In its all-consuming drive to juice Copilot Monthly Active User (MAU) numbers, Microsoft announced that beginning on Sept 1 2025, Copilot Studio “messages” will officially become “credits.”
The company says this represents a strategic evolution to align Copilot billing with “popular and beloved” loyalty programs like airlines, rental cars, and hotels.
Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood explained the strategy in more detail:
“We realized that our current billing model of 1 message = $0.01 was just way too transparent, so we needed a mechanism to obscure the costs of agentic usage from our enterprise customers. We thought, why don’t we create something similar to a frequent flyer program, but for chatbot billing, where we can go to a vague concept of “credits”, charge an arbitrary number of credits per transaction, and then constantly devalue those credits over time.”
As to how to incentivize people to jump on board, she added: “Of course you need perks for this to work.” To sweeten the deal, Microsoft is also launching its new loyalty platform: the Frequent Prompter™ Program, offering Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers with “exclusive benefits.”
In a leaked internal slide deck shared with Em Es Ef Tee, we extracted a breakdown of the yearly user levels and benefits:
| Status Level | Level Achievement Goal | Benefits |
| Silver | 50,000 credits consumed |
|
| Gold | 250,000 credits consumed |
|
| Platinum | 1 million credits consumed |
|
To accelerate status, Microsoft is partnering with Visa to launch the Copilot Business Platinum Card. Benefits include:
- 2,500 signup credits for your org (a $2.50 value)
- Complimentary Silver status for the first year
- Unemployment insurance if Copilot eliminates your role (Up to two weeks maximum base pay)
- Bonus Copilot credits for every mile flown on Spirit Airlines (includes a free “middle seat” upgrade on select flights)
Fine print:
- APR: 35%
- Annual Fee: $350
- APR for cash advances and balance transfers: 42%
- Credits may be devalued at any time without notice
- Not valid in California, New York, or any jurisdiction with functioning labor laws
Travel guru ThePointsGuy offered his review of the program:
“With the sign up points from the Platinum card, I was able to redeem them for a 1 way coach airfare and 1 night stay at the Holiday Inn Express Toledo North, so this represents a tremendous value compared to other loyalty card brands – assuming you survive the layoff.”
