Last week we wrote that your agent has a price tag now and you probably cannot see it yet. The question we have been asked since is the buying one: what is the cheapest way to hold the Copilot Credits that agent work meters? Microsoft offers three routes. We have built a calculator that runs the comparison for your numbers - this is the reasoning behind it.
The tool: Open the Copilot Credits calculator - it costs the three routes against your numbers, and carries the how-to-buy steps, environment allocation and guardrails.
The short version: Ask first whether this continues or stops. A genuine one-off belongs on pay-as-you-go at about 1.5 cents a credit, where you commit to nothing. Anything ongoing crosses over to a capacity pack at about 20,000 credits a month - $299.30 for 25,000 credits, about 1.2 cents, on a twelve month contract. The Pre-Purchase Plan is chosen for Azure commitment drawdown, not for a better rate: its discount comes off the pay-as-you-go price and the pack is already 20% off that, so the plan only draws level at its very top tier.
Correct as at 11 August 2026. All figures in Australian dollars, ex GST. See the basis and caveats at the end.
The first question is not price
Before comparing rates, decide whether you are dipping a toe in or settling in. The two situations want different answers, and the mistake we see most often is picking a licensing pattern before that question has been asked out loud.
A one-off is a single trial with no plan to continue. Pay-as-you-go is the right shape: you pay the highest rate per credit, but there is no contract, no minimum, and you stop the moment you are done. The premium buys you the option to walk away, which is worth real money when you might.
Ongoing does not mean production - a steady run of experiments counts. The premium on pay-as-you-go is charged on every single credit, so it stops being good value the moment the trial becomes a habit. Twenty-five thousand credits costs about $374 bought as you go, against $299.30 a month for a capacity pack that replenishes the same 25,000 every month. If you expect to keep experimenting, the pack is usually the better call - and having credits already sitting there tends to be what makes people experiment at all.
The three routes
| Pay-as-you-go | Capacity packs | Pre-Purchase Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | A genuine one-off | Steady, ongoing usage | Large estates with an Azure commitment |
| Price | About 1.5 cents a credit | $299.30 per pack, per month, for 25,000 credits | Tiered discount, about 1.4 cents down to about 1.2 cents |
| Length of contract | None, month to month | 12 months | 12 months |
| Billing | Monthly in arrears | Monthly at $299.30, or yearly at $3,591.60 | Paid upfront |
| Where to buy | Azure portal | Microsoft 365 admin centre | Azure portal |
| MACC eligible* | Yes | No | Yes |
* MACC is the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment - a contractual undertaking to spend a set amount on Azure over a term, usually agreed as part of an Enterprise Agreement. MACC eligible spend draws down an obligation you already hold rather than adding new spend. If your organisation has no MACC, this row does not apply to you. If it does, it often decides the answer on its own.
Where the lines fall
Three thresholds do most of the work.
The crossover from pay-as-you-go to a capacity pack sits at about 20,000 credits a month, or roughly $3,600 of metered spend across a year. Below it, stay metered. Bear in mind that building and testing agents meters credits too, so development work counts toward that threshold and can pull it closer than expected.
The capacity pack is the deepest discount available at ordinary scale. At $299.30 for 25,000 credits it works out at about 1.2 cents, a 20% discount on pay-as-you-go, and that happens to be the same unit rate as the very top tier of the Pre-Purchase Plan. A tenant spending $299.30 a month and an enterprise committing millions land on the same effective price per credit.
The Pre-Purchase Plan's discount is calculated off the pay-as-you-go rate. Since the pack is already 20% off that same rate, the plan's entry tier lands above the pack for identical volume. At 300,000 credits over twelve months:
| Route | Cost | Per credit |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | About $4,490 | About 1.5 cents |
| Capacity pack, 12 months | $3,591.60 | About 1.2 cents |
| Pre-Purchase Plan, entry tier | About $4,265 | About 1.4 cents |
Which means the plan is chosen for its shape, not its price. It is MACC eligible where the pack is not, and it hands you the whole allocation at once, which suits front-loaded consumption in a way a monthly entitlement does not. If either describes you, get a quote - your tier may not be the entry one.
