What you are actually buying
The name Copilot now covers several products, so before you calculate anything it helps to be clear about what you are deciding on. Microsoft also calls the product Microsoft Copilot, while price lists and licences still use the name Microsoft 365 Copilot.
| Option | What it gives you | Indicative price (November 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Chat | AI chat with web sources and content the user provides | No extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | Copilot in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, with answers from organisational data; up to 300 users | EUR 18.20 per user per month |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (enterprise add-on) | The same capabilities for larger organisations | EUR 26.00 per user per month |
These are Microsoft list prices excluding VAT with an annual commitment. Until 31 December 2026, a promotional price of EUR 15.60 for the first year applies to Copilot Business. Both paid licences are add-ons: each user also needs an eligible base plan such as Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Business Premium or E3. Advanced features and agents may also be billed by usage, so check the current terms on Microsoft's site or with your CSP partner.
How the calculator works
The calculation is deliberately simple, so that anyone in finance can check it:
- Active users are licensed users multiplied by the share who actually use Copilot regularly.
- Hours saved are the sum of weekly savings by area (email, meetings, documents, data, search), converted to a month using the real number of working weeks.
- Value is the number of hours multiplied by the hourly cost and by the share of saved time that people spend on value-adding work.
- Cost is the licence price multiplied by all licensed users, because an unused licence is still paid for.
From these figures the tool calculates the monthly net benefit, the payback period of the one-off rollout cost, the return in year one and the break-even point: how many minutes per working day an average active user must save for the licences to cover themselves.
An example with the default values: 25 licences, 60% active users, 1.5 hours saved per week, half of that time used productively, an hourly cost of EUR 30 and a Copilot Business licence. The monthly value of time is about EUR 1,290, the licences cost EUR 455, the net benefit is around EUR 840 a month, and a EUR 4,000 rollout pays back in just under five months. The break-even is about 6 minutes per active user per day. At half the savings the net benefit is still positive, but only around EUR 190 a month.
Why conservative assumptions
Studies by vendors and consultancies often quote very high time savings. Those figures are measured on different samples, with different tasks and often among early enthusiasts. They are not a sound basis for your budget. The default values in the calculator are therefore low, and it is better to raise them based on your own pilot than the other way round.
- Time saved is not money saved. If an employee saves ten minutes on meeting notes, the salary cost does not fall. Value appears only when that time goes into sales, customers or work that was waiting.
- Usage is not a given. Every organisation has users who drop a tool after the first week. Without training and role-specific use cases, the share of active users falls quickly.
- Output must be checked. Generative AI can be wrong, so time spent reviewing answers reduces the net saving.
The sensitivity table in the tool shows whether the investment still pays off at half or a quarter of the assumed savings. If the result is positive only under optimistic assumptions, that is a clear sign you need a pilot first.
A pilot that gives you real numbers
- Choose a group. 10 to 20 users from two or three roles with lots of email, meetings and documents, for example sales, project management and accounting.
- Measure a baseline. For three to five recurring tasks, measure how long they take today: meeting notes, a first draft of a quote, a monthly report.
- Train the users. A short workshop with examples from their own work and a shared library of good prompts.
- Track usage. The Copilot usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center shows enabled and active users and usage by app.
- Compare after six to eight weeks. Measure the same tasks again, collect feedback and enter the results in the calculator.
Only with pilot results should you decide how many licences to buy and for which roles. Licences are assigned to individuals, so there is no need to buy one for everybody.
Prerequisites: permissions, data and compliance
According to Microsoft's documentation, Copilot only shows users content they have at least view permission to, and prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models. Security therefore depends largely on how well permissions are managed in your environment.
- Oversharing: review SharePoint sites and Teams shared with the whole organisation, links anyone can open and inactive sites. According to Microsoft, SharePoint Advanced Management is included with the Copilot licence.
- Data governance: assign content owners and introduce sensitivity labels and DLP policies for the most sensitive data.
- Plan eligibility: check that every intended user has an eligible Microsoft 365 base plan.
- AI literacy: the AI Act requires deployers to ensure a sufficient level of AI literacy among staff. Read more in the guide EU AI Act risk classification.
Enter the cost of this preparation in the one-off rollout field. In environments that grew without rules, it is often the largest item in year one.
Who it usually pays off for, and who not
Copilot delivers most where people write, read and coordinate a lot: managers, sales, project managers, specialist functions, legal and HR. It delivers less for roles that spend most of their time in the field, in production or in specialised applications outside Microsoft 365. For them a targeted AI agent that handles part of a process, such as reading an enquiry and preparing a quote in the ERP, often makes more sense.
A mixed strategy is common: Copilot licences for information workers, Copilot Chat for everyone else, and individual agents for repetitive processes.
Next steps
- Calculate the break-even and sensitivity with conservative assumptions.
- Check how ready your environment is with the AI readiness self-assessment.
- Check that you have the right base plan in the guide Microsoft 365 plans.
- Fix access permissions and run a pilot with a measured baseline.
- Buy licences gradually and reassign them after three months based on actual usage.
Humanfrog is a Microsoft CSP partner. We help with choosing licences, preparing the environment, running the pilot and training users, and we build AI agents for your processes. To check the calculation against your own environment, talk to us.
