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Independent website by Marcel Lehmann. Not affiliated with Microsoft.
Partly: according to Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot Chat is included without an add-on license if you sign in with a work or school account and your organization has a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription, for example Business Basic, Business Standard or Business Premium. Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint and automatic access to your emails and files need a license.
Source: Microsoft Learn, copilot/manage and copilot/overview, checked on . Prices are not listed here, because I have not checked them.
Personal use with an Outlook.com or Hotmail account? This page covers Microsoft Copilot with a work or school account. I have no checked source for the consumer offering, so this page says nothing about it. The only documented point: with a personal Microsoft account, the enterprise protections do not apply (Learn: copilot/manage, as of October 13, 2026).
The free check needs JavaScript. All answers are also in the reference section further down, each with a source.
Open Copilot Chat Sign in with your work account.
Not licensing advice. Your contract is binding. If in doubt, ask your IT or your Microsoft partner.
If Microsoft changes anything about these conditions, it goes into the check log. A weekly Monday impulse on the Power Platform and automation comes with the KMUpower Impuls newsletter (in German).
Yes. According to Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot Chat is included with your subscription without an add-on license.
Probably yes. According to Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot Chat is included with your subscription without an add-on license as soon as you sign in with your work account.
Open. Microsoft's list shows whether your subscription includes Microsoft Copilot Chat without an add-on license. Learn: copilot/manage
Open. Ask your IT about the subscription. According to Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot Chat is included without an add-on license with Business Basic, Business Standard or Business Premium.
This check does not apply to a personal Microsoft account. It covers Microsoft Copilot Chat with a work or school account.
For some of your plans you also need a license or capacity. Details are below.
Each point leads to its row in the reference section. There you find the condition in its exact wording, with source and check date.
Every card has its own link. Pass it on when someone on the team tells the myth again.
An Entra account alone is not an entitlement. Microsoft Copilot Chat is only included at no extra cost if your organization has a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription.
Source: Learn: copilot/manage, as of October 13, 2026. Direct link to the Entra account myth
In the trial you build agents and check them in the test chat. Publishing does not work. Microsoft writes: “You can't publish the agent.”
Source: Learn: requirements-licensing-subscriptions, as of October 13, 2026. Direct link to the trial myth
Without a license, Copilot Chat does not access your data automatically through Microsoft Graph. You bring in content yourself, as text or by file upload. In Outlook, Copilot Chat can include emails, calendar, meetings, chats and a limited set of files to a limited extent.
Source: Learn: microsoft-365-copilot-overview and copilot/overview, as of October 13, 2026. Direct link to the emails myth
The Enterprise Data Protection commitment applies to prompts and responses. Web search queries go to the Bing service and run under their own data rules. According to Learn, the Data Protection Addendum does not cover them.
Source: Learn: enterprise-data-protection and copilot/faq, as of October 13, 2026. Direct link to the web search myth
In my trainings I always go from the bottom up. First I ask: does this work with Microsoft Copilot Chat without an add-on license? Is Agent Builder enough? Does it need a license for Microsoft Copilot because the agent should work with internal documents? Only then comes Copilot Studio. Many people believe they always need Premium. Often that is not true. So don't buy across the board for everyone, buy for the tasks that need it.
Writes and rewrites, researches the web and analyzes what you paste or upload.
Limit: Copilot Chat does not fetch your company's data on its own through Microsoft Graph. Only in Outlook does it include emails, calendar and meetings to a limited extent.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview, microsoft-365-copilot-overview, as of October 15, 2026.
You pack instructions and public websites into an agent that you use again and again.
Limit: No access to your tenant's data. Agents with SharePoint content are billed by consumption and are off by default.
Source: Learn: copilot/agents, copilot-studio-experience, as of October 15, 2026.
Copilot includes your emails, files and meetings on its own, works in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and agents with company data run with no admin action.
Limit: Microsoft positions Agent Builder for you and small teams. For customers, multistep processes and line-of-business systems, Microsoft names Copilot Studio.
Source: Learn: microsoft-365-copilot-overview, copilot/agents, copilot-studio-experience, as of October 15, 2026.
Agents for the whole company or for external customers, with multistep processes, connectors to other systems and publishing on websites.
