Is Microsoft Copilot free?
For a business, partly. With an eligible Microsoft 365 business plan, staff get Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat at no extra cost, an AI chat that answers from the web and from files they add. Copilot that works across your organisation's emails, meetings, chats and documents is Microsoft 365 Copilot, a paid licence on top of your plan.
Which Copilot is which?
Microsoft uses the Copilot name for several products. These four are the ones a business runs into:
| Version | Cost | What it works from |
|---|---|---|
| The free Copilot app | Free | What you type or upload, and the web |
| Copilot in Microsoft 365 Personal, Family and Premium, the home plans | From £8.49 a month or £84.99 a year | The subscription owner's own documents and emails |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, with a work account | No extra cost on an eligible business plan | The web, files people add, the open document, and in Outlook their own mailbox |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot, the paid licence | From £13.80 per user a month on a first-year offer, excluding VAT | Everything the person can already open in Microsoft 365 |
What do you get free with Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. Anyone signed in with a work account on an eligible plan can use it in the browser, Outlook, Teams and Edge. It can:
- answer questions and research from the web;
- draft, rewrite and summarise;
- work with files people upload or pick;
- in Outlook, answer from the person's own emails, calendar, meetings, chats and some of their files;
- create images.
Depending on how your Microsoft 365 is set up, it can also work with the document someone has open in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, but nothing else unless they add it. Your organisation can also build agents that work from shared content, paid for as they're used.
What does the paid licence add?
Microsoft 365 Copilot works across everything the person can already open in Microsoft 365: emails, meetings, calendars, chats, documents and SharePoint sites. The licence also adds Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams with priority access, Microsoft's Researcher and Analyst agents, reports on how Copilot is used, and SharePoint Advanced Management for tidying up who can see what.
How much is Microsoft 365 Copilot in the UK?
Microsoft's UK prices on 05/10/2026, per user a month, excluding VAT:
| Plan | Paid yearly | Paid monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business add-on, up to 300 users | £16.10, or £13.80 on an offer for purchases from 01/07/2026 to 31/12/2026 | £19.32, on a monthly subscription |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot | £18.10 | £21.72 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot | £24.60 | £29.52 |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot for enterprise, add-on | £23.10 | £24.26, still on an annual commitment |
The add-ons sit on top of a Microsoft 365 plan you pay for separately, and the Business add-on is only for existing customers with an eligible business plan. The "with Copilot" plans include both. The £13.80 offer applies to the first year only and needs an annual commitment.
The business plans come with a one-month free trial, which needs a card and turns into a paid subscription unless you cancel. Prices change, so check Microsoft's page before you buy.
What can each version see in your data?
Each one works from different data, and that decides the risk.
- The free Copilot app sees what you type or upload. With a personal Microsoft account it runs under Microsoft's consumer terms, not your business's agreement with Microsoft. Without a Microsoft 365 subscription you may see ads, which can be personalised from your chat history unless you turn that off.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat sees what people paste, upload or have open, and in Outlook their own mailbox, calendar and some of their files. Prompts and responses are covered by Microsoft's enterprise data protection, logged in your Microsoft 365, and not used to train the models.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot can reach anything the person can already open. If a folder or site is shared with everyone, it can surface that content to anyone, so fix oversharing before you roll it out.
Both work versions can send a few words from a prompt to Bing for web results, without user or company identifiers. Microsoft handles those searches under separate terms, as their controller rather than your processor.
Can staff use the free Copilot app for work?
Keep work in work accounts. Microsoft's enterprise data protection applies when people sign in with their work account, so point staff to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat rather than the free app on a personal account. Copilot Chat shows a green shield at the top of the screen when that protection applies.
Put the rule in your AI policy, alongside what must never go into any AI tool.
Should you pay for Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Only once a test shows it helps. Start with Copilot Chat, which you already have, on one weekly job. If the job needs Copilot to work across your emails and files, license a small group for four weeks, time the job before and after, and have someone check every output.
Fix files shared too widely before you do. The Copilot readiness guide has a checklist. If it will work with staff or customer personal data, plan for a data protection impact assessment (DPIA). Still deciding between tools? Copilot vs ChatGPT compares the two.