Free models

[Skeferstat]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

VS Code

Body

Hi,
I use Copilot Pro in VS Code. When my budget runs out, I'd like to use the free standard models. Which ones are those? No matter which model I select, I get a message telling me to increase my budget.
Thanks for the help!

[maheerCodes]

hey @Skeferstat 👋 .
so the "free standard models" in copilot pro basically means the models that dont consume your premium request budget ,,,these are the ones included in your base plan without extra charges.
right now the models that come under the standard/included quota are :

• GPT-4o.
• GPT-4o mini,
• Claude 3.5 Sonnet (base).
• Gemini 1.5 Pro.
  the ones that eat into your budget are the premium models like o1 ,o3 ,Claude 3.7 Sonnet ,Gemini 2.0 etc ,,,those cost extra requests on top of your base plan
  if youre still getting the "increase budget" message even on GPT-4o or GPT-4o mini ,,,a couple things to check:
• make sure youre selecting the model from the model picker in the chat panel ,not just the inline completion which sometimes defaults to a premium model.
• check github.com/settings/copilot,,,it should show your current usage breakdown and which models are counting against budget vs included ,
• sometimes VS Code needs a restart after switching models for the change to fully apply.

which model were you trying when you got the message ? that'd help narrow it down,,,,,

[Stark-SK]

Hi,

In Copilot, there isn’t a separate “free model list” that automatically takes over when your Copilot Pro budget is exhausted. Instead, once your paid usage limit is reached, Copilot generally stops responding for premium requests rather than switching silently to a free fallback model.

1 - The “free standard models” people often refer to are usually the default Copilot Chat experience models (basic chat functionality), but these still depend on your active Copilot entitlement. If your plan or budget is exhausted, they may also become unavailable.

2 - In VS Code, the message asking you to increase your budget usually means your Copilot Pro quota or billing limit has been reached, not that a fallback model is available.

3 - To continue using Copilot features, you typically need to:
a - Increase or reset your Copilot budget in GitHub billing settings
b - Wait for your usage cycle to reset (if applicable in your plan)
c - Switch to a plan that includes higher or unlimited usage

4 - If you are seeing this message for all models, it likely indicates that your account is blocked from further requests due to quota exhaustion, not a model selection issue.

So in short, Copilot doesn’t automatically downgrade you to “free models” when budget runs out — it just restricts usage until your quota or billing allowance is restored.

If you want, tell me the exact message you’re seeing and I can help pinpoint whether it’s a quota issue or a configuration problem in VS Code.