I signed up for Blacksmith about a week ago because its GitHub runners were impressively fast. However, I've already received a $7 bill and a warning that I've used 80% of my free minutes, along with a request to add a payment method. I'm confused about how the free usage and billing work. I'm willing to pay for a service that performs well, but I'm concerned about unexpected charges and potentially larger bills later. I also found it difficult to contact billing because a payment method is required, and I haven't received a response through the support email. Has anyone else run into this, and can someone explain what usage typically causes these charges?
5 Answers
The $7 itself may not be the biggest issue; the lack of predictable billing and requiring a payment method before contacting billing are more concerning. Check your usage details carefully and set up alerts before putting important workloads on the service.
I wasn’t comfortable with needing to add billing information just to remain within the free tier, so I moved to self-hosted runners. That avoids the hosted-runner charges, though it does mean handling the maintenance yourself.
Some users dislike that the service records paid usage and applies the free allowance as a discount afterward, rather than stopping at the free-tier limit. According to that model, a displayed charge may be offset by a roughly $9 free-usage credit, so the final amount could be lower than the initial bill suggests.
Another hosted runner provider may be worth comparing if the pricing feels too unpredictable. Look for a clearly defined free allowance, transparent overage rates, and usage alerts before switching a larger workload.
Review the pricing page and your detailed usage breakdown. Storage-related features, such as persistent or sticky disks, may be billed separately—possibly around $0.50 per GB—so the runner minutes may not be the only charge involved.
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