Before buying more Microsoft AI capacity, calculate what is already included in the products you license.
Start with Microsoft 365 Copilot: no fixed credit allowance - fair use policy. Copilot Cowork includes no credits by default.
Selected Dynamics 365 licences contribute pooled Copilot Credits. Paid GitHub Copilot plans include a monthly AI Credit allowance. Microsoft 365 E5 and E7 include a monthly Security Copilot allocation for eligible tenants. Some existing Power Platform and Dynamics 365 customers also retain seeded AI Builder credits during the transition to Copilot Credits.
Those entitlements are not interchangeable, and they do not create one universal pool. Once the relevant allowance is exhausted, the outcome depends on the product and its administrator settings. Usage may continue as billed pay-as-you-go or overage consumption. It may instead be blocked, throttled or denied until capacity resets or more is added.
Only after that baseline is known should a customer choose from the additional purchase paths. Keystone’s review found 21 grouped ways to buy or fund incremental Microsoft AI capacity as at 23 July 2026. Microsoft does not publish an official total, and the number will change as offers and grouping choices change.
How we counted: Keystone reviewed current Microsoft and GitHub commercial-cloud licensing and billing sources on 23 July 2026. Microsoft does not publish a definitive total, so we grouped closely related regional and product variants. Prices are US list prices before tax; agreement, currency, geography and eligibility can change the result.
Start with the AI capacity already included in your licences
The first line of a Microsoft AI capacity model should be the usage already covered by the customer’s existing licences. The starting position may include:
| Product or licence | Capacity or usage included at no additional charge | Limit or reset to model |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | No fixed credit allowance - fair use policy. Copilot Cowork includes no credits by default. | Cowork must be connected to PAYG or prepaid Copilot Credits before use. |
| Selected Dynamics 365 Premium licences | Sales Premium, Customer Service Premium, Finance Premium and Supply Chain Management Premium currently contribute 1,000 pooled Copilot Credits per licensed user per month. | The credits are tenant-pooled and monthly. Product eligibility should be rechecked against the customer’s actual licences. |
| GitHub Copilot Business | 1,900 GitHub AI Credits per assigned user per month under the standard allowance. | Pooled at the billing entity and reset monthly with no rollover. Eligible existing customers temporarily receive 3,000 credits until 1 September 2026. |
| GitHub Copilot Enterprise | 3,900 GitHub AI Credits per assigned user per month under the standard allowance. | Pooled at the billing entity and reset monthly with no rollover. Eligible existing customers temporarily receive 7,000 credits until 1 September 2026. |
| Microsoft 365 E5 and E7 | 400 Security Compute Units per month for every 1,000 paid user licences, scaling below 1,000 and capped at 10,000 SCUs per month. | Shared tenant capacity that resets monthly with no rollover. Microsoft’s eligibility and rollout status should be confirmed for the tenant. |
| Existing Power Platform or Dynamics 365 licences with seeded AI Builder credits | Some existing licences continue to provide monthly AI Builder credits during Microsoft’s transition. | Transitional only. Microsoft says seeded AI Builder credits will be removed in November 2026. |
That distinction matters. Microsoft 365 Copilot’s fixed user subscription opens the door to Cowork, but it does not pay for Cowork tasks. A Cowork budget therefore needs both licensed users and separately funded Copilot Credits, with access policies and spending limits set before use.
What happens when the included credits or capacity run out?
There is no single Microsoft-wide fallback.
| Product family | If additional paid usage is enabled | If it is not enabled or the limit is reached |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Credits and Copilot Studio | A configured PAYG meter can take over after a monthly capacity pack or eligible prepurchase balance is exhausted. Excess use is billed. | Microsoft’s current guide says usage over purchased Copilot Studio capacity can be technically enforced, including service denial. |
| GitHub AI Credits | Usage continues at the published per-credit rate and the additional spend is charged to the organisation or enterprise. | Usage is blocked until the monthly allowance refreshes. GitHub says there is no automatic fallback to a cheaper model when a budget is exhausted. |
| Security Copilot provisioned capacity | Configured overage capacity can absorb demand above provisioned SCUs and is billed on actual usage. | Requests stop when provisioned SCUs run out unless another capacity type is available. For the E5/E7 included allocation, Microsoft says throttling and a PAYG scale-up option are planned; confirm current rollout before relying on either. |
| AI Builder | AI Builder features in apps and flows first use available AI Builder credits, then Copilot Credits. | Model runs are blocked when neither balance is available. |
“Do nothing” is therefore not a safe capacity policy. Before a production workload is launched, the customer needs to decide whether continuity or a hard cost stop is more important, configure the relevant meter or budget, and document who owns the alert and response.
