Use Copilot Studio prepaid capacity packs for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents

A Copilot Studio capacity pack is a prepaid subscription for Microsoft Copilot Studio. Each capacity pack provides a fixed number of Copilot Credits that you can use across your tenant. Copilot Credits are the unit of consumption in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents for AI interactions and are available in quantities of 25,000 per month per pack. The number of credits consumed by a Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat agent or a SharePoint agent depends on the design of the agent, how often customers interact with it, and the features they use. For more information about the billing rates for credits, see Billing rates and management - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn.

By default, Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents use pay-as-you-go billing. With a capacity pack, you can prepay for a set number of Copilot Credits, reducing the amount billed through pay-as-you-go billing.

This article explains how global administrators can use Copilot Studio capacity packs in the Microsoft 365 admin center for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents. This article also covers the end-to-end process, including buying a capacity pack, setting up pay-as-you-go billing, allocating capacity in the Power Platform Admin Center, and monitoring usage.

Before you begin

• You must be a Global Administrator or Billing Administrator to buy capacity packs.
• You must be a Global Administrator to enable capacity pack usage.
• Billing administrators or AI administrators can set up pay-as-you-go billing but can't activate a capacity pack.

Understand the difference between prepaid capacity packs and pay-as-you-go billing

With a prepaid capacity pack, you pay up front for a set number of Copilot Credits (25,000 credits per month). These credits are used first for any Copilot Chat usage in your organization.

With pay-as-you-go billing, you pay per credit for any usage beyond the prepaid capacity amount. If you run out of prepaid credits, Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents continue to work, and the extra usage is billed at the per-credit pay-as-you-go billing rate.

Understand overage handling and business continuity

A major benefit of the integration between prepaid capacity packs and pay-as-you-go billing is seamless continuity when your prepaid capacity is exhausted. This continuity is handled in the following ways:

• Automatic switch to pay-as-you-go billing: When consumption exceeds the allocated prepaid credits in the capacity pack, Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents automatically switch to pay-as-you-go billing for extra credits. There's no service interruption and users can continue using Copilot Chat and SharePoint agents as usual.
• Billing for overages: Any credits used beyond your prepaid allotment incur pay-as-you-go billing charges to the connected Azure subscription. These charges appear on your next Azure invoice. For information about billing rates for Copilot Credits, see Billing rates and management - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn.
• Replenishment: Copilot Studio capacity packs are subscription products. At the start of every monthly billing period, your 25,000 credits are replenished. You must have pay-as-you-go billing active as a safety net each month to cover any excess usage. Alternatively, you can top up with more capacity packs.

Step 1. Buy a Microsoft 365 Copilot Studio capacity pack in the Microsoft 365 admin center

First, you must buy a capacity pack for your tenant. Each capacity pack is a tenant license that includes 25,000 Copilot Credits per month. If necessary, you can buy multiple packs.

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to the Marketplace page.
2. In the search box, type "Microsoft Copilot Studio".
3. Find the product, then select Details.
4. On the product details page, in the Select a plan drop-down list, select Microsoft Copilot Studio.
5. Select a Subscription length and Billing frequency.
6. In the Select license quantity box, enter the number of capacity packs that you want to buy. Each pack represents 25,000 credits.
7. Select Buy.
8. In the Checkout panel, choose the billing profile that you want to use, or add a new one.
9. Review your order, and then select Place order.

After the purchase is complete, the capacity pack license appears in your tenant's subscriptions list. Because it's a tenant-wide resource, users don't need licenses individually assigned to them. However, you must allocate the capacity pack to a Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat environment.

Step 2. Enable pay-as-you-go billing in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Next, set up pay-as-you-go billing for Copilot Chat or SharePoint agents in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This step links an Azure subscription for any usage beyond the prepaid capacity and initiates using the capacity pack.

1. In the admin center, go to the Copilot > Billing & usage page.
2. Select the Pay-as-you-go services tab, then select Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat or SharePoint agent.
3. Find the Billing policy name to bill for any overage, then switch the Connection status toggle to Connected. If you have multiple Azure subscriptions or billing policies, select the one that you want to use for your service.
4. If your tenant has a Copilot Studio capacity pack, you see a checkbox for Apply available Microsoft Copilot Studio credit capacity to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. Select the checkbox to indicate that you want to use your prepaid credit capacity for the selected service.
5. Select Save.

