Cowork is billed by usage in Copilot Credits — not per seat. This guide and calculator help IT & FinOps teams understand the model, forecast monthly spend, and build a credible business case.
Cowork is an agentic system: you describe an outcome, it plans and executes multi-step work. You pay for the work performed, measured in Copilot Credits — Microsoft's universal usage currency, pooled across your tenant.
One Copilot Credit costs one cent (list price). 100 credits = $1. Simple, linear, pay-as-you-go.
Credits are shared across Cowork, Copilot Studio, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform — one balance, governed centrally.
A quick draft costs little; a deep multi-step analysis costs more. Consumption tracks the work actually done.
A single Cowork request consumes credits across four cost drivers. Watch them engage, one by one, on a real example — that is how Copilot Credits are actually spent.
For my upcoming customer meeting with Adatum, analyse my recent emails, meeting notes, CRM updates and support incidents to identify deal status, risks and competitive threats. Then create a briefing doc and a client-ready presentation, and email Moana and Tim a concise summary with recommended actions.
More context, more tools, a heavier model — more credits. That is why the very same request can be a “light” or a “heavy” one, and why your bill tracks the real work done, not a flat per-seat fee.
$0.01 / credit, billed monthly in arrears. No commitment, no overage interruptions. Scale up or down freely — ideal while you learn your real usage.
A one-year prepaid pool of credits with 5–20% volume discounts. Auto-decrements as you consume. Caution: unused credits expire at the end of the term.
| Tier | Pre-purchased credits | Discount | Effective $/credit |
|---|
Microsoft's illustrative per-task ranges. The calculator below lets you set your own credit assumptions per task type.
A weekly status update drafted from your calendar and top priorities, saved for review.
70–200 creditsA customer-meeting briefing assembled from emails, calendar, CRM and recent files.
400–600 creditsAnalyse 6 months of usage data, classify patterns and produce a leadership-ready analysis.
1,500+ creditsCowork has no included credit entitlement — it is 100% usage-billed on top of the M365 Copilot seat. Budget the seat cost separately from the credit spend the calculator estimates below.
Drag the sliders. Credits, budget and ROI update instantly, all in one view.
The simulator above frames the budget in seconds. For a persona-by-persona breakdown and the full ROI model, open the advanced tools below.
Built on Microsoft's own estimation method. Size your users, set how intensely each persona uses Cowork, and see the monthly credit spend — in your currency.
by persona
›light / medium / heavy
›your assumption
›result
| Persona | Users | Light / mo | Medium / mo | Heavy / mo | Credits / user |
|---|
Cost is only half the story. Here we weigh the credit spend against the time Cowork gives back — using ranges anchored to Microsoft's example tasks, with a realization factor so the numbers stay honest.
Illustrative only. ROI depends on real adoption, task mix and the value of reclaimed time. Use it to frame a conversation, not as a guarantee.
A one-page summary you can share with IT & Finance — usage assumptions, monthly cost, annual budget and ROI — generated in the language and currency you selected above.
Witivio helps IT & FinOps teams pilot, govern and scale Microsoft Copilot — including Cowork credit budgeting, spend policies and adoption. Let's pressure-test your numbers together.
Fill in the form to unlock your personalized report.