Copilot Usage-Based Billing Turns On by Default: Up to $40 Extra per Employee Each Month

If your company buys Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, a second, metered bill now comes switched on with it. From October 19, 2026, new direct purchases from Microsoft include usage-based billing by default, and purchases through a reseller (CSP) follow on December 1, 2026. Microsoft sets the default spending limit at 4,000 Copilot Credits per user per month. At $0.01 per credit, that is up to $40, about 150 riyals, per employee each month on top of the licence, charged only when credits are used. Before you buy or add seats, open Copilot, then Cost management in the admin center and set your own cap.

What exactly changed?

Until now, a company that wanted Copilot's metered features had to connect an Azure subscription and configure billing by hand, so most small businesses never did. Microsoft has reversed the default. According to its message center post MC1476200, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business purchases made directly from Microsoft, including on its website and in the Microsoft 365 admin center, come with usage-based billing included from October 19, 2026. Microsoft's October 2026 Partner Center announcement moved the date for reseller purchases from November 2 to December 1, 2026.

At purchase, Microsoft creates the Azure billing resources and a default spending policy automatically. The licence price itself does not change. What changes is that a meter now sits next to it, ready to run.

This is a separate topic from the consumer app changes we covered in Microsoft merging its Copilot apps. That article is about where your staff open Copilot; this one is about what it can cost per employee.

What does the meter charge for?

The basic Copilot chat inside Word, Excel and Outlook stays within the licence. The metered features are the newer agent-style ones. Microsoft lists three today: Copilot Cowork, which carries out multi-step tasks on an employee's behalf, the Work IQ APIs used by custom apps and agents, and GitHub Copilot Harness. Its usage-based billing overview also names Teams Phone Agent, advanced work in SharePoint and OneDrive, and Copilot Code.

Two details matter for your budget:

• Credits are the currency. The Copilot Credits Guide prices pay-as-you-go use at $0.01 per credit. Its own example: a single customer call handled by Teams Phone Agent can use 15 to 40 credits.
• New services join automatically. The Auto-apply new services setting is on by default, so any metered service Microsoft adds later inherits your policy without a review.

How much could it cost a Saudi company?

The default limit is capacity, not an automatic charge: you pay for credits actually consumed. But the ceiling is worth calculating. At the fixed rate of 3.75 riyals to the dollar:

• One employee: 4,000 credits, up to $40, or 150 riyals a month.
• 20 employees: 80,000 credits, up to $800, or 3,000 riyals a month.
• Copilot Business allows up to 300 seats; at that size the ceiling is 1,200,000 credits, or $12,000, about 45,000 riyals a month.

That last figure is also the default company-wide limit Partner Center suggests when a reseller creates a policy. A business that never touches these settings is trusting every employee's usage pattern to stay below a ceiling it did not choose. Saudi Arabia is not on Microsoft's list of markets where the reseller change does not apply at first: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain.

Can you switch it off?

Not completely. Microsoft's Partner Center documentation says usage-based billing cannot be fully turned off once configured. Instead you set the spending limit to zero, which stops new spend. Deleting the policy stops future billing immediately, but usage already accrued stays payable. Note also that when several policies apply to the same person, the least restrictive one wins, so one generous policy overrides a strict one.

What to do this week: five steps

1. Find out how you buy Copilot. Direct from Microsoft means October 19 applies; through a reseller means December 1.
2. Open Copilot, then Cost management in the Microsoft 365 admin center. According to Microsoft's setup guide, a Global or Billing administrator creates policies; an AI administrator can edit limits.
3. Set two caps: a monthly limit for the whole company and a lower per-user limit, so one person cannot use the whole budget.
4. Add alerts at a credit amount or percentage. Microsoft sends a daily email once the threshold is reached until the month resets.
5. Turn off Auto-apply new services if you want to approve each new metered feature before it can spend.

If usage proves steady, Microsoft's Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) gives discounted rates for an annual commitment, with overage continuing at pay-as-you-go prices.

The Origami view

Metered AI is not a bad deal; paying per task is often cheaper than paying per seat for tools few people use. The risk is the default: a ceiling chosen by the vendor, services added without review, and no one in finance watching the meter. We help companies set spending policies, connect AI agents to their own systems with fixed budgets, and decide when a custom tool costs less than a metered one. To review your Copilot setup or plan an AI project, see our services or contact us.

Sources

• Microsoft Learn: October 2026 Partner Center announcements (usage-based billing default on, 4,000 credits per user)
• Microsoft Learn: Usage-based billing for Microsoft 365 Copilot Business in Partner Center
• Microsoft Learn: Usage-based billing and cost management for Copilot Credits
• Microsoft Learn: Set up usage-based billing for Copilot Credits
• Microsoft: Copilot Credits Guide, October 2026 ($0.01 per credit)
• PupuWeb: summary of message center post MC1476200 (October 19 date for direct purchases)