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.

Update: Microsoft announced an additional pricing scheme for agent usage called Agent Factory in Nov. 2025. This newest scheme is also called Pre-Purchase Plan (P3), like the scheme discussed in this report. However, it uses Agent Commit Units (ACUs) rather than Copilot Credit Commit Units (CCCUs), and it has different discount tiers. The Dec. 2025 Copilot Studio Licensing Guide does not mention the Agent Factory ACU pricing plan.

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.