What Cowork actually costs.

Yes. The Microsoft 365 Copilot seat (Copilot Business is about AU$33 per user per month on a yearly commitment paid monthly) gates access; Cowork's agentic work is metered separately in Copilot Credits on top of that seat.

Credits are Microsoft's metering unit, shown in the admin dashboards. At pay-as-you-go rates one credit is $0.01 USD, so dollars are simply credits times $0.01. We show both so the number matches what you will see in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Roughly: light tasks use about 125 credits (a quick brief or reply), medium about 500 (a cited research memo), and heavy 1,200 or more (a workbook plus deck, or a long multi-tool run). The exact cost depends on the model, context, tools and runtime, so the calculator lets you adjust all of these.

Pay-as-you-go at $0.01 per credit suits pilots and unpredictable usage. Prepaid capacity packs are bought as whole blocks (25,000 credits for about $200, an effective $0.008 per credit) and the P3 pre-purchase plan discounts steady, predictable volume. The catch is the minimum spend: because you buy whole packs, low usage rounds up to a full pack and can cost more than pay-as-you-go would. The calculator flags this - switch the billing toggle to Capacity pack and it shows the packs bought and warns when a pack costs more than metered usage. Overage on prepaid rolls back to pay-as-you-go automatically.

In the Microsoft 365 admin center under Copilot then Cost Management, set a limited monthly spending policy (a hard cap), a per-user limit, and alert thresholds. Unlike the legacy pay-as-you-go budget, which only sends alerts, a Cost Management cap actually stops spend when it is hit.

It models the caps top-down, the way Cost Management actually works. You set an All Users policy (the tenant-wide limit, which divided by your headcount gives an average credit budget per user) and then group tiers, each with a group limit and an optional per-user ceiling. The planner shows which cap binds each group, the most each tier can spend, and whether your tiers add up to more than the tenant cap allows. It is a planning aid for what to type into the admin center, not a live control.

Either. A master toggle at the top of the planner sets the unit for every field at once, and you can still override any single field (an overridden field is highlighted so the exception is obvious). The Microsoft 365 admin center stores limits in Copilot Credits, so credits match what you will type there; the planner shows the dollar equivalent alongside at the rate you have selected. Enter dollars instead if you are working to a budget figure, and the planner converts it back to credits.

Yes. Copilot Credits are a shared pool across eligible Microsoft AI experiences, not Cowork alone. Scope which services each spending policy can use, and monitor consumption, so other agents do not quietly consume your Cowork budget.

Frontier usage between 30 March and 16 June 2026 was free, but billing for those tenants begins 1 July 2026. If a billing method is not set up by then, Cowork stops working for those users. This is separate from the Australian Microsoft 365 price change on the same date.

The model is calibrated to Microsoft's published guidance and its own Customer Cowork Estimator, but it is a directional budgeting tool, not an official quote. The calculator defaults to AUD - seats at partner pricing (yearly commitment, paid monthly) and Copilot Credits converted from Microsoft's USD metering at the live exchange rate shown on the tool - and toggles to USD.

Not unless you ask. The calculator and planner run entirely in your browser - your headcounts, usage and limits are never transmitted as you work. The only thing that submits data is the optional 'email me this estimate' form: if you use it, we send the report to your address, keep the submission so we can follow up, and (only if you tick the box) start a double opt-in to our newsletter. Don't use the form and nothing leaves your browser.