Limit: In the trial you only build and check. Running agents consumes capacity in Copilot Credits.
Source: Learn: copilot-studio-experience, requirements-licensing-subscriptions, requirements-licensing, as of October 15, 2026.
Tap a task to see why this level is enough. Seven of eleven work without an add-on license.
Enough, because Microsoft counts the Prompt Coach agent among the agents included at no extra cost in Microsoft Copilot Chat. You find it at m365.cloud.microsoft under Agents, then All agents. If it is not there, your IT may not have enabled it. According to Microsoft, uploading files and dictation are part of Copilot Chat.
My best example. This is how I do it, it is my experience and not a Microsoft procedure:
Good to know: Prompt Coach reads your guidelines once, when it creates the prompt, not again every time you use it. A style guide rarely changes, so this saves a lot of time. If it does change, you have the prompt created again.
Source: Learn: m365-agents-admin-guide (Prompt Coach at no extra cost, path via Agents) and copilot/faq (file upload, dictation), as of October 15, 2026. Related technique: No. 11 The Shadow Writer
Enough, because according to Microsoft, Copilot Chat drafts and rewrites content. You paste the customer email as text.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: Draft a reply to a difficult customer email
Enough, because you paste the notes yourself. Copilot Chat processes what you bring in, even without a license.
Source: Learn: microsoft-365-copilot-overview, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: Turn notes into minutes with action items
Enough, because Copilot Chat grounds its answers in web search through Bing. Your IT can turn off web search.
Source: Learn: copilot/privacy-and-protections, as of October 15, 2026, copilot/manage, as of October 13, 2026. Technique: No. 12 The Trail
Enough, because uploading and analyzing files is included in Copilot Chat. The upload has limits, Microsoft gives no numbers for them.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: No. 9 The Quote Duel
Enough, because according to Microsoft, Copilot Chat in Outlook includes your emails, calendar, meetings, chats and a limited set of files even without a license. Outside Outlook, you bring the email in yourself.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview and copilot/privacy-and-protections, as of October 15, 2026.
Enough, because agents with instructions and public websites are included at no extra cost, and your website is public. The agent runs in Copilot Chat, not on your website.
Source: Learn: copilot/agents, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: No. 15 The Gatekeeper
Needs level 3, because with Copilot Chat (Basic) there is no access in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. According to Microsoft, the label in the app shows which level you have.
Source: Learn: microsoft-365-copilot-overview and copilot/overview, as of October 15, 2026. Details: row Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Needs level 4, because for external customers and publishing on websites, Microsoft names Copilot Studio. Running it consumes Copilot Credits.
Source: Learn: copilot-studio-experience and requirements-licensing, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: No. 23 The Credit Compass
Needs level 4, because Microsoft assigns agents that create tickets or trigger processes to Copilot Studio. According to the rate table, an Agent Action costs 5 Copilot Credits.
Source: Learn: copilot-studio-experience and requirements-messages-management, as of October 15, 2026. Technique: Agent that sorts and hands over requests
Not licensing advice. Your contract is binding. If in doubt, ask your IT or your Microsoft partner.
If Microsoft Copilot Chat is included in your subscription, the equipment is already there. What is missing is practice. In the PowerPlatformAcademy Dojo you practice with ninja techniques, from White belt to Black belt. Every technique carries a source on Microsoft Learn with a check date. Its badge tells you whether it works without an add-on license.
The first three belts practice the craft in the chat. If a technique does need a license, its card says so.
I check. You practice. What I cannot back up is not on this site.
Which belt are you? 7 questions Techniques without an add-on license 15 minutes every Monday in your calendar
The prerequisite is a subscription that includes Microsoft Copilot Chat. Techniques with the “Agent Builder” badge use only instructions and public websites.
