Explainer
Microsoft 365 Copilot costs £23.10 per user per month on an annual plan for enterprise customers, and smaller organisations can buy Copilot Business for less. Here are the current UK prices, what each option includes and the costs that are not on the price list.
By Christopher Fagan, Managing Partner, PEF Consulting Partners
| Option | UK price, excluding VAT | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Chat | No extra cost | For users with an eligible Microsoft 365 work account: web grounded chat with enterprise data protection, plus pay as you go agents |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise) | £23.10 per user per month, paid yearly | Annual subscription; Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, grounded in your work data, plus agents |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | £16.10 per user per month paid yearly, or £19.32 billed monthly | For organisations on Business Basic, Standard or Premium, up to 300 seats; an introductory £13.80 offer for eligible customers runs to 31 December 2026 |
| Business Standard with Copilot | £18.10 per user per month, paid yearly | A bundle that includes the Business Standard plan |
| Business Premium with Copilot | £24.60 per user per month, paid yearly | A bundle that includes Business Premium |
| Copilot Studio | £153.80 a month for a pack of 25,000 Copilot Credits, or pay as you go | For building agents; licensed Copilot users get employee facing agent use included within fair use |
| Agent 365 | £11.50 per user per month, paid yearly | Microsoft’s control plane to observe, secure and govern agents |
These are Microsoft’s published UK list prices as of October 2026, excluding VAT. Microsoft changes its packaging often, and Microsoft has started calling Microsoft 365 Copilot simply Microsoft Copilot, so check the current price list or your licensing partner before you budget.
Copilot is an add on. It needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 or Office 365 plan, such as Business Basic, Standard or Premium, E3 or E5, and there is no minimum number of seats. Microsoft 365 suite prices rose on 1 July 2026; the Copilot add on itself did not change.
Start with roles that spend most of the day in email, meetings, documents and spreadsheets. Run a pilot of six to eight weeks with clear measures, then expand where the time saved justifies the cost. At £23.10 a month, a user needs to save roughly an hour a month for the licence to pay for itself at typical UK salary costs, but the time saved has to be real and visible, not assumed.
Microsoft says Copilot Business has the same capabilities as the enterprise edition. The differences are in licensing: up to 300 seats and Business plans only. If you run Business Premium with fewer than 300 users, it is the cheaper route.
Related reading: Microsoft Copilot consultancy, Copilot agents explained, Copilot vs ChatGPT vs Claude for business, the AI policy template, the free AI readiness check.
£23.10 per user per month excluding VAT on an annual plan for Microsoft 365 Copilot, or £16.10 a month paid yearly for Copilot Business for organisations on Business plans with up to 300 users.
Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost for eligible work accounts. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot, working inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams with your work data, is a paid add on.
Copilot Chat is web grounded chat with enterprise data protection. Microsoft 365 Copilot adds grounding in your own emails, files, meetings and chats, Copilot inside the Office apps and included use of agents.
A pack of 25,000 Copilot Credits costs £153.80 a month, or credits can be bought pay as you go at US$0.01 each. What a credit buys depends on the action: for example a generative answer uses two.
If you are about to buy Copilot licences in bulk, a short readiness check on permissions, governance and use cases will save money and protect your data.