macOS CI at $0.16/min pays for a Mac Mini in 10 days — why CI prices should drop 50%+
gajesh · x · 2026-11-07
A developer argues CI prices will fall 50% or more in the AI era, while another reports cutting his CI bill to 2-3% of its peak.
- Demand explosion: CI minutes have grown 8x since 2022 (1.6B minutes/year in 2018 to 210B projected in 2026) as AI ships more PRs, and bills are skyrocketing.
- Absurd pricing: a standard 12-CPU macOS CI instance costs $0.16/min — a $2,299 Mac Mini M5 Pro (15 CPUs) pays for itself in 10 days of continuous use, yielding $84,096/year at full capacity, a 3,600% ROI.
- Adaptive testing: vincentkoc cut CI another 95% on top of an earlier 80% reduction, bringing his bill to 2-3% of a >$1M peak, and plans to open-source an adaptive-testing library.
- Higher utilization should justify competition and lower prices — otherwise self-hosting wins.
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