NcMicrosoft AI Spend EstimatorNeilC AI Consulting
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Rate card verified 28 Sep 2026

Microsoft AI Spend Estimator

Model Copilot seats, Copilot Credits, Cowork, Code, Autopilot, Copilot Studio and Foundry across a 12-month horizon — with a Low / Likely / High range and a governance position you can take to your budget holder.

Rates & assumptions

Monthly London spot reference; editable for your agreement.

USD

M365 Copilot USL list price, per user / month.

%

Net seat price $30.00 per user / month = $15,000 per month.

%
%

Share of licensed users actively using agentic features.

Low / Likely / High use the minimum, midpoint and maximum of the published Cowork credit ranges.

Light user

320 credits / task (likely)
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Medium user

579 credits / task (likely)
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Heavy user

1,523 credits / task (likely)
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Task sizes: light 70–200, medium 400–600, heavy 1,500–2,500 credits.

Pro planning workspace

Open a focused page for deeper modelling. All changes update this scenario.

Studio agentsMessages, tools and prepaid capacityFoundry workloadsTokens, PTUs, Search and infrastructureCommitmentsPAYG and prepurchase comparisonsAdvanced governanceCaps, alerts and model controls

Monthly forecast

Likely scenario unless stated. Figures in GBP.

Governance recommendation

Put these controls in place before you switch on usage-based billing.

Recommended starting position

Peak consumption in the High scenario is £85,508 per month. Set a tenant spending cap of £102,609 per month (20% headroom) and alert at 50 / 80 / 100%.

  • Usage-based billing is off by default for enterprise tenants until an admin creates a spending policy — nothing is consumable until you switch it on.
  • New Copilot Business purchases have usage-based billing on by default with default limits (from 19 Oct 2026 direct, 2 Nov 2026 CSP).
  • Set hard caps at tenant, group and user level before you enable agentic features broadly.
  • Configure alerts at 50%, 80% and 100% of each cap, routed to a named budget holder.
  • Restrict premium / frontier model families per group — model choice is the single biggest swing factor in credit burn.
  • Monitor with /cost in Cowork, the Cost Management dashboard and the Viva Insights consumption dashboard.
  • Remember that building an app and running an app are separate meters — a build-heavy month is not your steady state.
Prepaid Copilot Studio tenants have agents disabled at 125% of prepaid capacity. Track Studio consumption separately from seat spend.

Need help with your AI budget?

NeilC AI Consulting runs costing workshops, EA/MCA-E renewal support and Copilot governance reviews.

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