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The Credit CompassEstimate an agent's credit consumption in advance

Before an agent goes live

The situation

Management asks what the new agent will consume in production. You have a guess, but no calculation.

The cut

Before

“What does my agent cost?”

After

Make it yours

Nothing leaves your browser.

e.g. back-office employees
e.g. one knowledge source and two tools
e.g. your agent's instructions

Text to copy

Goal: Help me estimate the events per conversation for my agent. Its instructions are below.

Context: The agent is for [Audience, e.g. back-office employees]. It uses [Setup, e.g. one knowledge source and two tools].

Expectations:
1. For a typical and for a long conversation: how many answers from knowledge sources (generative), how many predefined answers (classic), how many actions such as tools or switches between topics, and how many steps in agent flows to expect.
2. One sentence of reasoning per number.
3. The assumption that changes the result the most.
Mark everything as an estimate. Do not calculate prices.

Instructions:
[Agent instructions, e.g. your agent's instructions]

Calculate without a license, running it needs capacity. Without a copy button: select the text and copy it with Ctrl+C.

The compass

Rates according to Microsoft in Copilot Credits: Classic answer 1, Generative answer 2, Agent action 5, Tenant graph grounding 10, Agent flow action 0.13.

Example: 400 conversations per month with 3 Generative Answers and 1 Agent Action each give 400 times 11, so 4,400 Copilot Credits. Made-up assumption for illustration.

  • According to the licensing page, Copilot Studio enforces purchased capacity monthly, and unused Copilot Credits do not carry over to the next month. The Agent Usage Estimator, on the other hand, says some purchases can be carried over. Your contract is what counts.
  • At 125 percent of the prepaid capacity, custom agents are disabled. A conversation in progress is not interrupted.
  • Once the capacity is used up, no new agent flows start. The agent itself keeps answering.

According to the rate table, employees with a Microsoft Copilot license incur no Copilot Credits for Classic answers, Generative answers, Agent actions, Tenant graph grounding and agent flow actions when the agent runs with their signed-in identity. For agent flows this only applies to the trigger “When an agent calls the flow”. Fair use limits apply. The licensing page, on the other hand, only lists Classic answers, Generative answers and graph grounding without consumption. Microsoft is not consistent here. If in doubt, calculate without the checkbox.

Source: Microsoft Learn: Billing rates and management (Copilot Studio), Microsoft Learn: Standard harness licensing (Copilot Studio), Microsoft Learn: Agent usage estimator (Copilot Studio), as of October 15, 2026. No price per credit; you find prices at Microsoft.

How to use it

  1. Paste the instructions, describe the audience and setup, and send in Microsoft Copilot Chat.
  2. Transfer the numbers per conversation into the calculator on this page and estimate the conversations per month.
  3. Calculate three cases: low, medium and high usage.
  4. For a more precise estimate, Microsoft offers the Agent Usage Estimator.
  5. After the first month, compare the consumption in the Power Platform admin center with your estimate.

How to spot a good answer

  • Numbers for a typical and a long conversation.
  • One reason per number.
  • The assumption with the biggest influence.
  • No prices, only events.

The check

After the first month, compare your estimate with the actual consumption. The difference shows how good your assumptions about the conversations were.

Limits

  • This page does not state prices per Copilot Credit. Microsoft publishes them.
  • The rates come from the Microsoft documentation and can change. The linked source is what counts.
  • According to Microsoft, agents created in Agent Builder that do not use Tenant Graph Grounding incur no credits for Generative Answers.
  • Microsoft bills agent flows separately: 13 Copilot Credits per 100 flow actions. According to Microsoft, Power Automate cloud flows run on the Power Automate license and not on Copilot Credits.
  • For the Agent Usage Estimator, Microsoft recommends a reserve of 10 to 20 percent on the estimate.
  • The estimate does not replace looking at the actual consumption.

Sources

Microsoft Learn: Billing rates and management (Copilot Studio), Microsoft Learn: Standard harness licensing (Copilot Studio), Microsoft Learn: Agent usage estimator (Copilot Studio). As of .

Prefer to practice with guidance? Live course “Copilot Ninja in 4 Wochen” (in German) at the Power Platform Academy

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Suggested text for your post 
Technique 23 from the PowerPlatformAcademy Dojo: The Credit Compass. Estimate an agent's consumption in Copilot Credits before going live, with the rates from the Microsoft documentation and without prices. With a source.

https://copilot.ninja/en/techniken/credit-verbrauch-schaetzen/

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