What you are committing to
The word "monthly" does a lot of work in how capacity packs are described. The pack is priced per month and the credits replenish monthly, but the contract is annual - the purchase screen labels both billing options "annual commitment". Monthly billing is not a monthly commitment.
The two billing options are $299.30 a month or $3,591.60 a year, and those are the same number. Twelve monthly payments come to exactly the yearly price, so paying upfront buys you nothing. Take the monthly option and keep the cash.
Getting out is harder than it looks. Under a Microsoft Customer Agreement, the modern default, you can cancel with a prorated refund only within seven days of purchase or renewal. After that you can turn off auto-renew, but you keep paying for the rest of the term. Unused credits do not carry over either - capacity is enforced monthly and resets each billing period, so a month you underuse is money gone.
The Pre-Purchase Plan is tighter still. Purchases are final, and plans cannot be cancelled, exchanged, split or merged.
Only pay-as-you-go is genuinely commitment-free. That is worth remembering when the discount on the other two looks compelling: you are paying for the cheaper credit with a year of your flexibility.
Run it against your own numbers
The thresholds above are general. Yours will not be.
We have built a calculator that asks the two questions that matter - is this ongoing or a one-off, and roughly how many credits do you expect - and costs all three routes across twelve months in Australian dollars, flags the cheapest, and states the commitment attached to each. If you have an Azure consumption commitment it will tell you when the Pre-Purchase Plan is worth quoting despite a higher sticker price.
Open the Copilot Credits calculator
The same page carries what comes after the purchase: allocating credits to the environments that will build and run agents, and the guardrails that keep pay-as-you-go metering from becoming a surprise bill. Neither step is optional - metering starts when a maker starts authoring, not when something ships.
Where to find the Pre-Purchase Plan tiers
Microsoft publishes the discount band - 5% at the bottom, 20% at the top - but not the tier ladder. The live rate card renders inside the Azure portal at the point of purchase, and that is the only place it appears.
To find the tiers that apply to your environment, follow the purchase steps in Optimize Copilot Credit costs with a pre-purchase plan. Go to Reservations, then Purchase reservations, then Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan, and the tier table appears when you select how many commit units to buy. You can read the prices without completing the purchase.
Before committing to anything, ask your licensing provider what deals are currently live, and put credits on the table at your next Enterprise Agreement renewal, where you have the most leverage.
This is the Value pillar of GIVE at its most practical: matching the commercial construct to how you consume, rather than reaching for the biggest discount on offer.
The reference sheet
All of it - the routes, the costs, the commitment terms and the purchase steps - on a two-page sheet you can take into a budget conversation.
Download the reference sheet (PDF)
The tool: Open the Copilot Credits calculator - run the comparison against your own numbers before the budget conversation.
Basis and caveats: correct as at 11 August 2026. Copilot pricing is moving quickly and the list of Copilot Credit eligible products can change. The capacity pack price of $299.30 per month, or $3,591.60 per year, is Microsoft's Australian list price as shown in the Microsoft 365 admin centre purchase screen, before applicable taxes. Microsoft's official published rate for pay-as-you-go is US$0.01 per credit; the Australian cents-per-credit figures for pay-as-you-go and the Pre-Purchase Plan are derived at the exchange rate implied by that Australian list price, about 1.50, and rounded to the nearest tenth of a cent. Microsoft sets its own periodic rate, so figures move. All amounts are ex GST; Australian purchases attract 10% GST. One Copilot Credit Commit Unit pays down US$1 of retail usage, which is 100 credits at the pay-as-you-go rate; that ratio is Microsoft-confirmed, and Microsoft's own worked example uses 15,000 units for 1,500,000 credits. The entry tier being 3,000 units at 5%, and therefore the 300,000 credit and $4,265 figures built on it, comes from secondary commentary rather than Microsoft. If the real entry tier sits higher, the minimum Pre-Purchase Plan buy-in is larger than shown. Sources: Copilot Credit pre-purchase plan, prepaid capacity packs and subscription cancellation terms on Microsoft Learn, the Pre-Purchase Plan announcement and the Copilot Credits Guide. This is not licensing, pricing, tax or financial advice; confirm current terms and figures with your Microsoft account team, licensing provider or a Microsoft Certified Partner before making any commercial decision.