Usage-based billing for Microsoft 365 Copilot Business in Partner Center

Applies to: Partner Center

Appropriate roles: Admin agent, Billing admin, Sales agent

Important

As [previously announced]../partner-center/announcements/2026-october.md#update-usage-based-billing-is-default-on-for-new-microsoft-365-copilot-business-licenses-starting-december-1-2026), new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licenses that you purchase through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program include usage-based billing (UBB) by default. Some purchase and management API shapes referenced in this article are subject to change before general availability (GA). Content in this article describes features and functionality that aren't released.

Overview

Microsoft 365 Copilot Business increasingly relies on consumptive AI experiences, such as Copilot Cowork and Work IQ, that are billed by usage instead of by seat. Historically, a partner had to manually acquire an Azure Plan, send a GDAP request, and sign in to the Microsoft Admin Center (MAC) on the customer's behalf just to turn consumption on — a multistep process that left most eligible customers without usage-based billing enabled. By using this change, Partner Center automatically provisions the Azure artifacts and a default spending policy at the time of purchase, so consumption "just works" without additional manual steps. This change benefits partners in two ways: it removes the operational burden of manually wiring up Azure and Cost Management for new copilot customer purchase, and it lets partners without deep Azure expertise still sell and support Copilot consumption experiences. Partners retain full visibility and control over spending limits through Partner Center UX and APIs.

Scope

  • Segment: Copilot Business (B-SKUs) only. Microsoft 365 Copilot (Enterprise) isn't in scope. Commercial only, doesn't include education, nonprofit, or government community cloud (GCC) low.
  • Channels: CSP direct partners, indirect resellers and distributors (2-tier), and Partner Center APIs.
  • Services covered: Copilot Cowork, Work IQ APIs, and GitHub Copilot Harness today, with more usage-based agents and services expected to be added over time.

Out of scope

  • Partner-to-partner (P2P) transfer: is handled separately (see P2P transfers and UBB); automatic enablement with no purchase event at all isn't supported — UBB is only enabled as part of a purchase.
  • Upgrades to UBB enabled SKUs: Partners upgrading to UBB enabled SKUs won't automatically have Azure artifacts and spending policies enabled. Partners can enable UBB if needed after an upgrade.

Discoverability

Partners use price list information and catalog APIs for details and information about available product SKUs.

Included Copilot SKUs

Usage-based billing applies to Copilot Business offers, including bundles that combine a Microsoft 365 base offer with a Copilot Business add-on. The following SKUs are in scope at launch:

  • Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot EEA (no Teams)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot (no Teams)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot (no Teams)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot EEA (no Teams)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic EEA (No Teams) and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic (No Teams) and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business

Note

This list reflects the Commercial segment SKUs in scope at launch. Education, nonprofit, and government segment offers aren't included.

Catalog disclosure

Partner Center clearly discloses on the product tile in the Add Subscription catalog and again in the cart that a SKU includes usage-based billing (for example: "This product includes usage-based billing. Learn more."). On the Review Order screen, the disclosure expands to describe exactly what happens: the SKU purchase creates and configures the required consumption artifacts and a default spending policy that the partner can adjust later.

Partners building their own experiences can identify UBB-eligible SKUs programmatically. The catalog exposes a requiresUsageBasedBilling boolean property, distinct from the existing hasConsumption property, on the getSKU response:

Important

API syntax is preliminary and subject to change.

GET /v1/products/CFQ7TTC0MM8R/skus/001P

{
  "id": "001P",
  "productId": "CFQ7TTC0MM8R",
  "title": "Microsoft 365 Copilot Business",
  "minimumQuantity": 1,
  "maximumQuantity": 300,
  "hasConsumption": true,
  "includesUsageBasedBilledServices": true,
  "isTrial": false,
  "supportedBillingCycles": [
    "annual",
    "monthly"
  ]
}

Discovery scenarios: does the customer already have Azure?

