Copilot Studio Credit Consumption & Billing | M365 Copilot Licensed users

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Posted on by CS-30032143-0

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/requirements-messages-management

https://microsoft.github.io/copilot-studio-estimator/

Hello there! I have an open ticket with support, however seeking a 2nd opinion and/or other experiences.

Per the above documentation and estimator, it leads me to assume that if an agent is Employee Facing (in our case, published to Teams), built in Copilot Studio, is authenticated via Entra ID (our agent is) AND the end-user is M365 Copilot licensed, there will be no credits consumed within fair usage limits.

This however hasn't been the case. Both in Copilot Studio and Power Platform Admin Center Classic, Generative, Agent Action, etc. are showing as "Billed" credits. A "0" across the board in the "Non-Billed" column.

Our open ticket is stating that this is intended behavior and essentially the agent must be created in Agent Builder in M365 Copilot, not Copilot Studio, to remain in the M365 Copilot "billing boundary". However the Copilot Studio documentation, the estimator, online communities, youtube videos around billing, etc. all imply I shouldn't be getting billed.

Is this actually correct? Did something change? Is everything I can find publicly regarding this incorrect? Just trying to see if "Copilot Studio agents will always incur credit consumption" is widely accepted or if I should get my ticket escalated.

Apologies if this is the incorrect forum to ask this on.

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Karan_Shewale_MSFT Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi CS-30032143-0,

Yes, what you are seeing is expected behavior. Even if your agent is employee-facing, published in Teams, uses Entra ID, and users have M365 Copilot licenses, agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio still consume billed credits. This is because Copilot Studio runs on the Power Platform, which uses a consumption-based billing model. The “non-billed” (fair usage) benefit applies only to agents created inside Microsoft 365 Copilot (Agent Builder).

So, the support team is correct—if you want to stay within the M365 Copilot billing boundary, the agent must be built there, not in Copilot Studio.

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CS-30032143-0 4 on at

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So did this recently change?

https://community.powerplatform.com/forums/thread/details/?threadid=9fe4b4d0-52cb-f011-bbd3-000d3a13d3fe

In this community, for example, suggested answers indicate M365 Copilot licensed users don't incur costs. I can find this all over the internet. We didn't used to get billed either, this only the last few months started happening. The estimator additionally says "Employee Facing (Copilot Studio)"

I'm not sure why provide an estimator that explicitly says "Copilot Studio", with an estimation to negate credits if the end user is M365 Copilot licensed, if a license will never negate credits in practice when using Copilot Studio.

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Karan_Shewale_MSFT Microsoft Employee on at

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Yes — while not formally announced as a breaking change, billing has been clarified and more strictly enforced recently.

Even with M365 Copilot licenses, agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio now consume credits based on runtime, which is why you’re seeing charges. Microsoft docs confirm that “Copilot Credits are the unit that measures agent usage” and “prompts in agents or agent flows consume Copilot Credits” (see: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/billing-licensing and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ai-builder/message-management).

The estimator and older community answers reflect earlier or scenario-based assumptions, not the current enforced behavior.

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