All techniques without an add-on license on the technique wall
Microsoft changes features and conditions all the time. If in doubt, the linked source applies, not this page. Every row has its own anchor that the techniques link to.
| Feature | Status | Condition | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat with web search, file upload and image generation | Without an add-on license | Sign-in with a work, school or university account and a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. An account alone is not enough. Also included: drafting and rewriting content and interacting with agents. | ||
| Qualifying subscriptions | Prerequisite | Among others Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, E3, E5, E7, F1, F3, A1, A3, A5, G3 and G5, Office 365 E1, E1 Plus, E3, E5, F3, G1, G3, G5, A1, A1 Plus, A3 and A5, as well as Teams Essentials, Teams Enterprise and Teams EEA. The “(no Teams)” and “EEA (no Teams)” variants are included. Microsoft has the complete list. | ||
| Access to your tenant's data (Microsoft Graph, Work IQ, Semantic Indexing) | Limited without a license | Without a Microsoft Copilot license, you bring in content yourself, for example as text or by file upload. In Outlook and Teams, Copilot Chat includes the content you have open. In Outlook, it can additionally include emails, calendar, meetings, chats and a limited set of files without a license (Microsoft calls this “reduced graph grounding”). Automatic access through Microsoft Graph, Work IQ and Semantic Indexing is part of the licensed experience. | ||
| Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote | Not included in Copilot Chat | With Copilot Chat (Basic) there is no access there. With a license, depending on the level, there is standard access or full access with Priority Access. In the chat itself, Microsoft names agents for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that create documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly in the chat. According to Microsoft, which of these are available depends on settings and license. | ||
| Priority Access and real-time voice conversation | License only | Priority Access is only available with the Copilot license. Real-time voice conversation is reserved for licensed users. | ||
| Data protection commitments (Enterprise Data Protection) | No extra cost | Applies to prompts and responses when signed in with an Entra account, according to Microsoft with no admin action. Recognizable by the green shield next to the button for a new chat. According to Microsoft, prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models. Web search queries run separately through Bing under their own data rules. This is Microsoft's statement and not an assessment of your case. | ||
| Everyday use | Depends on capacity | Access runs as “standard access”. Quality and performance can vary, file upload and image generation have limits. The checked page gives no numbers. | ||
| Availability | Varies by region | Copilot Chat is not accessible in some markets. Students under 13 are not eligible. |
| Feature | Status | Condition | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent based on instructions and public websites | No extra cost | Available by default. The agent has no access to your tenant's data. | ||
| Agent with data from SharePoint or Graph connectors | Billed by consumption | Off by default for Copilot Chat users. Admins must set up a Copilot Studio subscription or pay-as-you-go. With a Microsoft Copilot license, use of agents is added with no admin action. | ||
| Agent Builder in the chat | Free for web knowledge | Free to use for agents that rely only on knowledge from the web. |
| Feature | Status | Condition | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | Try at no cost | For individuals with a work or school account. Personal email addresses are rejected, admins can disable self-service sign-up. You can create agents and check them in the test chat, but you cannot publish them. | ||
| After the trial expires | Extendable | An extension by 30 days is possible. After that, agents keep running for up to 90 days. The checked page does not state the length of the original trial period. | ||
| Published agent in production | Capacity in Copilot Credits | Users of the agent do not need their own license, but running it consumes capacity of the tenant. Available through pay-as-you-go, prepaid packs or prepurchase. Since September 1, 2025, the unit is called Copilot Credits instead of messages. | ||
| Guest users of a tenant | No access | Guest users have no access to Copilot Studio. |
| Feature | Status | Condition | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working with Copilot Studio | License or role needed | You need one of four configurations: the Copilot Studio user license (free, but it requires a Copilot Credit pack subscription in the tenant), the “Copilot Studio authors” role, a Microsoft 365 Copilot license or the trial license. | ||
| Consumption per feature | Rates published | According to Microsoft: Classic Answer 1 Copilot Credit, Generative Answer 2, Agent Action 5, Tenant Graph Grounding 10, agent flow actions 13 per 100. The rates can change. According to the licensing page, purchased capacity is enforced monthly and unused credits expire. The Agent Usage Estimator states that some purchases can be carried over. Your contract is what counts. At 125 percent of the prepaid quota, custom agents are disabled, ongoing conversations are not interrupted. The page does not give the price per credit, so it is not listed here. | ||
| With a Microsoft Copilot license | No credit consumption, with fair use limits | According to the licensing page, this applies to agent use by licensed employees in Copilot Chat, Teams and SharePoint for Classic Answers, Generative Answers and Graph Grounding. The rate table additionally lists Agent Actions and agent flow actions without consumption, for agent flows only with the “When an agent calls the flow” trigger. Microsoft is not consistent here. | ||
| Teams plan in selected subscriptions | Limited | Classic orchestration, publishing only in Teams, no premium connectors, no generative orchestration, only Dataverse for Teams environments. Full functionality needs a standalone Copilot Studio subscription. | ||
| Agents on the GitHub Copilot harness | Depends on consumption | According to Microsoft, using, building, testing and evaluating can consume Copilot Credits. The harness is a Copilot Studio framework and not the GitHub Copilot service. |
What Copilot Credits cost and which license exemptions apply is covered on powerplatformgovernance.com (in German). When to move from chat to Copilot Studio is laid out in the comparison Copilot Studio vs Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Agent Builder (powerplatformtip.com).
