Copilot Studio and Agent Capacity Estimator
Turn agents, sessions and a message mix into Copilot credits per month, then see how many 25,000-credit capacity packs that is against the pay-as-you-go meter, with Microsoft 365 Copilot seats on the same sheet. Microsoft’s published consumption rates, our catalog’s list prices, and one link that carries the whole scenario.
01 Agents and traffic
How many agents, how often they are used, and how long a conversation runs.
= 5,000 messages per month
02 Message mix
Share of messages by type, in percent. Each type consumes a different number of Copilot credits — the published rate is shown under each field.
03 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses
Auto-filled from the Sep US price list (annual commitment, paid upfront); edit freely. Microsoft 365 Copilot plan page →
04 Prices and rates
The capacity pack is priced from our catalog. The pay-as-you-go meter is an Azure rate the price list does not carry, so it is yours to enter.
| Message type | Share | Messages | Rate | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic answers | 40% | 2,000 | 1 | 2,000 |
| Generative answers | 40% | 2,000 | 2 | 4,000 |
| Agent actions and flow calls | 10% | 500 | 5 | 2,500 |
| Tenant Graph grounding | 10% | 500 | 10 | 5,000 |
| Autonomous actionsverify | 0% | 0 | — | 0 |
| Monthly cost at list price | ||||
| Copilot credits metered | 13,500 / month | 1 pack | ||
| Capacity packslive | 1 × $200.00 | $200.00 | ||
| Pay-as-you-go meter | 13,500 × — | — | ||
| Microsoft 365 Copilot seats | 0 × $30.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Estimated total per month | packs + seats | $200.00 | ||
| Estimated total per year | × 12 | $2,400.00 | ||
Quick start
- Enter agents, sessions per agent per month and messages per session.
- Split the messages by type so the mix sums to 100%; each type has its own rate.
- Tick the box if agent users hold Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, and add any seats to buy.
- Check the auto-filled pack price, enter the meter rate if you have one, and read packs versus pay-as-you-go.
Tip: tenant Graph grounding costs ten credits on top of the two for the generative answer that uses it. Grounding only the topics that need tenant data is the first thing to tune when the total looks high.
Example scenarios
01Internal help-desk agent, licensed users
1 agent · 2,000 sessions · 6 messages · 30% classic, 40% generative, 10% actions, 20% Graph · users hold Microsoft 365 Copilot. Only the actions are metered.
Load this scenario →Customer-facing FAQ agent on the website
2 agents · 5,000 sessions · 4 messages · 50% classic, 45% generative, 5% actions, no Graph. External users, everything metered.
Load this scenario →Autonomous order-processing agent
1 agent · 3,000 triggered runs · 5 steps · 60% actions, 40% autonomous. Enter the autonomous rate from Microsoft's billing page.
Load this scenario →How credits are consumed
Copilot Studio meters every response or action an agent performs in Copilot credits. One interaction can consume several features at once — a generative answer grounded in tenant data costs the answer plus the grounding. The estimator applies these rates per message type; the unconfirmed one is left for you to enter.
| Interaction type | Credits | What counts | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic answers | 1 per message | Authored topic responses. An agent that is triggered to greet a user consumes a classic answer even when no greeting is sent. | 2026-09-13 |
| Generative answers | 2 per message | Responses generated from knowledge sources (websites, files, SharePoint, Dataverse) without tenant Graph grounding. | 2026-09-13 |
| Agent actions and flow calls | 5 per message | Each tool, connector, prompt or flow the orchestrator invokes, plus triggers, deep reasoning and topic transitions on the activity map. Actions inside an agent flow are metered separately per 100 flow actions and are not in this mix. | 2026-09-13 |
| Tenant Graph grounding | 10 per message | Messages grounded in Microsoft Graph tenant data (SharePoint, OneDrive, Graph connectors). Billed on top of the generative answer that uses it. | 2026-09-13 |
| Autonomous actions | enter verify | Event- or schedule-triggered runs with no user in the loop. Microsoft's current table bills triggers at the agent-action rate while older material quotes a separate autonomous rate; enter the rate from the billing page for your scenario. | not confirmed — see source |
Credits are pooled per tenant. A capacity pack adds 25,000 credits per month; admins allocate them to environments in the Power Platform admin center.
Packs come first, the meter second. Consumption draws down prepaid packs before anything is billed to a linked pay-as-you-go plan.
