by contract; Contact us: info@macswarm.com Second, while a Pod runs, including the ten minutes after the last session None; Free needs no card 3 Pod-hours, once The Latest Xcode and the previous major; 3 to 4 pre-booted Simulators per Pod, leased to agents 2 to 3 active agents per Pod, 2 concurrent builds; Pods at a time: 1 on Free, 4 on Pro, 10 on Team, by contract on Enterprise EU (Netherlands) or US, per environment Pricing, Enterprise, Limits and queues

Listed runner shapes range from $0.04 to $0.20 a minute; machine sizes and plan conditions differ. “Not stated” means the checked vendor page does not say. Installed Simulator runtimes and boot behavior must be checked in each vendor’s image documentation; the table records only what the checked pages state. GitHub’s current pages print per-minute rates rather than a multiplier table; “about ten times” for macOS against Linux is the ratio of $0.062 to $0.006, our arithmetic. Yearly commitments are left out of the monthly columns: Codemagic’s fixed plans run $3,990 a year on M2, $5,400 on M4 and $9,000 on M4 Max with unlimited minutes (codemagic.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026), and Bitrise Build Hub’s fees are 10% lower when paid yearly (bitrise.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). Bitrise CI, a separate product with its own workflows, lists Hobby free with 300 credits a month, Starter $99 a month and Pro $218 a month billed monthly (bitrise.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); its per-minute macOS rates are not printed on the pricing page, so it is not in the cost table below.

What do 30, 90 and 300 hours cost?

Three volumes of macOS runtime in one month: 30 hours (1,800 minutes), 90 hours (5,400) and 300 hours (18,000), at the list prices above. For per-minute runners the hours are job minutes on one runner shape; for MacRun, hours of use of one machine; for NoMac, session minutes; for Macswarm, Pod runtime including the ten minutes billed after each session block. Monthly free minutes are deducted where the checked page states them for macOS; one-time credits (Tenki’s $100, Macswarm’s 3 Pod-hours) are not. No row includes model usage, taxes or required third-party subscriptions. These are list-price calculations, not performance benchmarks: equal hours on different machine shapes are not equal work.

Service and plan 30 h 90 h 300 h How it is calculated, with assumptions and exclusions
GitHub, standard macOS runner, gross $111.60 $334.80 $1,116 1,800, 5,400 and 18,000 minutes at $0.062 (docs.github.com, checked 25 Oct 2026). Gross cost before any included minutes; how included minutes apply to macOS jobs depends on GitHub’s billing rules for your plan, so no allowance is deducted
Namespace, 6 vCPU/14 GB $108 $324 $1,080 Compute subtotal at the $0.06 prepaid rate (namespace.so/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); plan commitments and the overage rate excluded. The 4 vCPU shape at $0.04 is $72, $216 and $720
WarpBuild, 6 vCPU/14 GB $144 $432 $1,440 Minutes at $0.08 (warpbuild.com/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026); no plan fee stated
Depot, M4 8 vCPU/24 GB, Developer plan $164 $452 $1,460 Minutes at $0.08 plus the $20 a month Developer plan (depot.dev runner types and pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). Whether the plan’s 2,000 included GitHub Actions minutes apply to macOS runners is not stated on the checked pages, so none are deducted
Blacksmith, M4 $0 $192 $1,200 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type, then $0.08 (blacksmith.sh/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026): 90 hours is 2,400 billed minutes, 300 hours is 15,000
Tenki, M4 Pro $72 to $288 $216 to $864 $720 to $2,880 2 vCPU at $0.040 up to 8 vCPU/32 GB at $0.160 (tenki.cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026); the one-time $100 starter credit is not deducted
Codemagic, M4, pay as you go $205.20 $615.60 $2,052 Minutes at $0.114 (codemagic.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). On M2 at $0.095 after the 500 free M2 minutes a month: $123.50, $465.50 and $1,662.50. Fixed yearly plans excluded
Bitrise Build Hub, billed monthly $90 $180 $600 The lowest tier whose budget covers the minutes at the $0.03 M4 Large rate (bitrise.io/pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026): 1,800 minutes need $54 of budget, the $90 Basic tier; 5,400 need $162, the $180 tier; 18,000 need $540, past Basic’s 6,000-minute top tier, so Pro’s $600 tier. Pay as you go at 2x is off by default and not used; paid yearly, each fee is 10% lower
Xcode Cloud $49.99 $49.99 $399.99 The tier whose hours cover the volume on its own (developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud, checked 25 Oct 2026): 100 hours for 30 and 90, 1,000 hours for 300 because 250 falls short. Requires an Apple Developer Program membership ($99 a year, excluded); its 25 included compute hours are not added to a paid tier because the checked page does not say whether they stack
MacRun, CI runner $139 $139 $139 One dedicated Mac at the flat monthly price (macrun.dev, checked 25 Oct 2026), one job at a time; all three volumes fit in the month’s available runtime on one machine
NoMac $24 $72 $240 Credit consumed at $0.80 an hour (nomac.app, checked 25 Oct 2026); the minimum initial payment is $10. The 5% to 20% bonus on larger top-ups is not applied because the thresholds are not stated on the checked page
Macswarm, Pro $99 $99 $99 Pro includes 300 Pod-hours a month for $99 with up to four Pods at a time; hour 301 onward is $0.40. The volumes are Pod runtime including the ten minutes billed after each session block, however many agents share the Pod. At 30 hours the effective rate is $3.30 a Pod-hour, at 300 it is $0.33. Model usage is billed separately by Anthropic or OpenAI

