Cost · 01
The seat is not the whole bill
Microsoft describes a two-part price. A per-user subscription supports everyday Copilot, with fair-use limits. Copilot Credits pay for advanced, longer-running work and for model choices. If you are new to this, the seat you already bought is not a forecast of the next invoice.
What stays on the subscription
Chat, and the Copilot people use inside the Office apps they already have, sit on the licence. That is the predictable line. It is the line finance already knows how to argue about. It does not, by itself, pay for a task that runs on after the person has gone to the next meeting.
What moves to usage
Microsoft's September 2026 pricing note puts Cowork, Code and Autopilot on usage-based billing. Administrators can set spending policies and limits. The 25 September redesign did not make those three free because they now live under Home. It put a meter next to them.
Read them on one sheet
This site's cost page already asks for seat, add-on and consumption on one sheet, before a workflow is allowed to run, and again after people start. September is a reason to do that before anyone is invited into Code. FrontierOrg, a fictional method, makes the same demand of a fictional CFO: model the agreement you have, not a price copied from a blog.
Monday
On one page, write the subscription you pay, whether a spending policy exists, and which of Cowork, Code and Autopilot anyone has opened. Blank boxes are the work.
Which workflow are you willing to fund by usage, and which must stay inside the seat?
Sources: Microsoft Community Hub, Evolution of the Copilot pricing model (opens in a new tab). Microsoft blog, 25 September 2026, Introducing the new Copilot (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.