Cost · 09
Building the app is not free to run
On 10 September 2026 Microsoft opened an app-building path: a /app skill in Cowork for Frontier, and app building in Copilot Studio rolling out in public preview. The same note says app building and running are billed by usage. A screen that appears in an afternoon is not a free internal tool. The running is the cost.
When the meter starts
Learn's guidance on credit consumption says consumption starts at design time, before an agent is published. A maker experimenting in a shared environment can spend the pool while they are still changing their mind.
A small app is still a workflow
Code, on the 25 September Frontier rollout, is the natural-language route to a tracker, a dashboard or an automation. It joins the same usage decision as Cowork and Autopilot. 'Just a small app' is not a cost category Microsoft has set to zero. Put the app on the same sheet as the seat.
Stop if you cannot name the fund
The FrontierOrg method, fictional, will not open a pilot without a spend ceiling. You do not need the fiction to copy the gate. If nobody owns the credits for the experiment, the experiment waits. A public preview is not an argument against that wait.
Monday
Before anyone builds a second app, name the spending policy that will pay for the first one, and the monthly figure it may reach. No policy, no build.
What is the most boring internal app you could fund for a month, and who turns it off if the credits climb?
Sources: Microsoft, 10 September 2026, Build business apps with Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio (opens in a new tab). Microsoft Learn, Govern Copilot Credit consumption (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.