BUILT BY SEGMENTUM · COWORK COST GUIDE
What Copilot Cowork costs a law firm
For a typical 20-person law firm - eleven fee earners and support at desks, four client-facing, four partners - Copilot Cowork comes to roughly £2,650 a month all in: licences and usage together, about £133 per person. Below is what the everyday jobs cost, and the calculator set up with law firm defaults so you can put your own numbers in.
What the everyday tasks cost
Research memo from files and sources - 700-2,000 credits - £5.53 to £15.80 per run
Correspondence or bundle summary - 400-1,200 credits - £3.16 to £9.48
Attendance note write-up - 300-700 credits - £2.37 to £5.53
First-draft routine client letters - 100-300 credits - £0.79 to £2.37
A fee earner summarising three long correspondence chains a week is spending £38 to £114 a month on that job - against the billable hours it hands back.
Your team
Starting numbers match the example on this page - change them to fit your business.
Your estimate
Uses Microsoft's default usage mix and list pricing ($0.01 per Copilot Credit, billed in US dollars), ex-VAT. Licences assume Microsoft 365 Business Standard plus a Copilot licence per person. For the full step-by-step version, use the calculator on the home page. Pricing last verified 13 July 2026.
Where the usage actually goes
Legal work is document work, which is where Cowork earns its keep - and why usage concentrates in fee earners rather than spreading across the office. The heavy line is research memos and bundle summaries; the everyday saving is the routine letters and attendance notes every matter generates.
The question that should come before cost is confidentiality. Cowork works across whatever sits in your Microsoft 365 tenant, under your existing permissions - so the real preparation is making sure those permissions are right. A fee earner's Copilot can surface anything that fee earner can already open. If matter permissions are loose, fix that first; it's cheaper than the alternative.
The boundary matters too: if matters live in a practice or document management system rather than SharePoint and Outlook, Cowork can't reach them without connectors - the drafting it helps with is the M365 slice of the work, not the whole file. And on recovery: whether AI task costs can sit as a disbursement is a conversation for your regulator and your client care letters, not an assumption.
Common questions
Is Cowork appropriate for confidential client matters?
It works within your Microsoft 365 tenant and your existing permissions - nothing leaves your tenant that wasn't already reachable. The practical risk is internal: loose permissions surface documents to people who technically had access all along. Tighten permissions first, then pilot with one team.
Where does a firm see the value first?
Correspondence summaries, attendance notes and first drafts of routine letters - the medium-tier work every fee earner does daily. Research memos cost more per task but replace more time.
Does it work with our practice management system?
Not out of the box. Cowork reaches what's in Microsoft 365 - email, files, Teams. Case and document management platforms need connectors, where they exist. Budget on the M365 slice of your work.
Can we bill Cowork costs to matters?
That's a regulatory and engagement-terms question, not a technical one - the admin centre shows spend by person, not by matter. Treat it as overhead until you've taken proper advice.
BEFORE YOU COMMIT
That's the cost. The harder question is whether it's the answer.
A new tool sitting on top of an estate that nobody fully understands usually adds cost, not clarity. So before you commit the budget, it's worth asking a simpler question: is Cowork actually your constraint, or is it something underneath it? We help established UK businesses get a clear view of what they're running - and whether the next bit of spend earns its place.
Pricing and defaults last verified
13 July 2026
against Microsoft's published documentation.
Figures use Microsoft list pricing ($0.01 per Copilot Credit, billed in US dollars) converted at roughly £1 = $1.27, ex-VAT. Usage defaults come from Microsoft's Cowork Frontier programme data. This is a budgeting aid, not a quote - confirm current pricing with Microsoft. This is an independent tool built by Segmentum and is not produced or endorsed by Microsoft. "Microsoft 365", "Copilot" and "Cowork" are trademarks of Microsoft, used for identification only.