Copilot Credits to pounds (and dollars)
One Copilot Credit costs $0.01 on Microsoft's pay-as-you-go price - about 0.79p at a cautious £1 = $1.27, or nearer 0.76p at October 2026 rates. Convert any number of credits, turn a pound budget into credits, and see what each pre-purchase tier actually saves.
Pay-as-you-go, at the rate above. Ex-VAT.
| Copilot Credits | US dollars | Pounds |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | US$0.01 | £0.01 |
| 100 | US$1.00 | £0.79 |
| 1,000 | US$10.00 | £7.87 |
| 10,000 | US$100.00 | £78.74 |
| 100,000 | US$1,000.00 | £787.40 |
| 1,000,000 | US$10,000.00 | £7,874.02 |
Microsoft's Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) sells a year of credits upfront at a discount. Unused credits expire at the end of the year, so each tier only saves money if you'd genuinely use at least the break-even volume. Anything you use beyond the tier is billed at pay-as-you-go.
| Tier | Credits a year | Discount | Upfront ($) | Upfront (£) | Per credit | Break-even a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 300,000 | 5% | US$2,850 | £2,244 | 0.748p | 23,750 credits |
| 2 | 1,500,000 | 6% | US$14,100 | £11,102 | 0.740p | 117,500 credits |
| 3 | 3,000,000 | 7% | US$27,900 | £21,969 | 0.732p | 232,500 credits |
| 4 | 15,000,000 | 8% | US$138,000 | £108,661 | 0.724p | 1,150,000 credits |
| 5 | 30,000,000 | 10% | US$270,000 | £212,598 | 0.709p | 2,250,000 credits |
| 6 | 75,000,000 | 12% | US$660,000 | £519,685 | 0.693p | 5,500,000 credits |
| 7 | 150,000,000 | 14% | US$1,290,000 | £1,015,748 | 0.677p | 10,750,000 credits |
| 8 | 225,000,000 | 17% | US$1,867,500 | £1,470,472 | 0.654p | 15,562,500 credits |
| 9 | 300,000,000 | 20% | US$2,400,000 | £1,889,764 | 0.630p | 20,000,000 credits |
At 200,000 credits a month (2,400,000 a year), the sensible commitment is tier 2: 1,500,000 credits at 6% off, with the rest on pay-as-you-go. That saves about £59.06 a month (£709 a year) - if your usage really holds at that level for twelve months.
The rule we'd use: commit to the volume you're certain of, not the volume you hope for. Sizing the plan to your quietest realistic year and letting busy months run on pay-as-you-go gets most of the discount with none of the expiry risk. And give it six months of real usage data before committing at all.
Microsoft's pay-as-you-go price is $0.01 per Copilot Credit. At the cautious £1 = $1.27 this site uses, that's about 0.79p per credit; at the October 2026 rate of around $1.32 it's about 0.76p. Put your own rate into the converter above for an exact figure.
At pay-as-you-go prices, roughly 12,700 credits at £1 = $1.27, or about 13,200 at £1 = $1.32. That's enough for somewhere between a few dozen and a hundred-odd Cowork tasks, depending on how heavy they are.
Yes - Microsoft's Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) discounts a year's credits bought upfront by 5% at 300,000 credits, rising to 20% at 300 million. Unused credits expire at the end of the year, so the saving only exists if you'd have used them anyway. The table above shows each tier and its break-even.
Because they're priced in US dollars. Your usage line moves with the exchange rate even when your usage doesn't. A 5% move in the pound is a 5% move in that part of the bill - the licences, priced in pounds, stay put.
Credits are the easy part to convert. Whether Cowork is the right spend is a different question.
We help established UK businesses get a clear view of what they're already running - before they add more on top.