What are Copilot Credits?
Copilot Credits are Microsoft's usage currency for Copilot Cowork. Every task spends credits - Microsoft's pay-as-you-go price is $0.01 per credit, billed in US dollars. A quick task costs a hundred or so; heavy multi-step work runs to a thousand or more. Your monthly credit total is what turns into a pound figure on your bill.
Credits exist because Cowork's tasks vary enormously in size, so a flat fee wouldn't work. Think of them as a meter, not a subscription: the Copilot licence gets you in the door, and the meter runs while Cowork works.
Four things decide how many credits a task spends: which AI model runs it, how much of your own data it pulls in, how many actions it takes across your apps, and how long it runs. That's why two tasks that sound similar can cost very different amounts.
Two things catch businesses out. First, billing is in dollars, so your cost in pounds moves with the exchange rate - at the cautious £1 = $1.27 this site uses, a credit is about 0.79p, and nearer 0.76p at October 2026 rates. Second, credits are spent by tasks, not people - one enthusiastic user running heavy research tasks can spend more than a whole team doing light work. Spending limits per person or group, set in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, are the answer to both surprises.
About 0.79p at Microsoft's $0.01 list price and this site's cautious £1 = $1.27, or nearer 0.76p at October 2026 rates. Nobody buys one, though - a realistic month for a 15-person business runs to a couple of hundred thousand credits. The converter turns any number into pounds.
On pay-as-you-go there's nothing to roll over - you only pay for what's used. On Microsoft's pre-purchase plan, unused credits expire at the end of the one-year term, so size a pre-purchase on what you'll genuinely use.
The definitions are the easy part. Whether Cowork is the right spend is a different question.
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