Cost · 02
One cent is not the price of a job
Microsoft's September 2026 Copilot Credits Guide lists pay-as-you-go credits at one US cent per credit. Credit use varies with the task, the model, the context and the tools. That unit price is not a fixed price for an Autopilot run or a Cowork job. Quoting the cent in a business case is how a new programme underestimates the bill.
What you can defend
You can defend the unit. You cannot defend a total until you have run the workflow and read the consumption. Microsoft's own guide is the reason to refuse a single number for 'an agent task' in a board pack. The pack can say the meter exists. It should not invent a cost per briefing.
Where the variation comes from
A short chat and a long Cowork pack do not burn the same credits. A Code app that keeps running does not burn the same credits as a one-off draft. Companies at the start should pick one real task, run it a handful of times, and keep the credit totals.
Fiction does not supply your rate
The FrontierOrg method, which is not a client, asks a fictional finance lead to price model usage and supervision as a range, with the source of every assumption written down. It does not publish a rate card you can reuse. If your sheet has a single cent on it, it is not finished.
Monday
Run one Cowork or Chat task you already trust, three times, and record the credits. If you cannot see credits, the Monday task is to find who can.
What will you tell finance when the same task costs a different number of credits next week?
Sources: Microsoft, Copilot Credits Guide, September 2026 (opens in a new tab).
Where this note mentions FrontierOrg, that is a fictional method for rehearsing a decision. It is not a company, not a client, and not a case study.