Copilot Studio: Pricing, Features and Who It’s For
See what you can build with Copilot Studio, how its credit-based pricing works, and when alternatives such as n8n may be a better fit.

👁 113 reads
Copilot Studio is Microsoft’s no-code tool for building custom AI agents: a bot that answers employees’ questions using SharePoint documents, a customer service assistant in Teams, or an agent that responds automatically to a new order. It charges in “Copilot Credits” rather than per-user subscriptions, which is a key difference from tools such as Zapier. Here’s what you can build, what it costs, and when you might be better off with another tool.
Copilot Studio at a glance
Copilot Studio makes sense for businesses that use Microsoft 365 and want to give people an agent with access to company documents, Teams and Outlook. A pack of 25,000 credits costs $200 per month, and pay-as-you-go usage costs $0.01 per credit. A simple agent response uses 1-2 credits, while an answer grounded in data from across the company uses 12. If only people with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence use the agents, most usage is included. For automations across apps outside Microsoft, n8n is more flexible and may cost less. That’s my assessment.
What is Copilot Studio?
Copilot Studio is the successor to Power Virtual Agents, redesigned for large language models. In a browser, you describe what the agent should do, choose knowledge sources such as SharePoint sites, files, Dataverse databases or public websites, and add tools - actions the agent can take, such as sending an email, creating a support ticket or querying a system. Microsoft lists more than 1,400 ready-made connectors through Power Platform. You can publish a finished agent in Teams, on SharePoint, in the Microsoft 365 Copilot chat, on a website or as a voice bot on a phone line.
A simpler version, Agent Builder, is built into the Microsoft 365 Copilot chat. There, an agent can use instructions and selected sources, but it cannot take actions or run automations. Copilot Studio is for when you need logic such as conditions, system calls, event triggers and handoffs to a person.
What can you build with Copilot Studio?
- An agent that answers questions about company documents - It can respond to questions about procedures, policies and price lists from SharePoint, citing its sources. This is a common first project.
- A customer service bot - Put it on a website or in Teams. It can handle routine questions with classic answers (1 credit) and other queries with generative answers (2 credits), then hand the conversation to a support representative.
- An autonomous agent - Trigger it with an event, such as a new email or database row. It can check stock, approve an order and send a confirmation. Microsoft’s example of this workflow uses 20 credits.
- An agent with Power Automate - Flows with hundreds of steps are billed in batches of 100 actions (13 credits).
- A voice bot - It can answer phone calls, using 10 to 75 credits per minute depending on voice quality.
Copilot Studio pricing
| Plan or product | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Credit pack | $200 per month | 25,000 credits shared across the company |
| Pay as you go | $0.01 per credit | Billed through an Azure subscription |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | $30 per person per month | Annual billing ($31.50 per month); the Business version for companies with up to 300 people is discounted to $18 through the end of 2026; agent usage by licensed employees does not consume credits |
| Agent Builder in Copilot chat | $0 | Agents using only instructions or public data; company data requires paid credits |
Microsoft’s prices exclude VAT. Rates for actions in Microsoft’s documentation are: 1 credit for a classic answer, 2 for a generative answer, 5 for an agent action, 10 for searching company-wide data (tenant graph grounding), 13 for 100 flow actions, and an additional 10 credits per 1,000 tokens for a reasoning model. In a Microsoft documentation example, a website bot handling 900 customers per day, with 4 classic answers and 2 generative answers per customer, uses 7,200 credits a day - more than 200,000 a month, or about $1,700. Once usage exceeds 125% of the purchased credit pool, Microsoft turns off the agents until you buy more credits. For Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing for individuals and businesses, see our guide to how much Copilot costs.
Copilot Studio vs. n8n, Zapier and Gumloop
| Tool | Best for | Where the data is hosted | Starting price | Skills needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Studio | Businesses using Microsoft 365 | Microsoft cloud; within the EU Data Boundary in the EU | $200 for 25,000 credits or $0.01 per credit | Low; build logic by clicking, with Power Platform knowledge useful for more complex actions |
| n8n | Technical teams and automations using any API | Your own server or n8n cloud | €0 self-hosted; Cloud Starter is €20 per month with annual billing (about $22.26, an estimate based on the ECB reference rate dated 2026-10-29; not a verified US checkout price), for 2,500 executions | Moderate; you need to understand data flows |
| Zapier | Small businesses connecting apps with simple automations | Zapier cloud | Free plan with 100 tasks; Professional is $19.99 per month with annual billing, for 750 tasks | Low |
| Gumloop | Marketing, research and no-code AI agents | Gumloop cloud | Pro starts at $37 per month for 20,000 credits, with a 14-day trial | Low |
The main difference is how usage is billed: Copilot Studio charges for agent conversations, while n8n and Zapier charge for workflow executions. A bot that people use throughout the day may cost more in Copilot Studio than an overnight report automation that you could run for less in n8n. For a broader overview, see our guide to AI automation. The euro-to-dollar estimate uses the ECB reference exchange rate dated 2026-10-29.
Copilot Studio limitations
- Licences. To get the full value - including agents in Teams, Microsoft Graph data and no usage charges - users need Microsoft 365 Copilot. Without it, each conversation uses credits.
- Data outside Microsoft 365. Connectors for Salesforce or your own databases work, but the agent’s creator, not Microsoft, is responsible for where that data is located.
- Answer quality. An agent is only as good as the state of your SharePoint content. Old documents alongside newer versions can lead to conflicting answers.
- AI Act. A website bot must make it clear that users are interacting with a machine (Article 50, from 2 August 2026). See our guide to the AI Act for businesses.
Frequently asked questions
Is Copilot Studio free?
No. A trial is available on a work account, allowing you to build and test agents but not publish them. Agent Builder in Copilot chat is free for agents that do not use company data. Production use costs $0.01 per credit or $200 for a pack of 25,000 credits; any unused credits in a pack expire at the end of the month.
Does Copilot Studio support Polish?
Yes. Polish is listed as generally available for the authoring interface, generative answers, user conversations and voice bots. One exception: according to the documentation, event triggers for autonomous agents work only when the agent’s primary language is English.
Do you need Microsoft 365 Copilot?
No, but it changes the bill: agents used by employees with that licence do not consume credits. For agents serving customers outside your company, the licence does not help - you pay in credits.
Does Copilot Studio keep data in the EU?
For a company with an EU billing address that creates environments in a European region, Copilot Studio falls within the EU Data Boundary. Data centres in the Netherlands and Ireland are available, with France, Germany and Sweden also offered as region choices. The Power Platform admin centre has a separate “flex routing” setting that allows or blocks processing outside the EU during peak demand. According to 2026 reports, it may be enabled by default for new companies, so you should check it.
Sources and date checked
- Copilot Studio product page and pricing
- credit rates in Microsoft Learn documentation
- supported languages
- data residency
- Agent Builder
- event triggers
- Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing
- pricing for n8n
- Zapier and Gumloop
- information about flex routing from innFactory (lower confidence). Checked 25 September 2026
More on this from QUANTSLANT
guides·Higgsfield Plugins: Blender, Premiere Pro, After Effects (2026)