Around 20 current ways to buy more Microsoft AI capacity
The map below records 21 grouped incremental purchase and funding paths found in Microsoft’s current public documentation. It excludes the licence-included entitlements above, groups regional and data-zone variants where the commercial mechanism is substantially the same, and treats a private Marketplace offer as a negotiated form of an existing publisher path rather than a new route for every model.
| Microsoft area | Purchase or funding path | Current commercial characteristic |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Studio | Monthly Copilot Credit capacity pack | 25,000 credits for US$200 per month, billed annually; unused monthly capacity does not roll over. |
| Copilot services | Copilot Credit pay-as-you-go | Usage billed through Azure at US$0.01 per Copilot Credit. |
| Copilot services | Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) | One-year product-specific commitment; published discount tiers range from 5% to 20%. |
| Microsoft AI portfolio | Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (Agent P3) | One-year commitment for eligible agentic services across Copilot Studio, Foundry, Fabric and GitHub; published tiers are 5%, 10% and 15%. |
| GitHub Copilot | Pay-as-you-go AI Credit overage | One GitHub AI Credit equals US$0.01; additional usage is subject to administrator policies and budgets. |
| GitHub Copilot | GitHub AI Credits P3 | One-year prepurchase dedicated to GitHub AI Credit usage. |
| GitHub portfolio | GitHub P3 | Broader one-year GitHub commitment that can cover eligible GitHub products and usage, including AI Credit overage. |
| Microsoft Foundry models | Standard token pay-as-you-go | Token consumption for standard global, data-zone or regional deployments. |
| Microsoft Foundry models | Batch token processing | Lower-cost asynchronous processing where the workload can tolerate batch execution. |
| Microsoft Foundry models | Provisioned throughput billed hourly | Dedicated throughput bought in Provisioned Throughput Units (PTUs) without a reservation. |
| Microsoft Foundry models | One-month PTU reservation | Reservation discount applied to a matching provisioned deployment for one month. |
| Microsoft Foundry models | One-year PTU reservation | Longer reservation applied to a matching provisioned deployment; payment may be monthly or upfront. |
| Microsoft Foundry | Managed compute, hourly | Preview managed GPU compute charged by accelerator, instance count and hours. |
| Azure Marketplace models | Partner-model consumption | Marketplace metering for partner models, including public pay-as-you-go rates and negotiated private offers; Claude Consumption Units are one example. |
| Foundry and Azure AI services | Tool or service pay-as-you-go | Metered use of eligible services such as Speech, Content Safety, Vision, Document Intelligence and Language. |
| Foundry and Azure AI services | Tool or service commitment tier | Product-specific commitment pricing where Microsoft offers it for the relevant service. |
| Microsoft Fabric | F capacity pay-as-you-go | Capacity Units billed per second with no commitment. |
| Microsoft Fabric | Fabric capacity reservation | One- or three-year reservation, paid monthly or upfront, for an eligible Fabric capacity. |
| Security Copilot | Provisioned Security Compute Units | SCUs provisioned and billed by the hour; unused provisioned capacity expires each hour. |
| Security Copilot | Overage SCU consumption | Consumption above provisioned capacity, billed against actual use and configurable with a limit or as unlimited. |
| AI Builder | Legacy AI Builder capacity add-on | Transitional route for eligible existing customers only; new customers must use Copilot Credits. |
This is a dated buying map, not a fixed SKU count. It deliberately excludes free trials, temporary promotional credits, every individual model SKU and duplicated geography variants. Counting those separately would increase the number without helping a customer choose.
AI Builder remains in the incremental map only as a transition route for eligible existing customers. It is not a strategic future-state purchase for new customers.
