£Cowork Calculated
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Glossary · Copilot Cowork pricing

What was the Frontier programme?

Frontier was Microsoft's early-access programme for Copilot agents, including Cowork, running until general availability in June 2026. Customers in it used Cowork without being billed, and their anonymised usage became Microsoft's published defaults for how many light, medium and heavy tasks a typical person runs each month. Those defaults are the starting figures in this calculator.

In practice

The programme matters for two reasons. First, provenance: when this site says a typical office worker runs 22 light, 11 medium and 5 heavy tasks a month, that's Frontier data, not a guess. It's the best available baseline, and it's also from early adopters, who may use the tool more than a typical UK SME will. Treat the defaults as a generous starting point and replace them with your own numbers after a month.

Second, the cliff edge: Frontier usage wasn't billed, and that ended on 1 July 2026. Businesses that joined during preview and never set up usage-based billing lost access rather than accruing charges - the feature simply stopped. If Cowork 'disappeared' for your team in July, that's why.

Common questions

They're a starting point. Early adopters skew heavy. Run Cowork for a month with caps on, check the usage report, and put your own figures in.

The preview phase ended at general availability. Microsoft continues to release features early to opted-in tenants, but there is no longer a billing holiday.

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Light, medium and heavy tasksUsage-based billingPricing newsRun the calculator
Before you commit

The definitions are the easy part. 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.

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All glossary terms
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Pricing and definitions last verified 12 October 2026, against Microsoft's published documentation.
Figures use Microsoft pay-as-you-go list pricing ($0.01 per Copilot Credit, billed in US dollars), converted at £1 = $1.27 - a deliberately cautious rate (2026 has run between $1.31 and $1.39), so real pound costs are likely to be a little lower. Ex-VAT. This is an independent explainer built by Segmentum, not produced or endorsed by Microsoft - confirm current pricing with Microsoft before you commit. Sources: Microsoft Copilot Credits Guide (September 2026); Microsoft Learn - usage-based billing and Copilot Credits; microsoft.com UK pricing.