Is your GitHub repository worth money?
In this article
What is in a GitHub exportWhy buyers want itHow to export itWhat is removedWhat it pairs withWhich buyers name itWhat is actually in a GitHub export
- Every commit with author, time and message
- Pull requests with reviews, comments and the discussion
- Issues and their links to commits
- CI runs, releases and tags
Why buyers want it
Buyers train models to work like engineers. A bare snapshot teaches nothing about how the code got that way. Ten years of commits, reviews and the arguments inside pull requests teach everything. The code marketplace wrote that context-rich repositories are worth several times bare ones, and a shut-down specialist reports that Ruby and C++ code commands a premium.
- A code marketplace
- $5,000+ per repository, seller keeps 80%; example deals $68,000 to $220,000 (published, 2026).
- A second code buyer
- up to $15,000 per modern repository, $10,000 to $100,000 for legacy code, up to $1 million for full operating records (press, 2026).
- One enterprise buyer
- 53% of its first 300 partner companies had GitHub (published, 2026).
- A shut-down specialist
- reports Ruby and C++ codebases command a premium and that AI buyers of dead-company assets grew 9x (press, 2026).
How to export it
You do not have to do this before talking to a buyer. The buyer walks your admin through it once a deal is scoped. For reference, as of October 6, 2026:
- The cleanest export is a mirror clone of each repository: git clone --mirror keeps every branch, tag and commit.
- Issues, pull requests and review comments are not in the git history. GitHub's migration archive (Settings, then Export) or the API pulls them.
- Remove secrets before anything moves. Buyers scan for keys and reject repositories that contain them. A tool like gitleaks finds them in minutes.
- Confirm every contributor signed over their work. Contractor code without an IP assignment is the most common reason a code deal stalls.
Vendors move menus. Check the vendor's help center for the current path.
See what your company's records could get.
Ten questions, under five minutes, built from the buyers' own published ranges.
Get my estimate →What is removed before anyone sees it
- API keys, tokens, passwords and certificates anywhere in history
- Customer data in fixtures, seeds or test files
- Personal data in commit messages and issues
- Third-party code under licenses that forbid redistribution
How scrubbing works, and what every buyer commits to.
What it pairs with
One system is a record. Two linked systems are a story. This is where the number moves most.
- Jira and Linear
- The ticket that asked for the change and the pull request that made it.
- Slack
- The channel where the design was argued.
- Zendesk and Freshdesk
- The bug report from a customer and the fix.
Which buyer types name it
Every buyer type, what it publishes, and who it wants.
Industries that run on it
In short
- GitHub: fastest to cash among buyers. 5 of the 6 buyer types name this kind of record.
- Years of history and links to other systems drive the number. A snapshot is worth little.
- Names, credentials and anything under a restrictive contract are removed or excluded before use.
- You do not export anything before a deal is scoped. The buyer handles it with your admin.
Questions owners ask.
We shut down. Is the repo still worth something?
Yes, and shut-down companies are the fastest deals in this market. The code buyers and the shut-down specialists all buy from closed companies. See the page on shutting down.
The code is bad.
Buyers do not grade style. They want real history with real decisions. Messy real code beats clean toy code.
What about open-source dependencies?
Yours is yours. Third-party code is excluded or handled by license. The buyer checks.
How fast?
Code-only quotes come back in days. Payment follows acceptance, often within weeks.
