CoPilot Usage is shown differently in Budget menu and Usage menu (Admin view)

[andbmg]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Copilot in GitHub

Body

I am an admin for about 120 CoPilot users (Business). We have set a budget for $49 per user.

In the new menu "AI Usage" I see one user who has already exceeded his credits ($49.31), but is still able to do AI work.
On the other hand, in the menu "Budgets and Alerts", this user has only used $34.82. So two different usages in two menus.

Is this a bug or is there an explanation for this?

P.S. The first user who hit the budget was shown correctly: It stopped after $49 (or 4900 tokens) and was blocked. After that I set a specific budget for this user ($69) so he could work on, but only for this user.

So I am asking myself: Is there a bug in the UI for the budget? For example, if I set the budget for just one user, it applies to all users?

AI Usage view:

Budget view:

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[Fatiihunza89]

What you're seeing is likely due to the fact that the AI Usage and Budgets & Alerts pages are tracking slightly different metrics and may not update in real time.

A few possible explanations:

AI Usage often shows actual consumption/costs incurred, while Budgets & Alerts may reflect budget-tracked usage that updates on a delay.
There can be a lag between usage being recorded and budget enforcement kicking in, especially for requests already in progress.
If you've assigned a custom budget override to one user, it's worth verifying that the override was applied only to that user and not inherited or misconfigured elsewhere.
GitHub has occasionally had discrepancies between reporting views when new billing features are rolled out, so a UI/reporting issue is also possible.

To investigate:

Check the user's detailed usage history and compare the date ranges shown in both views.
Verify whether the AI Usage page includes charges that the Budget page excludes (for example, different models or services).
Confirm the individual budget settings for all affected users.
Open a GitHub Support ticket if the discrepancy persists, including screenshots of both pages and the affected user.

If one view shows $49.31 and the other $34.82 for the same user and period, that's generally not expected behavior and may indicate either a reporting delay or a bug in the billing UI.

[andbmg]

Dear @Fatiihunza89, thank you for your help.

I can't see any difference for this user (and the other who worked). Also we don't have any other charges or special policies.

Creating a support ticket might be the best option, even though I did not get fast answers in the last months. Does anybody have the same issue?

[shailesh-zx]

This looks more like a data sync difference between the Copilot usage views rather than an actual billing bug.

From what I’ve observed, the “AI Usage” section and “Budgets & Alerts” don’t always pull data from the same processing layer. One shows near real-time or recently processed usage, while the other reflects more finalized billing data, which can create a temporary mismatch.

Also, if there is a user-level budget override applied, it may take some time to fully sync across all dashboards, which can further cause differences in displayed values.

Another point is that different types of Copilot usage (like chat, code suggestions, or premium requests) may not be grouped the same way in both views.

Overall, this seems to be a sync/aggregation delay between systems rather than incorrect billing. It usually settles after full data processing, but if it continues beyond 24–48 hours, it’s worth validating with exported usage data or raising it with support.

[andbmg]

@shailesh-zx , yes, that might be the explanation for it. But does it make sense in terms of Token budgeting, to have different counters and data? For an admin there should be one single source of truth, to know exactly where you are with your token budget. I created a support ticket and waiting for answer - I'll let you know when I hear something