The units do not translate cleanly
The word “credit” makes the market sound more consistent than it is.
| Unit | What it represents | Where it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Credit | Consumption currency for eligible Copilot and agent capabilities | Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot usage-based services and other eligible experiences |
| Copilot Credit Commitment Unit | Commercial unit used to buy Copilot Credit P3 | Product-specific annual Copilot commitment |
| Agent Commitment Unit | Commercial unit used to buy Agent P3 | Eligible services across several Microsoft AI product families |
| GitHub AI Credit | Consumption currency for GitHub Copilot AI usage | GitHub Copilot plans and overage |
| GitHub commitment units | Commercial prepurchase units | GitHub AI Credits P3 and broader GitHub P3 |
| Provisioned Throughput Unit | Reserved model-serving throughput | Foundry provisioned model deployments |
| Fabric Capacity Unit | Compute capacity made available to Fabric workloads | Microsoft Fabric |
| Security Compute Unit | Security Copilot capacity | Security Copilot |
| AI Builder credit | Legacy Power Platform AI capacity | AI Builder transition only |
| Claude Consumption Unit | Azure Marketplace meter for supported Claude models | Microsoft Foundry partner-model deployments |
An Agent Commitment Unit is a purchasing construct rather than a universal unit of AI work. Copilot Credits, GitHub AI Credits and Fabric Capacity Units remain separate meters.
In what order is Microsoft AI capacity consumed?
There is no single consumption order across the Microsoft AI portfolio. The practical pattern is:
- Use is covered by an existing licence or included allowance, where the workload qualifies.
- A product-specific capacity balance, reservation or prepurchase benefit applies to eligible metered use.
- A broader prepurchase plan applies to eligible use left over.
- PAYG or overage handles excess consumption if the customer has enabled it.
- The service may be restricted when no balance or additional-usage policy remains.
The exact sequence must be checked by product. Microsoft currently documents these examples:
| Workload | Current documented order |
|---|---|
| Copilot, Foundry and Fabric benefits that overlap with Agent P3 | A matching Foundry PTU or Fabric reservation applies to its workload before a prepurchase plan. Copilot Credit P3 applies to eligible Copilot Credit use before Agent P3. Agent P3 applies last to remaining eligible usage. |
| GitHub AI Credits | The monthly plan allowance reduces billable usage first. For overlapping prepurchase benefits, GitHub AI Credits P3 applies before GitHub P3, which applies before Agent P3. Further use is billed only if the relevant additional-usage policy and budget allow it. |
| Copilot Studio monthly capacity pack | The pack is consumed before a configured Copilot Credit PAYG meter. |
| AI Builder in Power Apps and Power Automate | Available AI Builder credits are consumed before Copilot Credits. Runs are blocked when neither balance is available. |
| Security Copilot provisioned SCUs | Provisioned capacity is used for the hourly baseline; configured overage capacity absorbs additional usage. Without another capacity type, requests stop when the provisioned SCUs are exhausted. |
This order matters because buying two benefits that cover the same workload does not mean both will be consumed evenly. A narrower benefit can take precedence while a broader annual commitment remains unused.
Copilot: capacity packs, PAYG and two P3 commitments
Copilot Studio shows how several funding choices can sit behind the same consumption meter. The monthly pack provides 25,000 Copilot Credits for a published US list price of $200 per month, billed annually, and unused capacity expires monthly. PAYG charges $0.01 per credit through Azure without an upfront volume commitment.
Copilot Credit P3 is a one-year product-specific commitment with nine published discount tiers ranging from 5% to 20%. Agent P3 is broader and publishes 5%, 10% and 15% tiers for eligible consumption across several Microsoft services.
PAYG provides a useful baseline while demand remains uncertain. A pack or Copilot Credit P3 becomes easier to defend when Copilot demand is stable; Agent P3 requires credible eligible demand across the services expected to consume it. The forecast needs to cover the full expiry period and Microsoft’s benefit order.
GitHub: an allowance, an overage meter and two commitments
GitHub moved paid Copilot plans to AI Credits in June 2026. The standard allowance is 1,900 AI Credits per paid Copilot Business user per month and 3,900 per Copilot Enterprise user. Eligible existing customers temporarily receive 3,000 and 7,000 respectively from 1 June to 1 September 2026. The allowance is pooled at the organisation or enterprise level and does not roll over.