The answer comes first, the source at the end. Every answer shows its date.
For eligible users, yes, at no extra cost. The conditions are signing in with a work or school account and a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription in your organization.
Source: Learn: copilot/manage, as of October 13, 2026. Details: qualifying subscriptions.
No. An Entra account alone is not an entitlement, your organization needs a qualifying subscription.
A personal Microsoft account, for example from Outlook.com, is something else. According to Microsoft, the enterprise protections do not apply with it.
Source: Learn: copilot/manage, as of October 13, 2026.
Not automatically through Microsoft Graph. You bring in content yourself, as text or by file upload. According to Microsoft, Copilot Chat in Outlook can include emails, calendar, meetings, chats and a limited set of files without a license.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview and microsoft-365-copilot-overview, as of October 13, 2026. Details: access to your tenant's data.
Copilot directly in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote is not: with Microsoft Copilot Chat (Basic) there is no access there.
According to Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot Chat itself does have agents for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that create documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly in the chat. According to Microsoft, which of these are available to you depends on settings and license.
Source: Learn: copilot/overview, as of October 13, 2026. Agents in the chat: copilot/faq and copilot/manage, as of October 15, 2026.
Yes, as an individual with a work or school account. You can build agents and check them in the test chat, but you cannot publish them. Personal email addresses are rejected.
Source: Learn: requirements-licensing-subscriptions, as of October 13, 2026.
Agents that rely only on instructions and public websites are included at no extra cost. Agents with data from SharePoint or Graph connectors are billed by consumption and are off by default for Copilot Chat users.
Source: Learn: copilot/agents, as of October 13, 2026.
This page does not give the price, because I have not checked it. Microsoft publishes consumption rates per feature, for example 1 Copilot Credit for a Classic Answer and 2 for a Generative Answer. The rates can change.
Source: Learn: requirements-messages-management, as of October 13, 2026. Costs and license exemptions: powerplatformgovernance.com (in German).
No. Running it does consume capacity of your tenant, though.
Source: Learn: requirements-licensing, as of October 13, 2026.
According to Microsoft, prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models. Web search queries run separately through Bing under their own data rules. This is Microsoft's statement and not an assessment of your case.
Source: Learn: copilot/faq and enterprise-data-protection, as of October 13, 2026.
By the green shield next to the button for a new chat (“New Chat”). According to Microsoft, Enterprise Data Protection then applies to your prompts and responses.
Source: Learn: copilot/privacy-and-protections, section “Enterprise data protection for prompts and responses”, and copilot/manage, as of October 15, 2026.
What has changed since the last check, each with date, old statement, new statement and source.
Every statement on this page is read against the linked page on Microsoft Learn. The date of that reading appears as “as of” next to the statement. The first check was on , individual rows were rechecked on (see check log). If Microsoft changes something, the linked source applies.
Prices are deliberately not listed here, Microsoft gives the current prices on its product pages. This is not licensing advice: your contract is binding, for your case ask your IT or your Microsoft partner.
Found a mistake or is a statement out of date? Send me an email. I correct or remove the statement and record the change in the check log. Marcel Lehmann
The technique wall lists all techniques sorted by belt, each with a badge showing whether it works without an add-on license.
Go to the technique wall Which belt are you?
If you want to build your first agent with guidance: the Power Platform Academy runs the live course “Copilot Ninja in 4 Wochen” (in German) for this. Dates are still open, you can sign up without obligation on the Academy course page. The course starts with Copilot in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, for which the course page recommends a license for Microsoft Copilot, but does not require one (course page, as of October 15, 2026).