Bitbucket Pipelines Build Minutes Exceeded

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. 1. Check usage

   1. Open Workspace settings > Pipelines usage / Plans and billing and see which repos use the most minutes
   Did this fix it? Yes No

2. 2. Reduce minutes

   Copy steps
   1. Enable caches for dependencies and Docker layers
   2. Use size 1x unless you need more memory
   3. Restrict triggers with branches and condition: changesets
   4. Add max-time to steps
   Did this fix it? Yes No

3. 3. Buy more or move off the cloud runners

   Copy steps
   1. Add-on: 1,000 build minutes for $10 per month
   2. Self-hosted runners do not use cloud minutes, though some users report the minutes warning still appearing on manual runs
   Did this fix it? Yes No

4. 4. Upgrade the plan

   1. Standard and Premium include more minutes than Free; compare on the Atlassian pricing page
   Did this fix it? Yes No

Symptoms

Pipelines fail or do not start with an out-of-build-minutes message, or builds suddenly cost more minutes.

Why it happens

• Free plan includes only 50 build minutes per month
• Minutes are shared by the whole workspace
• Runner size multiplies minutes (a 5-minute step on a 2x runner counts as 10)
• Long or repeated pipelines on every push

This guide also covers

• bitbucket pipelines build minutes exceeded
• bitbucket pipelines out of minutes
• bitbucket pipelines cost

Other Bitbucket errors

• Bitbucket Permission Denied (publickey)
• Bitbucket App Passwords Deprecated: Switch to API Tokens
• Bitbucket Authentication Failed on Git Push
• Bitbucket Pipeline Stuck or Queued
• Bitbucket Pipeline Exceeded Build Time Limit
• Bitbucket Repository Over the Size Limit
• How to Cancel Bitbucket Subscription