Microsoft recently announced a lower pricing tier for its flagship AI toolbox subscription, available to businesses with under 300 users. If you’re already using or are considering using Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can do so for $21/month, down from $30/month, starting in December. With an even steeper discount of $18.00/month if you pay for one year in advance (annual subscription).
If you’re wondering how this is different from Copilot Chat (you probably keep seeing the button show up in your Microsoft Office apps), we’ve got some examples below. And in typical Microsoft fashion, they’ve used a confusingly similar name for the new subscription, but here are some clarifications:
The old offering, which is still available:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot
- $30/month
The new offering:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
- $21/month
- Only for businesses with under 300 users
- Same functionality as Microsoft 365 Copilot
Each user also needs one of the following base plans to qualify:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
In case you’re wondering how this is different from the Copilot modules and buttons that keep popping up in Microsoft Office apps, even if you don’t have a paid Copilot plan:
What you have access to now is called “Copilot Chat”:
- You can ask it questions, upload files, and ask it to search/manipulate/analyze the data, or ask it to create things for you
If you get a paid 365 Copilot plan:
- It can securely access your work data in Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint
- You don’t need to upload files if they’re already in OneDrive, SharePoint or Teams
- You can ask it to do things like:
- “List and summarize all my emails from Joe Smith in the last 7 days”
- “Find and summarize every email from 2024 referencing Joe Smith”
- “Create a pie chart of expenses by department from the data in the Excel file named 2025 Q3 Financials in my OneDrive folder named Finance”
- “Create a PowerPoint slide deck using the bullet points in the Word document called Acme Sales Presentation Topics in our SharePoint site”
On a related note, there are some serious security concerns to consider before allowing access to Microsoft 365 Copilot across an entire organization. E.g., if people unknowingly have access to HR files because they were never properly secured, they can ask Copilot “find any files named payroll” and, well, you get the picture.
We’re always available to discuss how/when/why/if deploying AI tools can help your business.
Recap of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Pricing
Microsoft just made enterprise-grade AI significantly more accessible for small and medium-sized businesses. The new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business delivers the full power of AI-assisted productivity, including intelligent email search, automatic document summarization, data visualization, and presentation creation across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, at just $21 per user per month, a 30% reduction from the original $30 enterprise price. Even better, Microsoft is currently running a limited-time promotion through March 31, 2026, dropping that price to just $18 per user per month, with bundle discounts up to 35% off when paired with Business Standard or Premium plans. The best part? There’s no compromise on functionality, SMBs with under 300 users get the exact same Copilot capabilities that Fortune 500 companies use, all while maintaining your existing security, compliance, and privacy settings. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to bring AI into your Microsoft 365 environment, that time has arrived.