Three things to read into that table:

  • Per-minute runners are linear: double the minutes, double the bill. That is the right shape for bursty CI, where a fleet sits idle most of the day.
  • Flat products step. MacRun is $139 whether the Mac works 10 hours or 700. Xcode Cloud jumps from $99.99 to $399.99 past 250 hours. Macswarm Pro is $99 until hour 300 and $0.40 an hour after. Flat products win when utilization is high and lose when it is low.
  • The units are different things. 300 runner-hours might be 300 one-hour test jobs. 300 Pod-hours is 300 hours of a Pod running whatever its agents were doing in it. Three agents for one developer can share one running Pod. Billing follows Pod runtime, not agent count. Two builds run concurrently; further builds queue. This does not establish that three runner-hours of work finish in one Pod-hour. The ten minutes after the last session are billed. A single xcodebuild test job does not get cheaper on a Pod; it just has company.

Which service should you pick?

  • A drop-in replacement for runs-on: macos-latest. Namespace, WarpBuild, Depot or Blacksmith. Their 6 to 8 vCPU shapes are within $0.02 a minute of each other on the checked pages, so compare on the shape you use, the free minutes and the queue times. Tenki if a 2 vCPU shape fits your jobs. Macswarm vs GitHub-hosted macOS runners and Macswarm vs Namespace macOS go deeper on two of them.
  • Mobile CI with the workflows managed for you. Codemagic or Bitrise CI: a pipeline built for iOS and Android, priced by their own plans.
  • An Apple-only pipeline. Xcode Cloud, if the 25 included hours or the $49.99 tier cover you and you ship through TestFlight anyway. See Xcode Cloud vs Macswarm for Codex and Claude Code.
  • A whole Mac, 24/7, flat price. MacRun, when the workflow needs a continuously available Mac you administer. See Macswarm vs MacRun and, for teams leaving a flat-rate runner, Cirrus Runners alternatives.
  • Occasional, short agent use. NoMac, from $10 of credit, billed by the minute. See NoMac vs Macswarm.
  • Claude Code or Codex agents that need a Mac with Simulators, several at once for one developer. Macswarm. It is not a runner; Macswarm does not provide a GitHub Actions runner label. It is a Pod that one developer’s Claude Code and Codex sessions share.

How do Claude Code and Codex get a Macswarm Pod?

Claude self-hosted environments require a Claude Team or Enterprise organization and are in public beta. Claude Pro and Max users can start a Pod on Macswarm Free or Pro and sign in to Claude Code inside it. Codex uses the OpenAI Agents API webhook with API access. Model usage is billed separately. Setup is in the Claude Code quickstart and the Codex quickstart; the FAQ lists which Claude plans work, and running Claude Code on a cloud Mac walks through a session.

A Pod-hour is one Pod running for one hour, metered per second. One developer’s sessions can share the running Pod. A new Pod starts from a fresh clone and is destroyed ten minutes after its last session ends; those ten minutes are billed. Agents work during a session; after eight hours they are asked to wrap up and push (Limits and queues). Pods accept no inbound connections, and customers and Macswarm staff have no SSH or screen-sharing access to a running customer Pod (Security); logs and screenshots are kept for 30 days (privacy policy).

