How Microsoft’s New Agent Pricing Option Affects Costs

• A new upfront purchasing option for agents provides discounts over pay-as-you-go billing.
• The new option is best for customers who have predictable, high-volume agent usage that varies throughout the year.
• The previously existing capacity packs upfront purchase option is best for lower volume, monthly based usage.

Agents are AI-based processes that perform tasks within focused domains and knowledge sources, such as working with internal line-of-business apps and retrieving data from specific documents and databases. Copilot Studio allows agents to be created without requiring expensive developer expertise and resources.

Agents are charged via meters that count the consumption of a Microsoft-defined unit called Copilot Credits (formerly “messages”). Copilot Credits are billed on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis or by purchasing capacity packs up front for a discount. A third purchasing option that Microsoft introduced in Oct. 2025 (called Pre-Purchase Plan or sometimes P3) allows upfront purchasing of Copilot Credits on an annual basis with discounts that increase with the number of Copilot Credits purchased.