Manage message capacity
This article describes the billing models for messages available with a Copilot Studio license. Prepaid messages are available for purchase since December 1, 2023. Pay-as-you-go is available for purchase since December 1, 2024.
Messages are the unit that measures agent usage. The total cost is calculated based on the sum of the messages used by your organization. The number of messages consumed by an agent depends on the complexity of the agent, how often customers interact with it, and the features they use.
The purchase of a Copilot Studio license includes a specific number of billed messages. This capacity is pooled across the entire tenant. However, it must be assigned to an environment to enable Copilot Studio features for agents in that environment.
Note
As of February 1, 2025, we are introducing autonomous actions billing which charges for each generatively orchestrated action, including triggers, topics, Power Platform connectors, and Power Automate flows. You can see these actions on the activity map when you test your agent in Copilot Studio. Knowledge uses a separate consumption rate through generative messages and tenant Microsoft Graph grounding for message rates. Each autonomous action incurs a charge of 25 messages against your capacity packs, or counts 25 messages against your Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go meter.
Allocation happens in the Power Platform admin center when you select Billing > Licenses > Copilot Studio, and then select Manage Capacity. For more information, see Capacity add-ons, the Power Platform documentation.
Message scenarios
The following table illustrates the types of messages managed by the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.
| Copilot Studio event | Billing rate |
|---|---|
| Classic answer | 1 message |
| Generative answer | 2 messages |
| Autonomous action | 25 messages |
| Tenant Microsoft Graph grounding for messages | 30 messages |
Note
When a Copilot Studio subscription (message pack or meter) is set up for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, usage of agents by users not licensed for Microsoft 365 Copilot will consume Copilot Studio messages. Most of these conversations will consume 32 messages per interaction or query (30 messages for tenant Microsoft Graph grounding and 2 for generative answers).
Classic answers: These events are predefined responses that are manually authored by agent makers. They're static and don't change unless manually updated. They're typically used where precise and controlled responses are the only ones we want the agent to generate.
Generative answers: These events are dynamically generated using AI models, such as Generative Pretrained Transformers (GPTs). They can adapt and change based on the context and the knowledge sources they're connected to. They're useful for handling a wide range of topics and providing more flexible and natural interactions.
Tenant Microsoft Graph grounding for messages: These events provide higher quality grounding for your agents using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) over your tenant-wide Microsoft Graph, including external data synced into Microsoft Graph through connectors. This results in more relevant and improved responses and ensures that the grounding information is up to date. This capability is optional, and you can turn it on or off for each agent.
Autonomous actions: These events are are steps, such as triggers and topics, that appear on the activity map in Copilot Studio when you test an autonomous agent. These events don't include knowledge search, knowledge retrieval, and AI Builder prompts.
The following illustration shows various Copilot Studio events and their corresponding billing events:
Each interaction with an agent might utilize multiple message types simultaneously. For example, an agent grounded in a tenant Microsoft Graph could use 32 messages (30 messages for the Microsoft Graph grounding, and two for generative answers) to respond to a single complex prompt from a user.
Agent costs depend on an agent's complexity and its usage. For example, the following two scenarios illustrate the complexity and usage:
Customer support agent
You have a customer support agent on your website that answers questions based on customer return policies, and product manuals that you provided to the agent as a knowledge source.
An average run comprises four classic answers for return-related questions, and two generative answers for troubleshooting questions. The average is 900 customers per day. The estimated cost per day is based on the following calculation: [(4x1)+(2x2)] x 900 customers = 7200 messages.
Sales performance agent
You have a tenant Microsoft Graph grounded agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. This agent answers employee questions based on sales data connected to Microsoft Graph using Graph data connectors.
An average run comprises four generative answers and four tenant Microsoft Graph grounded messages. The average is 50 Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users and 100 unlicensed users. The estimated cost per is day is based on the following calculation: [(4x2)+(4x30)] x 100 users = 12,800 messages.
Overage
In an environment, when consumption exceeds available capacity, the environment is in overage and some features are progressively blocked. We allow some level of overage consumption, similar to a grace period, to avoid blocking business processes.
If your environment has no more capacity, you have the following options:
Reallocate existing capacity from the organization (tenant) or environment level.
Purchase more capacity and make it available to your environment.
Set up consumptive meter/Pay-as-you-go meter to handle the overage.
Frequently asked questions
Do preview features count against usage capacity?
Copilot Studio features that are in preview, unless otherwise stated, are free to use and don't count against your purchased capacity.
What happens to the remaining capacity at the end of the month? Can this capacity carry over to the following month?
No, unused capacity isn't carried over to the next month. Credit usage is counted on a monthly basis and reset on the first day of the month. Available capacity is based on allocated capacity.
When is the message consumption count reset? Is resetting based on the license acquisition date?
Credit usage is counted on a monthly basis, starting the first day of each month. Credit usage isn't based on the license acquisition date. Message usage of an environment shouldn't exceed the message allocation.
Where can I see message usage for this month?
Overall organization (tenant) level credit consumption is available in the Power Platform admin center in the Resources > Capacity > Summary tab.
The data is aggregated daily. Some data might be delayed; if so, the consumption bar shows all known consumption at the Last updated date in the tooltip box.
Do chats in the embedded test chat count as billable?
Messages that use the embedded test chat don't count toward billed sessions.
Set up pay-as-you-go consumptive meter
Pay-as-you-go is a way to pay for Copilot Studio using an Azure subscription, which allows you to get started building agents without any license commitment or upfront purchasing.
In the Power Platform admin center, you can link environments to an Azure subscription using a billing policy.
Once an environment is linked to an Azure subscription, the usage of apps and any Dataverse or Power Platform usage that goes above the included amounts are billed against the Azure subscription using Azure meters.
You can unlink your environment from the Azure subscription at any time and then usage is no longer billed.
Note
For instructions on how to set up your pay-as-you-go consumptive meter, see Set up pay-as-you-go.
View message consumption
You can view message consumption reporting in the Power Platform admin center.
In Power Platform admin center, go to Billing > Licenses.
Select the Environments tab and select the desired environmnent.
Select Copilot Studio.
