# Jobs blocked by GitHub's spending limit

> When GitHub says a job wasn't started because of failed payments or the spending limit, fix the budget, or move the job to Skipbox.

GitHub refuses to start jobs on its own runners with this message:

```text
The job was not started because recent account payments have failed or your spending limit needs to be increased.
```

It means the account can't pay for more GitHub-hosted runner time: a budget set to stop usage ran out, the plan's included compute is used up with no payment method, or a payment failed. The [full guide](https://skipbox.dev/guides/github-actions-spending-limit-job-not-started) covers which cause you have, who on your team can fix it, and the steps in GitHub's billing pages.

## Run the job on Skipbox instead

GitHub doesn't bill self-hosted runner usage against your budget. A job on Skipbox spends nothing from it. In a private repository, change the blocked job's `runs-on`:

```yaml
    runs-on: skipbox
```

Then re-run the job on GitHub: GitHub doesn't retry refused jobs. If this is your first Skipbox job, follow the [Quickstart](https://docs.skipbox.dev/quickstart) first; the free trial needs no card.

## Move it back

When the budget is fixed, set `runs-on` back to `ubuntu-latest`, or keep the job on Skipbox.

Updated 2026-11-09 · https://docs.skipbox.dev/spending-limit