Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork is billed two ways at once - a fixed seat plus metered Copilot Credits per task. Mix and match your user types to model the likely monthly and annual cost, and see what drives it.
Beyond the estimate
We'll turn Cowork on safely and keep the spend predictable.
All pricing is in US dollars (USD). Microsoft has not published Australian dollar pricing for Copilot Credits yet, so every figure here is in USD. We will switch the calculator to AUD once Microsoft publishes the rates.
Step 1-2 · Who uses Cowork, and how much
Microsoft's measured Frontier mix (27 May 2026).
PersonaUsersLightMediumHeavyCr / user
Corporate knowledge workers
Credits / user14,250
Customer-facing knowledge workers
Credits / user14,625
Technical workers
Credits / user22,800
Managers & senior leaders
Credits / user8,225
Cowork users (sum of personas)
Total Copilot licences
Step 3 · Credits per prompt & rate
Set automatically from the licence and term above. USD public list pricing - AUD to follow once Microsoft publishes it.
Est. monthly Cowork cost
$3,605
per month, all-in
$43,257
per year
Seats $600Usage $3,005
20
Cowork users
20
Total licences
300,475
Copilot Credits / mo
$150
Avg variable / user
The Cowork meter alone is 5.0× the entire seat bill. The seat is no longer the expensive part.
All figures in USD. AUD pricing to be provided once Microsoft publishes credit rates. Estimate only: real per-task credits depend on the model, context, tools and runtime, and Copilot Credits are a shared pool across eligible Microsoft AI services.
Get a copy of this breakdown in your inbox, with the assumptions and how to keep Cowork spend under control. No gate on the calculator - this is optional.
How to read it
What every number means.
The calculator builds your cost the way Microsoft's own estimator does: per persona, from a count of users and the mix of tasks they run. Here is each field, step by step.
Steps 1-2
Who uses Cowork, and how much
Persona
A type of worker. The preset tabs fill the grid from Microsoft's measured Frontier usage; edit any cell, or start from Light, Heavy or Power adopters.
Users
How many people in each persona will have Cowork switched on.
Light / Medium / Heavy
How many tasks of each weight a typical person runs per month. Light is a quick brief or reply; heavy is a workbook plus deck, or a long multi-tool run.
Cr / user
Credits one person in that row burns per month - their task counts times the credits each task costs. We calculate it for you.
Licensed users not using Cowork
People who have a Copilot seat but won't run Cowork. They add to the licence cost but use no credits, so the seat bill covers them and the usage bill does not.
Total Copilot licences
The Cowork users (summed across personas) plus the licensed non-users - every seat you pay for.
Step 3
Credits per prompt, and the rate
Credits per prompt
How many Copilot Credits a light, medium or heavy task consumes. Defaults are Microsoft's (125 / 500 / 1,200); raise Heavy if your tasks run bigger.
Pay-as-you-go vs capacity pack
The price per credit. Pay-as-you-go is $0.01; a prepaid capacity pack is about $0.008.
Licence & term (advanced)
Which Copilot seat each person needs ($30 enterprise or $21 Business) and annual vs monthly. This sets the per-seat cost.
Your results
What the headline numbers mean
Per month / per year
The all-in cost: seats plus metered usage.
Seats vs usage
The split between the fixed licence cost (every seat you pay for) and the variable credit cost (Cowork users only).
Avg variable / user
The metered credit cost per Cowork user, on top of their seat.
Meter vs seat
How many times bigger the usage bill is than the seat bill. This is the number that surprises people.
How the estimate works
Two costs in one bill, and how to keep the variable one in check.
The seat (fixed)
Everyone using Cowork needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, the $30/user/month add-on. That part is predictable and the same every month.
The credits (variable)
Cowork is billed per task in metered Copilot Credits at $0.01 each. A heavy task can run over a thousand credits, so usage can quietly dwarf the seat cost.
Keeping it capped
Cost Management spending policies set hard monthly limits, org-wide and per user. The calculator shows what to budget; we help you set the caps that hold it there.
What drives the cost
Cowork is billed per task, and tasks are not all equal.
Microsoft prices each task on four inputs. The same request costs very differently depending on how heavy it is, and usage tends to drift heavier over time.
01
Which model runs it
Premium reasoning models cost more per task than the leaner ones. Cowork defaults to Anthropic Opus 4.8.
02
How much context it pulls
A week of email and several documents is far more than a one-line reply. More retrieval, more credits.
03
How many tools it calls
Each action - create a doc, search email, pull SharePoint files, post to Teams - adds to the task's bill.
04
How long it runs
Long, multi-step, unattended runs consume the most. Real usage drifts heavier over time, so plan for it.
The same heavy task, at different cadences
One heavy Cowork run is fine. The cost creeps in when “go do this for me” becomes the default way to make a deck that regular Copilot already includes in the fixed seat. Take a heavy task at roughly $25:
Illustrative, in USD. If the job is “research it, summarise it, turn it into a doc and let me edit”, that is already in the seat via Researcher, Analyst and the Office agents. Save Cowork for work that genuinely needs unattended runtime and multi-tool follow-through.
We already pay for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Do we still pay for Cowork?
Yes. The Microsoft 365 Copilot seat (about $30 USD per user per month) gates access; Cowork's agentic work is metered separately in Copilot Credits on top of that seat.
What is a Copilot Credit, and why show both credits and dollars?
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.
What is the difference between a light, medium and heavy task?
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.
Should we use pay-as-you-go or a capacity pack?
Pay-as-you-go at $0.01 per credit suits pilots and unpredictable usage. Prepaid capacity packs work out around $0.008 per credit effective, and the P3 pre-purchase plan discounts steady, predictable volume. Overage on prepaid rolls back to pay-as-you-go automatically.
How do we stop runaway spend?
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.
Can other Microsoft AI services drain our Cowork budget?
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.
We trialled Cowork in Frontier. When does billing start?
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.
Is this Microsoft's official pricing?
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. Figures are in USD; AUD credit pricing has not been published yet.
Is anything I enter here sent to you or stored?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere. The optional email-me-this-estimate field is the only thing that would ever submit data, and it is opt-in.
