The Information reported on 22 September that Microsoft has authorised Copilot discounts of roughly 30% above 1,000 seats and 50% above 10,000, beginning as soon as October, in exchange for seat commitments and usage-based payments on certain features. By Wednesday the tape had compressed that into one number: Microsoft is cutting Copilot pricing about 40%. Nobody reported 40%. It is the midpoint of two thresholds, a rung no customer pays.
The lower rung is not new either. Microsoft's partner channel has sold 30% off Copilot at 1,000 seats since 1 July, and that offer expires on 30 September.
The 30% band ends at 9,999 seats, where the reported rung begins
Three resellers reading Microsoft's partner promotion sheet describe the same current terms: 15% off at 300 or more new annual seats, and 30% off from 1,000, bounded at 9,999, running 1 July to 30 September 2026. The window before it carried 30% from 300 seats and 40% from 1,000. That is a partner-gated document read by resellers, not a Microsoft publication, and the three readings agree.
A band stopping at 9,999 seats is followed by a reported rung at 10,000. October renews what expires next Tuesday and adds one band above it.
$30 is one of four Copilot prices Microsoft publishes today
The enterprise add-on is $30.00 per user per month paid yearly, and its page carries the condition that decides everything downstream: "A separate license for a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan is required." That licence sits outside every reported discount.
Up to 300 users Microsoft sells a different product, Copilot Business, at $21.00 list, marked to $18.00 through 31 December 2026. Two bundles carry Copilot inside the seat: Business Standard with Copilot at $23.50, Business Premium with Copilot at $32.00. A small business buys a whole seat with Copilot in it for $23.50, less than the enterprise add-on costs alone, before any base licence. Microsoft does not claim these SKUs are equal.
Against that card the ladder resolves into prices. Thirty per cent off $30.00 is $21.00, what Microsoft lists for its smallest customers. Fifty per cent is $15.00.
Half off the add-on is 22% off the seat
- Microsoft 365 E3 rose from $36.00 to $39.00 on 1 July 2026, E5 from $57.00 to $60.00.
- That same update states: "Standalone Microsoft Teams and Copilot SKUs are not included." The base seat went up; the add-on list did not move.
- $39.00 + $30.00 = $69.00 for an E3 seat with Copilot today.
- Take $15.00 off the add-on and the seat is $54.00. That saving is 21.7% of $69.00.
- On E5 the same $15.00 comes off a $90.00 seat: 16.7%.
An E3 seat with Copilot cost $66.00 on 30 June. At the reported top rung it costs $54.00, 18% below June, and only above 10,000 seats.
The new rung is worth $6 a seat a month
Microsoft 365 Copilot passed 30 million paid seats in the quarter ended 30 June 2026, disclosed by Nadella in the FY26 Q4 release. That count is the only Copilot volume Microsoft publishes.
Thirty million seats at $30.00 for twelve months is $10.8bn of annual list revenue, 3.3% of the $331.8bn Microsoft reported for fiscal 2026. Read it as a ceiling: the card above shows most seats cannot sit at enterprise list, and Microsoft discloses no split between its Copilot SKUs.
The incremental move is smaller again. Buyers above 1,000 seats can already take 30%, so the top rung adds 20 points — $6.00 per user per month, $72.00 a year. What that costs turns on how many of the 30 million seats sit above 10,000, which Microsoft has never disclosed, so the share below is varied rather than estimated.
Annual list revenue given up, against $331.8bn of fiscal 2026 revenue
| Share of 30m seats above 10,000 | Seats | Given up |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | 7.5m | $0.54bn / 0.16% |
| 50% | 15.0m | $1.08bn / 0.33% |
| 75% | 22.5m | $1.62bn / 0.49% |
| All 30m at 50% off list | 30.0m | $5.40bn / 1.63% |
Base is the 30 million paid Copilot seats Nadella disclosed for the quarter ended 30 June 2026, the only Copilot volume Microsoft publishes. The incremental discount is 20 points of the $30.00 list, $6.00 a month or $72.00 a year, because buyers above 1,000 seats can already take 30% through the partner channel. The share of seats above 10,000 is not disclosed anywhere, so it is varied rather than estimated; the rows assume every such seat is on enterprise list, which is a ceiling.
Even on the top row the giveback is half a point of revenue.
The case for reading it as a real reprice
A standing tier and a promotion re-earned at every renewal differ: one reprices the product, the other rents a quarter of demand. A permanent 10,000-seat tier makes Copilot's enterprise price $15.00 for the buyers who matter most.
The reported terms cut against it. Discounts are conditional on seat commitments and additional usage-based payments for certain features: list price traded for consumption revenue Microsoft does not collect today. Moving a customer from a fixed $30.00 to $15.00 plus metered usage changes how Copilot is sold, and nothing published says where the second half lands.
What would settle it
Microsoft has announced none of this, and both Copilot pricing pages were unchanged on 23 September. The partner sheet replacing the one that expires on 30 September decides it: a 1,000-seat rung deeper than 30% makes October a genuine cut rather than a renewal with one band on top. A rung at 30% again, and what changed is that very large buyers got $6.00 a seat.
Every Copilot list price, the qualifying-licence condition, the promotional window to 31 December 2026 and the two bundles with Copilot are from Microsoft's own Copilot pricing pages, read on 23 September 2026 and unchanged that day. The E3 and E5 prices effective 1 July 2026, and the exclusion of standalone Copilot SKUs from that increase, are from Microsoft's licensing packaging and pricing update. The paid-seat count is Nadella in Microsoft's fiscal fourth-quarter release, and fiscal 2026 revenue is from the same release. The discount ladder, its thresholds, its October timing and the usage-payment condition are The Information's reporting of 22 September 2026, restated by several outlets and attributed throughout rather than asserted. Current and prior partner-channel promotion terms are reseller readings of a partner-gated Microsoft document. Every per-seat conversion, percentage of a bundled seat and share of revenue here is ours.