How discovery and disclosure plays out depends on whether the customer already has an Azure footprint with the partner:

  • Customer doesn't have Azure from the partner (the majority case — roughly three out of four Copilot Business customers sold through CSP have no Azure footprint today). The Review Order screen displays an explicit warning that completing the purchase automatically creates and configures the Azure Plan, Azure subscription, and resource group needed for consumption — the partner doesn't need to separately provision Azure.
  • Customer already has an Azure from the partner with the purchasing partner. The partner is prompted to select or confirm the Reseller (MPNID), Azure subscription, and resource group the Copilot consumption should be attached to. The existing Azure Plan is reused rather than duplicated, and the partner can pick a different reseller's Azure plan than the default used for the underlying Copilot license, if needed.

Either way, the order confirmation screen shows a Usage-based billing status field (for example, "Usage-based billing: Pending"), because provisioning of the consumption artifacts completes asynchronously after checkout.

Transact and purchase

Purchasing a UBB-eligible SKU uses the same "add to cart and check out" flow partners already use for any other Copilot subscription — there's no separate step to explicitly opt in to usage-based billing at launch. What changes is what happens behind the scenes at checkout.

Purchase events that enable UBB

The following purchase events enable usage-based billing for the tenant, using the default spending policy described in How spending policies work:

Important

Default spending policies are only created if one doesn't already exist. Once created, partners can change high level properties using the partner center portal and APIs, or use the Microsoft Admin Center to manage the spending policies for their customers.

Purchase event Result
New subscription purchase of eligible UBB SKUs Tenant-scoped default spending policy is created, both through the partner center portals and API cart checkout
Adding seats to existing Copilot Business subscription UBB is enabled with default spending policy values, but only for adding seats through the partner center portal. Updating seat counts on a subscription using the partner center API don't trigger UBB Azure artifacts nor spending policy creation.
Existing customer with a Copilot trial that converts to a paid UBB enabled SKU UBB is enabled at the point of conversion

If a spending or billing policy already exists for the customer — created through any channel or partner — Partner Center doesn't create a duplicate policy or duplicate consumption artifacts.

Purchase API scenarios

The proposed CSP purchase API behavior follows three scenarios depending on the customer's existing Azure footprint. These payload shapes are illustrative and subject to change before GA.

No existing Azure — the partner submits a standard order with no consumption details, and Partner Center auto-creates the Azure Plan, subscription, and resource group:

Important

API syntax is preliminary and subject to change.

{
  "lineItems": [
    {
      "id": 0,
      "catalogItemId": "CFQ7TTC0MM8R:001P",
      "quantity": 50,
      "billingCycle": "monthly",
      "termDuration": "P3Y"
    }
  ]
}

The response indicates the newly created consumption target and that consumption is enabled for. The details on the response are still being defined, partners should expect the spending policy ID and the Azure subscription the policy is aligned to.

Azure exists, no consumption target supplied — Partner Center resolves the target to a documented default rather than requiring the partner to change existing integration code.

Azure exists, consumption target supplied — the partner specifies optional proprieties about which existing Azure artifacts the spending policy should be aligned to.

Provisioning never blocks the sale

If Azure Plan, subscription, resource group, or spending-policy creation fails for any reason, the seat or license purchase still succeeds. Consumption provisioning enters a pending, retryable state instead. Either all the consumption artifacts get created and wired together correctly, or none do, until the retry succeeds. Partners never see a blocked license sale because of a UBB provisioning hiccup.

P2P transfers and UBB

Copilot Business subscriptions can be transferred to target partners. Target partners create new spending policies after a transfer.

Post-purchase management

After purchase, partners manage UBB for a customer from a new Consumption > Manage usage-based billing area under the customer's subscription management experience in Partner Center. The experience is available through both the UX and equivalent APIs. API parity is mandatory, not a UX-only feature.

