BUILT BY SEGMENTUM · COWORK COST GUIDE
What Copilot Cowork costs a software business
For a typical 35-person software business, Copilot Cowork comes to roughly £5,740 a month all in: about £164 per person, the biggest monthly total we've costed - driven by headcount and a technical-heavy usage mix. It's also the sector where the honest answer includes: some of your team may not want this one.
What the everyday tasks cost
Security questionnaire or RFP response - 800-2,000 credits - £6.32 to £15.80 per run
Investor or board update - 500-1,200 credits - £3.95 to £9.48
Customer onboarding documentation pack - 400-800 credits - £3.16 to £6.32
Release notes and docs update - 300-700 credits - £2.37 to £5.53
One enterprise security questionnaire a month - £6 to £16 - against the day it steals from whoever draws the short straw, is this sector's clearest single win.
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
The security questionnaire deserves its billing: for any software business selling upmarket, those documents are a recurring tax on the team, assembled from the same policy library every time - precisely Cowork's shape. Board updates, onboarding docs and release communications carry the rest of the heavy usage.
Now the honest bit. Cowork is Microsoft 365's agent - it works your documents, email and Teams. Your developers likely already have coding assistants in their own tools, and Cowork doesn't replace those; a 35-licence blanket across a team that lives in an IDE will include seats that never earn their keep. Map who actually lives in M365 before you licence - in many software businesses that's the commercial half, not the engineering half, which can cut this figure substantially.
The boundary runs the same way: code, tickets and product analytics live in your development stack. Cowork's territory is the commercial and operational document layer around the product.
Common questions
Our developers already use AI coding tools - is this redundant?
Different territory. Coding assistants live in the IDE; Cowork works your documents, email and Teams. If engineering barely touches M365, licence the commercial side and skip the seats that won't get used.
What's the strongest use case for a software company?
Security questionnaires and RFP responses - recurring, heavy, assembled from a policy library you already maintain. Then board updates and customer documentation.
Does it reach our tickets and repos?
No - your development stack is outside Microsoft 365. Connectors exist for some tools; budget on the document layer, not the product layer.
Why is our figure the biggest on this site?
Headcount times a technical-heavy usage mix. It's also the figure most worth challenging - licence by actual M365 use and it drops fast.
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.