Copilot Enablement Options - Using Pay as You Go to share Copilot Agents

  Ever wished you could spin up your own Copilot agent without committing to a full subscription? Now you can, thanks to Copilot Pay-As-You-Go! This flexible option lets you create and share custom agents or simply enable users to tap into Copilot chat—while keeping costs predictable through Azure billing. No more over-provisioning or worrying about unused licensing; you pay only for what you use. It’s perfect for teams experimenting with AI or scaling solutions without upfront commitments.

While users with the M365 Copilot license will enjoy the most feature-rich experience, you may also want to empower your entire organization with a custom AI agent. This agent can be tailored to your needs—grounded in critical SharePoint content, trained on specific internal documents, and secured with enterprise-grade data protection.

I also want recommend following Dewain Robinson for great content and guidance on all things Copilot and agent development in Copilot Studio

In this post, we’ll guide you through enabling and managing Copilot with a pay-as-you-go model—ideal for organizations looking to extend AI capabilities without committing to full M365 Copilot licensing. Whether you're an IT admin, business leader, or platform owner, this guide is designed to help you get started quickly and confidently.

Here's what we'll cover:

• Who this post is for – Understand the roles and scenarios where pay-as-you-go Copilot makes sense
• Enabling pay-as-you-go – Step-by-step guidance for activating pay-as-you-go for Copilot Studio and Copilot users
• Usage reporting and cost control – How to gain visibility into usage, monitor consumption, and manage costs effectively
• Understanding message costs – A breakdown of how message-based billing works and what to expect
• Creating and sharing a custom Copilot agent – How to build a custom AI agent grounded in your organization’s content, and share it within Copilot and Teams

By the end, you’ll have a clear path to delivering powerful AI experiences to your users—securely, flexibly, and at your own pace.

Who is this for?

• IT admins and Power Platform admins who need clear prerequisites, steps, and knobs to manage risk and spend.
• Makers & developers who want the fastest path to publish agents and let Azure pick up the bill only when users engage.
• Finance & ops folks who live in Azure Cost Management and want budgets/alerts for AI usage.

Architecture at a glance

M365 Copilot Chat & SharePoint agents PAYG → Create a billing policy in Microsoft 365 admin center, scope it to users or groups, then connect it to services like Copilot Chat or SharePoint agents. Set up Microsoft 365 Copilot pay-as-you-go for IT admins | Microsoft Learn

Copilot Studio PAYG → Attach a billing plan to one or more environments in PPAC; agent message usage flows to your Azure subscription as metered consumption. Set up a pay-as-you-go plan - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

Governance stays centralized: Integrated Apps (app/agent lifecycle) + PPAC (capacity & usage) + Azure Cost Management (billing). View usage and billing for pay-as-you-go plan - Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

Prerequisites & roles

• Azure: An Azure subscription + resource group (Owner/Contributor on both). Set up PAYG for M365 Copilot · Set up PAYG plan (PPAC)
• Admin roles: Global Admin, Billing Admin, or AI Admin (M365), Power Platform Admin/Environment Admin (PPAC). M365 roles for setup · PPAC permissions
• Terms: M365 PAYG ToS and service availability constraints. PAYG terms of service

Getting Started

Enable M365 Copilot Chat & SharePoint agents (PAYG) in M365 admin center - enabling users create/use agents in Copilot Chat or on SharePoint sites without seat licenses.

• Set up A billing policy scoped to all users or a security group, then connect it to Copilot Chat and/or SharePoint agents

• Select Services and include M365 Copilot Chat and SharePoint Agents
• Set budget limits and users - users can be scoped to an Entra security group as needed.

Enable Copilot Studio (PAYG) in PPAC (optional | required for building and sharing through Studio) - enabling building/hosting agents across channels with low‑code + integrations.

This step allows defined users/builders to create custom agents in Copilot Studio, and share with others who wish to interact with the custom agent - who may not have an M365 Copilot license.

In setting up this option, we align the Pay-as-you-go Billing plan to an existing Azure subscription and resource group. We also define the target Power Platform environment for agent development and sharing.