Plans, all monthly: Free, 3 Pod-hours once, one Pod, no card. Pro, $99 a month for 300 Pod-hours, up to four Pods at a time, $0.40 per extra Pod-hour. Team, $399 a month for 1,500 Pod-hours, up to ten Pods at a time, $0.30 per extra Pod-hour, with an audit log and usage by developer. Enterprise, from $3,000 a month: reserved Macs, SSO/SAML, invoice billing, EU or US by contract; Contact us: info@macswarm.com. Details are on the pricing page and the Enterprise page.

Start free with 3 Pod-hours

How much does a GitHub Actions macOS runner cost per hour?

$3.72 an hour on the standard 3- or 4-core runner ($0.062 a minute), $4.62 on the 12-core runner ($0.077) and $6.12 on the 5-core M2 Pro runner ($0.102); the per-minute rates are GitHub’s and the hourly figures are our arithmetic (docs.github.com, Actions runner pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). Minutes are rounded up per job, and a job can run for up to 6 hours (docs.github.com, Actions limits, checked 25 Oct 2026). GitHub cut hosted-runner prices by up to 39% on 1 January 2026 and folded a $0.002 a minute platform charge into the listed rates (resources.github.com, 2026 pricing changes, checked 25 Oct 2026), so posts written before that date quote higher macOS rates.

Why do macOS jobs use up included GitHub minutes so fast?

Because a macOS minute is priced about ten times a Linux minute: $0.062 against $0.006 for the 2-core Linux runner (docs.github.com, Actions runner pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). That ratio is our arithmetic; GitHub’s current pricing pages list a rate per runner type and do not print a multiplier table. GitHub Free includes 2,000 minutes a month and GitHub Pro and Team 3,000 (docs.github.com, Actions runner pricing, checked 25 Oct 2026). How a macOS job draws on that allowance is set by GitHub’s billing rules for your plan and runner type, not by the price ratio, so check the billing page for your plan before counting on included minutes for macOS jobs.

Which macOS GitHub Actions runner has the lowest per-minute price?

On the pages checked on 25 Oct 2026, Tenki’s 2 vCPU shape at $0.040 a minute (tenki.cloud) and Namespace’s 4 vCPU shape at $0.04 (namespace.so/pricing) are the lowest list prices for a hosted macOS GitHub Actions runner, both on Apple silicon. Those are small shapes. At 6 vCPU, Namespace is $0.06 a minute prepaid and WarpBuild $0.08 (warpbuild.com); Blacksmith’s M4 runner is $0.08 (blacksmith.sh) and Depot’s 8 vCPU M4 runner is $0.08 (depot.dev). Blacksmith lists 3,000 free minutes a month per runner type, which covers 50 macOS hours before any charge. Machine sizes and plan conditions differ, so compare on the shape your jobs use. These prices describe CI runner products; vendors such as Namespace also sell separate agent environments.

Is a Pod-hour the same as a runner-hour?

No. A runner-hour is one job on one machine for an hour; when the job ends the machine is gone. A Pod-hour is one Pod running for one hour, metered per second. One developer’s sessions can share the running Pod. A new Pod starts from a fresh clone and is destroyed ten minutes after its last session ends; those ten minutes are billed. Three agents for one developer can share one running Pod. Billing follows Pod runtime, not agent count. Two builds run concurrently; further builds queue. This does not establish that three runner-hours of work finish in one Pod-hour. Pro costs $99 a month for 300 Pod-hours with up to four Pods at a time, then $0.40 per extra Pod-hour; $0.33 per Pod-hour is the effective rate only when all 300 included hours are used. Team is $399 a month for 1,500 Pod-hours with up to ten Pods at a time, then $0.30. Model usage is billed separately by Anthropic or OpenAI.

Can Macswarm replace a macOS CI runner?

Not as a drop-in. Macswarm has no GitHub Actions runner label, no runner registration and no workflow trigger. It hosts interactive agents: Claude Code through a self-hosted environment, which requires a Claude Team or Enterprise organization (public beta), and Codex through the OpenAI Agents API webhook with API access. Claude Pro and Max users can start a Pod on the Free or Pro plan and sign in to Claude Code inside it. Agents build, launch the app in a Simulator, tap through it, fix what they find, then commit and push; your existing CI builds and tests the branch they push. For a test matrix on every push with nobody steering it, pick a runner from the table. For a Mac an agent can work on during a session, with Simulators ready, that is what a Pod is for. Setup is in the Claude Code quickstart and the Codex quickstart; model usage is billed separately.

Where do these numbers come from?

Reviewed October 25, 2026. Facts on this page are rechecked when the product or a vendor's prices change.