Briggs AnalyticsIs 10 years of GitHub history worth money?
In this article
Why would anyone pay for GitHub history?What makes it worth more or less?What is the number?How do I export GitHub without losing anything?What stops the deal?Why would anyone pay for GitHub history?
Code with its full history is the record of how software was actually built: the attempt, the review, the fix, the release. Buyers pay for it on its own, even from companies that have already closed, because the history is rare and the outcome (did it ship, did it break) is visible.
The market is public. Google won a court-run auction for Spirit Airlines' de-identified records with a $10 million bid in August 2026 (Business Insider), and one buyer of business data announced on October 9 that it will spend $1 billion over the next twelve months on companies' operating records (The Next Web). Those buyers want the same kind of record a 20-person company keeps in GitHub, just less of it.
What makes GitHub history worth more or less?
A repository is worth more with linked issues and pull-request reviews than as a bare code dump, and more again when the support queue or the chat archive explains why each change was made. Secrets left in the repo get it rejected, so scan before anyone looks.
Years matter most. The same company with three years of GitHub history instead of ten sits around $20,000 to $55,000 on the Briggs Analytics estimate. Digital, English-language records count in full; mostly paper counts at half.
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Get my estimate →What is the number?
For a 20-person U.S. company, ten years of history, GitHub as the main system: roughly $75,000 to $180,000. That is a Briggs Analytics estimate built from what buyers publish about what they pay and want, and from the company's shape. A buyer sets the final price after its own review. How the estimate is built.
How do I export GitHub without losing anything?
Take a mirror clone of every repository (it keeps all branches and history), export issues and pull requests with comments, and keep the CI logs if you have them. Deleted repositories can be restored for a limited time, then they are gone.
What stops the deal?
Contractor code without a signed IP assignment. A buyer will ask whether every person who wrote code signed over the rights. If one contractor did not, that code is out of scope until it is fixed.
Two more things every buyer checks: whether your customer contracts allow secondary use of records about the work, and whether the company actually owns the records (not a contractor, not a former partner). Have yes-or-no answers ready. What buyers reject, and why.
In short
- Ten years of GitHub is the kind of record buyers of business data pay for: every commit and the rest of the trail.
- Briggs Analytics estimate for a 20-person U.S. company with ten years of GitHub history: $75,000 to $180,000. Three years: $20,000 to $55,000. Not an offer.
- Export the full history with attachments and notes while the subscription is active.
- Customer identities never go in. Ownership of the records and your customer contracts decide scope.
Questions owners ask.
Do I have to give the buyer access to my GitHub account?
No. You license a copy of the records the agreement covers. You keep the account and the originals. To find out what it could be worth, you send nothing at all.
My company is still running. Can I license GitHub history and keep using GitHub?
Yes. A license covers a copy of past records. The company keeps running exactly as it was.
We only have four years of GitHub. Is that worth checking?
Yes. Three years of history for a 20-person company is around $20,000 to $55,000 on the Briggs Analytics estimate, and years in other systems add to it.
Does the buyer get my customers' names?
No. Customer and contact identities are removed before any buyer sees a record. Buyers want how the work got done, not who the customer was.