If a Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat environment doesn't already exist in Power Platform, the system creates one for you when you enable the capacity pack option. This environment is where your capacity pack is applied for Copilot Chat usage.

After you save the changes, you see a confirmation message. If you enabled the capacity pack, the confirmation banner contains a next step reminder: "Capacity pack enabled. Allocate your capacity in Power Platform Admin Center." This message indicates that you now must allocate the credits to the environment.

Step 3. Allocate capacity to the Copilot Chat environment in the Power Platform admin center

After pay-as-you-go billing is set up with the capacity pack option, you must allocate your prepaid credits to the Copilot Chat environment in the Power Platform admin center. To learn more about capacity management for Copilot Studio, see Manage Copilot Studio credits and capacity - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn.

1. Go to the Power Platform admin center and sign in with your admin account.

2. In the navigation menu, select Licensing > Copilot Studio.

3. On the Summary tab, under Capacity summary, find the Prepaid capacity card. In the License type column, select Manage capacity.

4. The Manage capacity panel lists the environments eligible for Copilot Studio capacity. Select the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat environment. This environment is the one that was just created or that you already set up for Copilot Chat.

5. Under Allocate capacity, enter the number of credits from the capacity pack that you want to allocate to the selected environment. For example, if you bought one pack of 25,000 credits, you can allocate all 25,000 credits to Copilot Chat, or you can divide them between environments if you have multiple groups of users.

6. Under Capacity overages, select the options for what happens when capacity reaches zero. You can choose one or both of the following options:

   • Draw from the available capacity in my tenant.
   • Bill to my pay-as-you-go billing plan. If you select this option, from the drop-down list, select the billing plan that you want to use.

7. If you want to receive a notification when the capacity usage reaches a certain percentage, you can configure the notification setting. Under Overage notification, select the Send notification when nearing capacity usage checkbox, then select a percentage value from the drop-down list.

8. Select Save, then close the Manage capacity panel.

   Note

   If you have multiple capacity packs, make sure that the total allocated doesn't exceed the amount that you bought. You can adjust allocations at any time.

After you complete this step, your Copilot Chat environment has the specified number of credits allocated from your prepaid capacity. Any Copilot Chat agent credits consumed by users in this environment are drawn from the allocated prepaid pool first.

Monitor Copilot Chat usage and capacity in the Power Platform admin center

After the capacity pack is in use, you can monitor consumption to understand how much of your prepaid capacity is used and whether any pay-as-you-go charges are occurring. To learn more, see Manage Copilot Studio credits and capacity - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn.

In the Power Platform admin center, go to the Licensing > Copilot Studio page. On the Summary tab, the Capacity summary section reflects capacity usage, shows how many credits were consumed in total, and shows how many remain available for the current period.

You can also see the credit allocation per environment. If you need to adjust the allocation (for example, to move some credit units to a different environment or if you buy more capacity packs), you can use the Manage capacity panel to update the numbers. To open the panel again, go to the Prepaid capacity card and select Manage capacity.

You can use the Power Platform admin center not just to manage credit allocation, but also to check if your Copilot Chat environment's allocated capacity is being used up as users spend credits.

Additional tips and FAQs

Do I need to create a Copilot Chat or SharePoint agent environment myself?

No. The Microsoft 365 admin center creates the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat or SharePoint agent environment for you when you enable the capacity pack option and save the setup. If you already have an environment from a previous setup in the Power Platform admin center, it's reused. Make sure that you allocate capacity to it as described in Step 3. Allocate capacity to the Copilot Chat environment in the Power Platform admin center.

What if I want to use only prepaid capacity and not pay-as-you-go billing?

The system currently requires a pay-as-you-go billing setup to utilize any prepaid capacity for Copilot or SharePoint agent. Even if you plan to mostly use the prepaid credits, you must configure pay-as-you-go billing as a backup. Consider setting up alerts or monitoring consumption so you know if you're approaching the prepaid limit. You can also disable the capacity pack usage and rely entirely on pay-as-you-go billing by editing the setting in the Microsoft 365 admin center. However, if you disable the capacity pack usage, your prepaid pack won't apply to Copilot Chat or SharePoint agent usage.

Related content

Manage Copilot Studio credits and capacity - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn (article)
Billing rates and management - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn (article)
Copilot Studio licensing - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn (article)