Usage above the allowance can be bought on a metered basis if the administrator creates a budget. GitHub AI Credits P3 adds a dedicated one-year prepurchase, while broader GitHub P3 can cover eligible spend across GitHub’s portfolio, including AI Credit overage. Microsoft applies the dedicated GitHub AI Credits P3 balance before broader GitHub P3 and Agent P3, so the utilisation result depends on the commitments already in place.
Foundry: consumption, throughput and compute are different purchases
Foundry separates token consumption, batch processing, provisioned throughput and managed compute. Standard deployments are normally billed by token, while provisioned deployments use PTUs billed hourly or matched with a one-month or one-year reservation.
These are different demand shapes:
- Token PAYG suits variable or early-stage workloads where utilisation is uncertain.
- Batch suits delay-tolerant processing.
- Provisioned throughput suits sustained workloads that need predictable throughput and latency.
- A reservation discounts matching provisioned use; it does not create the deployment and does not guarantee that deployment capacity will be available.
Managed compute is currently in preview and charged hourly by accelerator and instance count. Azure Marketplace partner models use publisher-specific meters; Microsoft’s Claude guidance, for example, uses Claude Consumption Units and supports eligible private offers. Foundry and Azure AI tool services may use PAYG or their own commitment tiers. A forecast therefore needs separate lines for tokens, PTUs, compute and tool consumption.
Fabric and Security Copilot have their own capacity economics
Microsoft Fabric F capacity can be bought pay-as-you-go and billed by the second. A one- or three-year Fabric capacity reservation may suit a stable baseline. Agent P3 can offset eligible Fabric consumption, but a matching Fabric reservation takes precedence.
Security Copilot uses SCUs. Provisioned SCUs are billed by the hour and unused provisioned capacity expires each hour. This is a sharper utilisation problem than a monthly Copilot Credit pool.
Microsoft 365 E5 and E7 now include Security Copilot capacity, calculated at 400 SCUs per month for every 1,000 paid users, up to Microsoft’s published tenant limit and with pro-rating below 1,000 users. That entitlement does not roll over. Customers should calculate it before sizing provisioned or overage capacity.
AI Builder is a deadline, not a strategic purchase route
AI Builder deserves a place in the inventory because existing customers may still be renewing or trueing up the capacity add-on. It should not be presented as a future-state option.
Microsoft stopped new purchases of AI Builder capacity add-ons on 1 November 2025. Eligible existing customers can renew or true up during the transition, and active add-on entitlements continue until their contracts expire. Seeded AI Builder credits are scheduled to be removed on 1 November 2026, subject to Microsoft honouring qualifying pre-existing contract terms. Copilot Credits are the replacement consumption mechanism.
Any 2026 plan that still depends on AI Builder credits needs a migration date, not merely a budget line.
Where customers can lose value
Included capacity changes the requirement
Microsoft 365 Copilot can contribute included agent usage; it also gates access to Cowork, without covering Cowork consumption. Selected Dynamics 365 licences, GitHub Copilot plans and Microsoft 365 E5/E7 can contribute other included usage or capacity. Those entitlements should be calculated before an incremental commitment is sized.
Expiry then needs to be modelled against the workload. Provisioned Security Copilot capacity refreshes hourly, many capacity-pack and licence pools reset monthly, and P3 commitments generally run for one year. PAYG avoids unused committed capacity but needs firm budget controls.
Benefit precedence can strand a commitment
Microsoft applies eligible benefits in a defined order. Foundry and Fabric reservations can apply before Agent P3. Copilot Credit P3 also applies before Agent P3. Within GitHub, the dedicated AI Credit plan applies before broader GitHub P3 and Agent P3.
A customer holding several eligible commitments needs to model which balance will actually be consumed. Otherwise, one balance can expire while another benefit handles the workload.
MACC eligibility needs confirmation
Eligible AI consumption and prepurchase routes may contribute towards a MACC, depending on the service, offer, agreement and billing scope. Customers with a MACC should obtain written confirmation of which charges will decrement it. Customers without a MACC remain on PAYG without that commitment test.
Prepurchase plans are generally final, auto-renew by default and cannot be cancelled or exchanged after purchase under Microsoft’s current guidance. Published discounts should therefore be tested against measured demand and likely utilisation over the full term.
