BUILT BY SEGMENTUM · COWORK COST GUIDE
How many Copilot Credits does researching a company use?
Researching a company is one of Cowork's heaviest everyday tasks - roughly 700 to 2,000 Copilot Credits, about £5.50 to £15.80 per company at pay-as-you-go rates. It's expensive because it's genuinely multi-step: web sources, your own files and emails, then a structured write-up with citations.
What this task adds up to
One person, one task is easy. The monthly picture is what matters - put in how often this actually happens in your business.
Usage only - licences come on top, and every person needs one. Credit ranges are directional; run the task and check /cost in Cowork for your real figure. $0.01 per credit at roughly £1 = $1.27, ex-VAT. Last verified 13 July 2026.
What drives the cost
The breadth of the brief drives the cost. "Summarise what we know about this company" from your own files sits at the bottom of the range. "Research this company - accounts, news, our history with them - and give me a memo" runs every retrieval step Cowork has, and each one spends credits. The output format barely matters; the gathering is the cost.
The habit this replaces is the hour someone spends digging before a first meeting. A salesperson researching a prospect before every first call - say four a month - is spending £22 to £63 a month for briefings that used to eat their prep time or simply not happen. That second possibility is the honest comparison: for many businesses this isn't replacing research time, it's making research exist.
Common questions
Why does this cost more than most tasks?
Retrieval. Research tasks read widely before they write - web sources, your files, your email history - and every step spends credits. It's the gathering, not the memo.
Can I cap what a research task spends?
Not per task - spending limits work per person or group. Narrow the brief instead: name the sources you want and skip the ones you don't.
Is the output reliable enough for client work?
Treat it as a well-organised first pass with citations to check, not finished intelligence. It's fast, not infallible - the citations are there to be followed.
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.