Plan Advisor — Which Copilot do I need?
Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Cowork, Copilot Studio — answer a few questions and get the right product, the prerequisite, and a ballpark cost. Decoded below.
Tell us about your org
Recommended
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Per-user add-on (annual)
Est. / user / mo
$30
Est. total / mo
$7,500
- Enterprise add-on at $30/user/mo for 250 users.
- Enterprise add-on is $30/user/mo, added to Business Std/Prem or E3/E5.
Ballpark only — list prices, US, June 2026. Cowork & agent costs are usage-based; the Cowork and Licensing tabs give precise figures.
Copilot, decoded
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat
Free, web-grounded AI chat included for work accounts. Doesn't see your files/email unless you add the paid licence.
Microsoft 365 Copilot (the licence)
The $30/user/mo add-on that puts Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook with access to your work data.
Copilot Cowork
An AI teammate that plans and executes long, multi-step tasks across your apps. Usage-billed in Copilot Credits; needs the Copilot licence.
Copilot Studio
The tool for building custom agents. Agents run on Copilot Credits, pooled across the tenant.
Copilot Credits
The usage currency for Cowork and agents. $0.01 each pay-as-you-go, or ~$0.008 via 25,000-credit packs ($200/mo).
P3 pre-purchase plan
Commit to a year of credits up front for a tiered discount (up to ~20%). Overage falls back to pay-as-you-go.
Work IQ / tenant grounding
Grounding answers in your org's Microsoft Graph data (files, emails, chats) for relevant, current responses.
USL
User Subscription Licence — the per-person licence that entitles someone to use a Copilot capability.
Common confusions
Is Copilot Chat the same as Microsoft 365 Copilot?
No. Copilot Chat is the free, web-grounded chat. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the paid licence that works inside your Office apps and your work data. The names are close but the capabilities and price differ.
Do I need a licence to use Copilot Cowork?
Yes — Cowork requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence per user, and it's disabled by default until an admin turns it on and sets a spend cap. On top of the licence, Cowork usage is billed in Copilot Credits.
What actually uses Copilot Credits?
Cowork tasks, custom agents, and features like tenant-graph grounding. Each interaction costs a variable number of credits based on the model, how much data it pulls in, tools called and runtime.
PAYG or prepaid — which is cheaper?
A $200 capacity pack (25,000 credits) beats pay-as-you-go once you use more than 20,000 credits/month. For large, steady volume the P3 pre-purchase plan adds a further discount.
Why is it $30 in some places and $18 in others?
$30/user/mo is the enterprise add-on. $18 (promo, then $21) is Copilot Business for organisations with ≤300 seats. Both still require a qualifying base Microsoft 365 plan.