A practical buying sequence
Before selecting a capacity route:
- Map each workload and meter. Record the product, environment, billing account, geography, expected users, model, tool calls and operating hours. Keep Copilot Credits, GitHub AI Credits, tokens, PTUs, Fabric CUs and SCUs separate.
- Calculate existing entitlements. Include Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, GitHub and Security Copilot capacity before adding a paid commitment.
- Build low, expected and high demand cases. Allow for adoption, seasonality, agent redesign and model changes.
- Apply Microsoft’s benefit order and expiry rules. Test which balance is consumed and compare unused commitment with PAYG or overage exposure.
- Validate the commercial treatment. Confirm billing scope, MACC eligibility where applicable, currency, tax, negotiated price, renewal settings, budgets and accountable owners.
Keystone’s Copilot Credit Calculator can turn agent runs and feature usage into a monthly credit-demand range. It is most useful before a P3 or annual pack decision, when the forecast can still change the purchase rather than merely explain it.
For the cost mechanics behind individual agents, see Microsoft AI agent run costs: Copilot Credits, ACUs and MCA.
What should a Microsoft customer ask for?
For each workload, ask Microsoft to document the eligible meter, scope, benefit order, expiry period, renewal behaviour, MACC treatment and customer-specific price. PAYG, product-specific commitments, Agent P3 and reservations should then be compared against the same demand model.
Keystone helps enterprise customers build that model, test Microsoft’s commercial assumptions and negotiate the licensing and Azure position before capacity is committed. Our Microsoft Azure negotiation services combine usage analysis with commercial negotiation. The analysis should be completed before an annual prepurchase is signed.
Frequently asked questions
How many ways are there to buy Microsoft AI capacity?
Microsoft does not publish one definitive total. Keystone found 21 grouped ways to buy or fund additional capacity in July 2026, after separating the capacity already included in licences and grouping many regional and product variants. The precise number depends on the customer’s products, geography, agreement and how closely related variants are counted.
What happens if we use more than the Microsoft AI capacity included in our licences?
It depends on the product and administrator settings. Usage can continue as paid PAYG or overage consumption where that option is configured. It can instead be blocked, throttled or denied when no additional capacity or budget is available. There is no universal Microsoft-wide fallback.
What is the difference between Copilot Credits and GitHub AI Credits?
They are separate consumption currencies for different product families. They have different included allowances, meters and prepurchase plans. One should not be converted into the other in a commercial forecast.
Is Agent P3 one universal pool for Microsoft AI?
No. Agent P3 can fund eligible agentic services across several Microsoft products, but only within Microsoft’s current eligibility, scope and benefit-precedence rules. It does not make the underlying service units interchangeable.
Does Microsoft AI spend count towards a MACC?
Some eligible Azure-billed AI services and prepurchase routes can help satisfy a MACC, but eligibility depends on the service, offer, billing scope and agreement. Customers with a MACC should confirm the treatment before purchase; customers without one simply pay for eligible usage through PAYG billing.
References
All sources below are Microsoft or GitHub primary sources, accessed 23 July 2026.
- Microsoft, Copilot Studio Licensing Guide, July 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan.
- Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Agent Pre-Purchase Plan.
- Microsoft Learn, Overview of usage-based billing for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage Copilot Credits for usage-based billing.
- Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing options.
- GitHub Docs, Usage-based billing for Copilot in organisations and enterprises.
- Microsoft Learn, GitHub AI Credits Pre-Purchase Plan.
- Microsoft Learn, GitHub Pre-Purchase Plan.
- Microsoft Learn, Deployment types for Microsoft Foundry models.
- Microsoft Learn, Provisioned throughput billing.
- Microsoft Learn, Microsoft Foundry reservation.
- Microsoft Learn, Managed compute in Microsoft Foundry.
- Microsoft Learn, Billing for Claude models in Microsoft Foundry.
- Microsoft Learn, Buy a Microsoft Fabric subscription and Fabric capacity reservations.
- Microsoft Learn, Security Compute Units and capacity and Security Copilot inclusion in Microsoft 365 E5 and E7.
- Microsoft Learn, AI Builder licensing and the end of AI Builder credits.
- Microsoft, Dynamics 365 licensing guidance.
- Microsoft 365 Blog, Copilot Cowork is now generally available.
- Microsoft Learn, Manage Copilot Cowork for your organization.