From 1 December, new Copilot Business licences come with pay-as-you-go billing already switched on

Most Estonian companies buy Microsoft 365 through a reseller in Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider programme. From 1 December 2026, every new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licence bought that way will arrive with usage-based billing turned on. Microsoft first planned the change for 2 November and moved it back by a month. Estonia is not on the list of eleven markets where the change is held back for now.

Copilot Business is the version for companies with up to 300 users. The seat price stays as it is. The change concerns the newer agent features that Microsoft bills by use instead of by seat: Copilot Cowork, the Work IQ APIs and GitHub Copilot Harness for now. Microsoft says more services will join the list over time.

What happens at checkout

Until now a reseller had to set up an Azure subscription and a spending policy by hand before a customer could use these features, and Microsoft admits most customers never got that far. From December the purchase does it automatically. If the company has no Azure account with the reseller, Partner Center creates one, along with a default spending policy. Microsoft says this is the usual case: about three in four Copilot Business customers sold through resellers have no Azure footprint. Adding seats to an existing subscription through the Partner Center portal triggers the same setup, and so does converting a Copilot trial into a paid licence.

The default policy allows 4,000 Copilot Credits per user per month and 1,200,000 per tenant. Microsoft's own example: a company with 100 Copilot Business users could use up to 400,000 credits a month before the limit stops it. These charges appear on the invoice as a separate line from the seat price. None of the Microsoft pages we read gives a price per credit, so ask your reseller for the euro figure.

The part to read twice

Microsoft's partner documentation says usage-based billing cannot be fully switched off once it is configured. You control it through the limits or by deleting the spending policy, which stops future charges but leaves you liable for what was already used. Two more defaults matter. A spending policy covers new services automatically when Microsoft adds them, unless an admin turns that setting off. And when several policies apply to the same person, the least restrictive one wins.

Microsoft marks the partner page as describing features that are not yet released and may still change before launch. The dates and defaults above come from Microsoft's own pages as they stand today.

A separate change lands the same day. From 1 December, companies can buy Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Business without a qualifying Microsoft 365 base subscription, at the same price as today. Existing licences now carry the label "(add-on)" and need no action.

What to do on Monday

• ✳If you plan to buy or add Copilot Business seats, decide whether to do it before or after 1 December. After that date, the purchase sets up pay-as-you-go billing whether you asked for it or not
• ✳Ask your reseller three things in writing: what one Copilot Credit costs in euros, which Azure subscription the charges will land on, and who on their side can change the limits
• ✳Pick a monthly number your finance team can live with and ask for the tenant limit to be set to it on day one. The default of 1,200,000 credits is Microsoft's number, not yours
• ✳Have your Microsoft 365 admin open Copilot > Cost management in the admin centre, check that a finance person has read-only access, and turn off automatic coverage of new services if you want to approve each one
• ✳Tell the team which Copilot features are paid by use. Someone who tries Cowork on a big task spends company money, and they should know that before they press the button

Copilot used to be a fixed cost per person. From December part of it becomes a variable cost that grows with use. Agree the limits and the reporting before the first invoice arrives, and the decision stays yours.