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Copilot Studio licensing and Copilot Credits: who needs a licence, and what uses credits

Makers need a licence; the people chatting with your agent usually don't. How Copilot Credits are bought and spent, what each feature costs, what's free for Microsoft 365 Copilot users, how the GitHub Copilot harness bills differently, and what happens when credits run out.

Copilot StudioLook it up · Quick reference4 min read

Checked against Microsoft Learn · 6 sourcesHow we write guides

Two questions come up again and again: "Does everyone who uses my agent need a licence?" and "Why did we run out of credits?" The short answers are usually not, and because credits pay for activity, not people. Here are the details.

Note

Checked against Microsoft Learn on 6 October 2026. Microsoft's Copilot Studio Licensing Guide is the final word on prices and terms.

Who needs what

PersonNeeds
People who build and publish agentsOne of: a Copilot Studio user licence (free, but your tenant needs a prepaid Copilot Credit pack subscription first); the Copilot Studio authors role set in the Power Platform admin center; or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence
Trial usersCan build and test, but can't publish
People who chat with a published agentNo special licence. Anyone who can reach the published agent can use it. Their usage is paid for with your tenant's Copilot Credits
Guest users of your tenantCan't use Copilot Studio to build

Can't publish? You need one of these:

  • a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence;
  • a Copilot Studio user licence, plus credits allocated to the environment, or "draw from tenant pool" turned on;
  • an Office licence only, if the agent uses no generative AI features.

How to get credits

  • Prepaid Copilot Credit packs: a monthly subscription, bought in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Unused credits don't carry over, and usage resets on the 1st of each month, not on your purchase date.
  • Pay-as-you-go: link an environment to an Azure subscription with a billing policy, and pay monthly for what's used.
  • Copilot Credits prepurchase plan: a one-year prepaid pool bought in the Azure portal.

Allocate credits to environments in the Power Platform admin center, under Licensing → Copilot Studio.

What uses credits (standard harness)

ActivityCopilot CreditsFor Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users
Classic answer (a scripted topic reply)1No charge
Generative answer2No charge
Agent action (tool or connector call)5No charge
Tenant graph grounding (Microsoft 365 data)10No charge
Agent flow actions13 per 100 actionsNo charge only when the flow is started by an agent for such a user
AI tools (prompts)From 1 credit per 10 basic responses, up to 100 per 10 premium responsesNo charge
Document processing8 per pageNo charge

One answer can combine several lines. For example, a grounded generative answer can cost 10 + 2 = 12 credits. Reasoning models add a premium token charge on top.

Free:

  • the embedded test chat and agent-flow test runs;
  • agents used in Copilot Chat, Teams or SharePoint by people with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, for classic answers, generative answers and tenant graph grounding;
  • agents built inside Teams with Copilot Studio for Teams.

Watch for:

  • a proactive greeting costs credits even if the user never replies;
  • AI prompts and models in agent flows cost credits even in tests.

The GitHub Copilot harness bills differently

Agents, workflows and apps built on the newer GitHub Copilot harness use usage-based billing:

  • credits pay for model tokens, tools (including knowledge and MCP) and the harness itself;
  • billing starts while you build, including natural-language building, previews, tests and evaluations;
  • see the agent's credits on its Monitor page.

The standard harness bills only after you publish.

When credits run out

  • Capacity is enforced monthly. Over your purchased capacity, service can be denied until you add credits.
  • For agent flows, new runs are blocked when the environment's prepaid capacity is used up. Runs already going finish normally. Microsoft 365 Copilot users and test runs aren't affected.
  • To avoid surprises:
    • set monthly limits per agent (Licensing → Copilot Studio → Manage agents);
    • turn on pay-as-you-go as overflow;
    • estimate first with Microsoft's agent usage estimator.

Sources