New CSP Copilot Business seats ship with metered billing on from Dec. 1

From Dec. 1, 2026, new Copilot Business licenses sold via Microsoft CSP partners come with usage-based billing on and a 4,000-credit default limit.

Starting December 1, 2026, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licenses bought through the Cloud Solution Provider program, standalone or bundled, will arrive with usage-based billing turned on by default, Frontier reports based on Microsoft's partner announcement. The default spending limit is 4,000 Copilot Credits per user per month, and admins can adjust it. If you manage Microsoft 365 for small clients, metered experiences such as Copilot Cowork, Work IQ APIs and GitHub Copilot Harness will run on Microsoft's defaults unless someone sets them deliberately. Microsoft moved the date from November 2, which is now the Partner Center sandbox milestone.

WindowsForum's summary of CRN's reporting puts the cap at about $40 per user per month. That dollar figure is CRN's conversion, not Microsoft's. Customers are billed for actual usage, not the ceiling. Per CRN, metered charges appear on the CSP invoice, and the transacting partner is responsible for them. The same report says the change covers new subscriptions, added seats, upgrades and partner transfers. Frontier says existing licenses are not being universally converted. It's still unclear exactly how the default applies to untouched existing CSP licenses.

The controls live in the Microsoft 365 admin center under Copilot > Cost Management. There, spending policies set organization and user limits, alerts and billing methods. The Auto-apply new services toggle is on by default, which means future metered services join existing policies automatically. Prepaid options exist: capacity packs provide 25,000 credits per month per pack, and the pre-purchase plan (P3) is another option. No source here gives the exact steps for lowering or disabling the default on CSP purchases.

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