Important Note - Common Pitfall

If this is your first time managing environments in Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC) - the only existing environment is "default". The default environment is not eligible for pay-as-you-go capacity, only Sandbox and Production environments can be used. It is recommended to create a new environment, scoped to users for pay-as-you-go capacity. If you followed the above steps, and notice the Target Environments field is blank, or you are unable to select an environment during setup - this is your problem. (more detail HERE )

Building and Sharing a Custom Agent

Here is where the fun begins, now that you have your environment enabled for pay-as-you-go. Proceed to https://copilotstudio.microsoft.com/

Pitfall 2 - Be sure to select the defined environment previously configured for pay-as-you-go capacity, in the upper right hand corner of the Studio UX.

Once Environment and New Agent is selected - Copilot Studio presents the ability to create an agent by chatting with the "builder agent" describing your intent or you can proceed directly to configure.

I wont go into depth regarding all of the options, and capabilities when creating a custom agent for your organization - the possibilities are endless.

Try out building with Chat by describing your agent, and compare to direct configuration options.

A quick and easy agent to start with, a SharePoint-grounded knowledge finder:

I recommend selecting Generative Orchestration which enriches the agents capability to navigate through the knowledge sources. Also note you can define the response model used by your agent. This can be edited later, and defined in the overall Copilot Studio Generative AI settings.

Under the Knowledge section, select a few SharePoint sites important for your users. Also note the option to include or exclude Web Search

 Enabling web search allows the agent to traverse your defined content grounding, and leverage public web search if results are not available. Disabling web search only allows the agent to reason over the defined knowledge locations.

Give it a test in the test pane:

Share your agent for others to co-develop or begin using:

Before you can share, the agent need to be published.

Here you can define who has access to your agent, or co-authors you wish to edit with, and options to publish the agent to Teams and Copilot Agent Store (Get Agents in M365 Copilot)

When selecting "show to everyone in my org" - this will trigger an approval process in M365 admin Center - for approval before making the agent available in Copilot Agent Store. Pending approvals appear here:

If you want to share your agent directly with users before publishing to the Agent Store - Copy the link and share in Teams Chat. (shown above)

Invite co-authors to help test and edit in Copilot Studio - note these users must also be in the security group defined with access to the Pay-as-you-go capacity defined in the initial setup steps.

The Copy Link on this page - shares a direct link to the agent builder in Copilot Studio. Note - the copy link in Manage Sharing will share the agent directly - the copy link in the image above shares the link to Studio.

Cost Management and Observability

Copilot Studio (PAYG)

• PAYG: $0.01 per message (metered). Copilot Studio licensing · Billing rates & scenarios
• Message packs: $200/pack for 25,000 messages/month (pooled). Manage messages & capacity

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat & SharePoint Agents (PAYG)

• SharePoint agents: billed at $0.01/message; a “successful interaction” typically uses ~12 messages. M365 PAYG pricing
• Copilot Chat agents: enable metered consumption for users without an M365 Copilot license; licensed users aren’t charged for eligible agent events. Agents in Copilot Chat · Billing scenarios

Additional resources

• Azure Cost Management to track billed amounts per meter/policy; budgets + alerts for proactive control. View usage & billing
• PPAC downloadable usage reports for who/which environment drove consumption. View usage & billing
• SharePoint agent usage monitoring (file statistics, site usage, audit, and soon SharePoint Advanced Management insights). Monitor SharePoint agent usage · SharePoint Agent Insights

Thanks much to my rockstar peer Brandon Marcurella for guidance and help along the way.

Closing

Find your agent, if you published and approved, in Teams and the M365 Copilot 

Happy "agenting" in Copilot

 

For a list of FAQ's regarding this objective: FAQ for Copilot Studio billing and licensing - Microsoft Copilot Studio | Microsoft Learn

Here is a set of useful links to bookmark:

Copilot Studio licensing — what’s included, PAYG vs packs, pricing: Learn

Billing rates & message scenarios — exactly what burns messages: Learn

Set up PAYG (PPAC) — billing plans & environment linking: Learn

Manage messages & capacity (PPAC) — allocation & monitoring: Learn

Set up PAYG for M365 Copilot (MAC) — billing policy + budgets: Learn

Set up or disconnect PAYG for Copilot services — end‑to‑end guide: Learn

Agents in Copilot Chat — enable, author, manage: Learn

M365 PAYG pricing for SharePoint agents — rate card: Learn

Manage agents (Integrated Apps) — centralized governance: Learn

PAYG overview (Power Platform) — how meters/policies work: Learn

View usage & billing — Azure Cost Management + PPAC reports: Learn