Usage & Minutes

How Minutes Are Tracked

RunnerHub charges for build execution time, measured from when your build starts running until it completes (successfully or with failure).

Minute Calculation

Start: When the agent begins executing your build steps (RUNNING state)
End: When the build finishes (SUCCESS, FAILED, or TIMEOUT)
Duration: Measured in minutes, rounded up to the nearest minute

If your build runs for 1 minute 30 seconds, you’re charged for 2 minutes.

Minute Allocation by Plan

Free Tier

500 minutes per month
Includes 1 concurrent build
Resets on the 1st of each month
Upgrade to a paid plan at any time to access more minutes

Pay-As-You-Go

No monthly limit
Charged $0.055 per minute
Bill calculated monthly based on actual usage
Minimum charge: $0 (use as little as you want)

Pro Tier

5,000 minutes included per month
Overage: $0.050/min above 5,000 minutes
Unused minutes do not carry over to the next month
Includes 2 concurrent builds

Business Tier

Unlimited minutes
No per-minute charges
Flat monthly rate ($299/month or $249/month annually)
Includes 3 concurrent builds

Monitoring Your Usage

View Current Month Usage

Go to Dashboard → Billing
See your current month’s minute consumption
For Pro tier, view included vs. overage minutes
For PAYG, see estimated charges based on current usage

Usage Breakdown by App

Go to Dashboard → [Workspace] → [App Name]
Click Usage
View minute consumption for that app this month
See top builds by duration

Historical Usage

Go to Billing
Click Usage History
View past months’ minute consumption
See trends and peak usage periods

Cost Optimization

Strategies to Reduce Minutes

1. Enable Caching

RunnerHub automatically caches dependencies (CocoaPods, SPM, npm, yarn, gems, and DerivedData) based on lock file hashes. No YAML configuration is needed — caching is enabled by default. See Caching for details.

2. Parallelize Tests

Split your test suite across multiple concurrent builds:

steps:
  - name: Unit tests
    run: xcodebuild test -scheme MyApp -testPlan UnitTests
  - name: Integration tests
    run: xcodebuild test -scheme MyApp -testPlan IntegrationTests

3. Skip Unnecessary Builds

Use conditional logic to skip builds for certain branches:

triggers:
  - event: push
    branches:
      - main
      - develop

4. Reduce Build Artifacts

Only build what you need for each workflow:

steps:
  - name: Build for testing
    run: xcodebuild build-for-testing -scheme MyApp
  - name: Skip archive for PRs
    if: branch == 'main'
    run: xcodebuild archive -scheme MyApp

5. Use Lightweight Builds for PR Validation

For pull requests, build and test without archiving (faster, fewer minutes):

steps:
  - name: Build and test (quick check)
    run: xcodebuild test -scheme MyApp

Upgrade Optimization

If you regularly exceed your plan limits:

Free → Pro: Save 40% per minute on overages ($0.050 vs $0.055)
Pro with heavy overages → Business: Get unlimited minutes + priority support

Overage Handling

Pro Plan Overages

When you exceed 5,000 minutes in a month on the Pro plan:

Overage rate: $0.050/min
Billed: On your next invoice
Service: Not interrupted — you can continue building
Alert: Dashboard alerts at 80% and 100% of monthly budget

Pay-As-You-Go

No overages: Every minute costs $0.055
No surprises: Costs scale linearly with usage
Best for: Variable or low-volume usage

Business Plan

No per-minute charges
No overage limits
Predictable costs: Same price every month

Billing Examples

Example 1: Free Tier User

Plans 25 iOS builds per month
Each build takes ~20 minutes
Total: 25 × 20 = 500 minutes (exactly hits limit)
Cost: $0

Example 2: PAYG User

8 builds per month
Average build duration: 15 minutes
Total: 8 × 15 = 120 minutes
Cost: 120 × $0.055 = $6.60/month

Example 3: Pro Tier User

50 builds per month
Average build duration: 10 minutes
Total: 50 × 10 = 500 minutes (well under 5,000 limit)
Cost: $149/month (flat rate, no overages)
Cost per minute: $0.30/min

Example 4: Pro Tier User with Overages

60 builds per month
Average build duration: 15 minutes
Total: 60 × 15 = 900 minutes (under 5,000 limit)
Cost: $149/month (flat rate, no overages)

Example 5: Pro Tier User Exceeding Limit

80 builds per month
Average build duration: 80 minutes (complex project)
Total: 80 × 80 = 6,400 minutes
Included: 5,000 minutes (included with Pro)
Overage: 1,400 minutes × $0.050 = $70
Total cost: $149 + $70 = $219/month

Usage Alerts

Automated Alerts

RunnerHub sends email notifications:

80% of monthly limit: “You’ve used 80% of your monthly minutes”
100% of monthly limit: “You’ve reached your monthly minute limit”
Pro overage: “You’ve exceeded your monthly minutes; overage charges apply”

Monitoring for Teams

If you’re a workspace owner with team members:

You receive usage notifications
You can see detailed usage breakdown by app
Team member actions are included in your total usage

Minute Consumption by Build Type

These are approximate guidelines (actual times vary by project size, dependencies, and test suite):

Build Type	Typical Duration
Simple Swift package (build only)	3-5 min
iOS app (build + unit tests)	10-20 min
iOS app (build + full test suite)	20-40 min
watchOS app (incremental)	5-10 min
macOS app (full build + tests)	15-30 min
Monorepo with multiple schemes	30-60+ min

Free Tier Minute Resets

Free tier minutes reset on the 1st of each month at midnight UTC
Unused minutes do not carry over to the next month
Plan: 500 minutes × 12 months = 6,000 minutes/year maximum on Free

Transition Between Plans

Upgrading Mid-Month

Takes effect immediately
Pro/Business: New minute allocation starts immediately
Previous plan minutes are not carried over

Downgrading Mid-Month

Takes effect at end of current billing period
You keep your current plan access until the period ends
Next month begins on the new plan with new minute allocation

Troubleshooting

Q: Why does my build consume more minutes than expected? A: Check for dependency installations, large test suites, or slow CI steps. Review caching to speed things up.

Q: Can I see a breakdown of minutes by app? A: Yes, go to [App] → Usage to see minute consumption for that specific app.

Q: What happens if I upgrade from Free to Pro mid-month? A: Your remaining Free tier minutes are not converted. You immediately get Pro’s 5,000 minutes for the current month.

Q: Are minutes pro-rated? A: No. Upgrades and downgrades are effective immediately (upgrades) or at period end (downgrades), not pro-rated.