Microsoft 365 Copilot users are covered for three types. Classic answers, generative answers and tenant Graph grounding inside Microsoft 365 are zero-rated for licensed users; actions and autonomous runs are not.
Agent flows are metered separately per 100 flow actions and are not part of the message mix here; add them from the billing page if your agents run flows heavily.
Unused credits expire monthly. Packs do not roll over, and over-consumption without an overage route disables custom agents until capacity is added.
Assumptions and sources
- Consumption rates for classic answers, generative answers, agent actions and flow calls, tenant graph grounding are Microsoft’s published billing rates, checked on 2026-09-13 against Billing rates and management and the Copilot Studio licensing guidance. The rate for autonomous actions could not be confirmed from a Microsoft page at that check and stays a user-entered field marked “verify” — the estimator never guesses it.
- Capacity pack size — 25,000 Copilot credits per pack per month, tenant-wide, per the licensing guidance. Packs needed is the month’s metered credits divided by the pack size, rounded up.
- Licensed-user rule — Microsoft’s Copilot Studio licensing page zero-rates classic answers, generative answers and Microsoft Graph tenant grounding when the agent’s user holds a Microsoft 365 Copilot license and uses the agent in Copilot Chat, Teams or SharePoint. The estimator applies exactly that list; verify coverage for your own channels and identities.
- Prices — the Copilot Studio capacity pack and the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on are the Commercial list prices from our subscription catalog (Sep US price list), shown as the monthly equivalent of an annual commitment. Charity, education and government segments price differently — see the Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 Copilot plan pages. Every price field is editable; your numbers win.
- Pay-as-you-go meter — an Azure consumption rate that the NCE price list does not carry, so the estimator never fills it in; enter the current per-credit rate from Microsoft’s billing page. Microsoft’s metered charges are always billed to the customer through the linked Azure subscription.
- Not modelled — agent flow actions, text and generative AI tools, content processing, voice minutes, Dynamics 365 included credits, the Copilot Credit pre-purchase plan, and regional pricing. Totals are list prices in dollars before any partner terms; an engineer validates the design and the licenses before anything is ordered.
Related Copilot services — fixed price, scoped before you commit:
Copilot Studio capacity, answered
What is a Copilot credit, and what happened to messages?
A Copilot credit is Microsoft's unit for metering Copilot Studio agents; it replaced the older "message" unit and the two names describe the same meter. Every response or action an agent performs consumes a set number of credits — one for a classic answer, two for a generative answer, ten for tenant Graph grounding, five for an agent action — and the month's total is what you buy capacity for.
Do users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license consume Copilot Studio credits?
Not for the covered interaction types. When a Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed user uses an agent inside Microsoft 365 — Copilot Chat, Teams or SharePoint — classic answers, generative answers and tenant Graph grounding are zero-rated. Agent actions, autonomous runs and any customer-facing use are metered as usual, which is why the estimator only removes the covered types when you tick the license box.
Capacity packs or pay-as-you-go — which one should we buy?
Packs are a tenant-level subscription of 25,000 credits per month, priced per pack; the meter bills the exact credits used through an Azure subscription. Steady traffic above a pack's worth of credits usually favours packs, low or unpredictable traffic favours the meter, and many tenants run both: packs for the baseline, the meter for overage so agents never stop. The estimator shows both figures side by side once the pack price and meter rate are in.
What happens when the packs run out mid-month?
Without an overage route, custom agents are disabled once consumption passes the enforcement threshold above purchased capacity, and agent flow runs are blocked as soon as prepaid capacity is exhausted. Linking a pay-as-you-go billing plan to the environment lets usage continue at the metered rate. Unused pack credits do not roll over to the next month.
Can IT Partner sell the packs, the meter and the Microsoft 365 Copilot seats?
Yes. The Copilot Studio capacity pack and Microsoft 365 Copilot are CSP subscriptions we sell and manage; the pay-as-you-go meter is enabled on an Azure subscription in the same tenant. Microsoft's metered charges are always billed to the customer — we set up the billing plan, allocate capacity per environment and set per-agent limits, but the consumption is yours.
Not sure which numbers to put in?
Thirty minutes with an engineer who has sized these agents before, and you leave with the message mix, the pack count and the license list for your tenant. Fixed price on any follow-on work, agreed before it starts.
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