Creating a spending policy

If a customer doesn't yet have a spending policy, partners can create one. Creating a spending policy requires:

  • Consumption subscription and resource group — where consumption is billed
  • Reseller (MPNID)
  • Policy name
  • Tenant limit — default 1,200,000 credits
  • User limit — default 4,000 credits
  • Services — the workloads the policy applies to (for example, Copilot Cowork)

Important

API syntax for getting and creating a spending policy isn't available yet.

Changing the consumption target and limits

Partners can change the consumption target (Azure Plan, subscription, or resource group) and the tenant-level or per-user spending limits for an existing configuration at any time, subject to platform-enforced minimums. Usage-based billing can't be fully turned off once configured. Instead, partners set the applicable spending limit to zero, which stops further spend while leaving the underlying policy and consumption target in place.

Viewing active policies and usage

Partner Center shows an Active Spending Policy view listing, at minimum: policy name, status, scope (all users or specific users), services, policy limit, user limit, billing method, and creation date. A separate Usage metrics view shows the configured limit alongside current-month and prior-month consumption (for example: limit 4,000 credits), with the ability to pick a reporting year — useful for a partner preparing to discuss right-sizing limits ahead of renewal.

How spending policies work

A spending policy defines who can consume Copilot Credits, how much they (and the tenant as a whole) can spend per month, and which services the policy covers.

  • You can scope policies to all users, a specific set of users, or specific workloads (for example, Cowork versus Work IQ). You don't need the target users to already hold a Copilot license to create a policy. Spending policies and license subscriptions are independent.
  • A policy can set a monthly cap for the whole policy, a per-user cap, or both. The system enforces whichever cap is reached first.
  • When multiple policies apply to the same user, the least-restrictive policy wins. If any applicable policy for a user is unlimited, that policy always applies.
  • The default spending policy has a per-user monthly limit of at least 4,000 credits.
  • Partner Center creates the default policy automatically only when the tenant has no existing spending or billing policy from any channel or partner. Partner Center doesn't create a second policy on top of one that already exists.
  • Deleting a policy stops billing for future usage immediately. The tenant remains liable for usage already accrued before deletion. You can't reduce a policy's limit below the platform minimum. Deleting the policy is the only way to stop spend entirely.

Partner Center's UI and APIs only support creating the default spending policy: selecting the services it applies to, and setting the tenant-wide and per-user limit values. To create and manage more advanced spending policies — for example, policies scoped to specific individual users or specific groups rather than all users — use the Microsoft Admin Center (MAC), in Copilot > Cost management. Partner Center is expected to converge further with the MAC Cost Management experience over time, but until then, use MAC for anything beyond the default, tenant/user-limit policy shape.

Billing

Usage-based billing consumption for Copilot doesn't introduce a new billing artifact. It shows up in the same Azure billing artifacts CSP partners already use for Azure consumption:

  • Copilot UBB consumption is represented in the existing unbilled and billed usage reconciliation files. You can identify it as consumption rather than seat-based licensing.
  • Records include the applicable Product ID, SKU ID, and Meter ID, the same identifiers already used to correlate Azure consumption reconciliation records. Partners can correlate a Copilot UBB charge with the customer, billing relationship, cloud subscription, and billing period.
  • Copilot UBB charges are billed separately from - and remain clearly distinguishable from - the Copilot Business seat-based subscription charge on the invoice.
  • Because a seat addition can trigger tenant-level UBB enablement, partners might see consumption charges appear for a tenant even when only a subset of seats generated the triggering purchase event. The preceding recon file identifiers help partners correlate the charge back to the underlying purchase.

Related content

Partners have abundant resources to explore other information to prepare for changes.

Prepare for the change

  • Review the UBB for SMB partner opportunity presentation (PPT) and UBB Default On FAQ.
  • Familiarize your teams with the upcoming change and the preset monthly limit.
  • Help your customers understand their usage-based billing options as they adopt eligible experiences.
  • Consider usage-based scenarios, including Copilot Cowork, Work IQ APIs, and GitHub Copilot Harness, as part of customer adoption planning.

Resources

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