Every Microsoft Copilot, Explained: Which One Do You Actually Have?

A business owner asked us a simple question recently: “Do we have Copilot?”

Honest answer: it depends on which Copilot you mean, and in true Microsoft fashion, there are at least seven things called Copilot. Some are free. One is $21 to $30 per user per month. One is a sticker on a laptop. One is a different product for programmers that happens to share the name. Nobody in your office is wrong for being confused. The naming is the problem, not your people.

So here is the map. We are writing this in August of 2026, and Microsoft has renamed parts of this lineup three times in three years, so if you are reading this much later, the labels may have shifted again. The structure underneath tends to stay the same.

The quick answer table

Name	What it is	Cost	Knows your business data?
Microsoft Copilot (consumer)	Free chat with a personal Microsoft account	Free	No
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat	Free chat for work accounts, protected by your company’s Microsoft agreement	Included with Microsoft 365	Only what you hand it
Microsoft 365 Copilot	The paid one inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams	$21 to $30 per user/month	Yes, that is the point
Copilot Pro	Retired. Consumer plan, replaced by Microsoft 365 Premium	Was $20/month	No
Copilot Studio	A tool for building custom AI agents	Usage based	Only what you wire up
Copilot+ PC	A hardware badge on new laptops	Price of a laptop	No, it is a laptop
GitHub Copilot	Coding assistant for software developers	Separate product	No

That table settles most arguments. The rest of this article is the plain English version of each row, because the differences matter more than they look.

So, is Copilot free?

Since it is the most-asked question, here it is straight: two Copilots are free. The consumer chat app is free for anyone. And if your business pays for Microsoft 365, every employee already has the business-grade Copilot Chat included, protected under your existing Microsoft agreement. The version that reads your company’s email and files is the one that costs money: $21 to $30 per user per month. Free gets you a capable assistant with legal protection. Paid gets you one that knows your business.

Fair question at this point: why would Microsoft give the business version away? Because it is not really free, it is included. You already pay for Microsoft 365, and Copilot Chat is a feature of that subscription the same way Teams is. Normally when something is free, you are the product; here Microsoft cannot monetize your prompts (the contract says they are not training material), so what they are monetizing is your next decision. The free tier keeps your team off personal AI accounts, builds the daily habit on Microsoft’s surfaces, and makes the paid license a short hop instead of a sales pitch. Understand that and you can use it accordingly: take the free tier without suspicion, and treat the upgrade as arithmetic, not mystery. Now the rows, one at a time.

Microsoft Copilot, the free consumer one

This is copilot.microsoft.com and the Copilot app on your phone or in Windows, signed in with a personal Microsoft account, or not signed in at all. It is a general-purpose chat assistant, it is genuinely useful, and it is a consumer product with consumer terms.

The thing to understand: if your employees are using this one for work, your company data is going through a consumer service. Not because anyone is doing anything wrong, but because nobody told them the work version exists. Please keep that thought, because it comes up again in a minute.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, the free one your business already has

If your company pays for Microsoft 365, your team already has a business version of Copilot chat at no extra cost. It lives at m365copilot.com and inside the Microsoft 365 app, and the tell is a small green shield at the top of the chat window. That shield means Enterprise Data Protection: your prompts and answers are covered by the same Microsoft agreement that already protects your email in Exchange and your files in SharePoint. Microsoft does not train its models on what your team types there.

Two things to know about Copilot Chat. First, the protection only applies when people sign in with their work account. Same website, different sign-in, completely different rules. Second, and this is the part that surprises people, Copilot Chat answers from the public web. It cannot go searching your files, your email, or your Teams messages on its own; the only company data it sees is what someone hands it, a file dragged into the chat or the mailbox content when it is used inside Outlook. Out of the box, it is a smart assistant that knows nothing about your company.

In our experience, most small businesses are already using this version by accident: employees signed in with work accounts, protected without anyone having planned it, right alongside coworkers on personal AI accounts with no protection at all. AI adoption happens to you before it happens with you. We walk through a real example of that mix (and the money math) in Free Copilot vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot, and an AI use policy is how you turn the accident into a decision.

Microsoft 365 Copilot, the paid one

This is the one Microsoft means when they advertise Copilot to businesses, and the one worth a real decision. It is an add-on license on top of your Microsoft 365 plan: $30 per user per month for enterprise plans, and since late 2025 there is a small-business version for up to 300 people that lists at $21 per user per month. Microsoft has been running an $18 promo on that small-business version for much of 2026, still active as we write this, so ask for the current number before you buy rather than assuming either figure.

What the money buys is not a smarter chatbot. It is the same class of AI with your permission to read your company’s data: your email, your files, your meetings, your Teams chats, through something Microsoft calls the Microsoft Graph. That is how you get “summarize this contract against our standard terms” or “draft a reply based on the last three emails with this customer” or Copilot sitting inside Word and Excel working on the actual document in front of you.

At the end of the day, that is the entire difference between free and paid: free Copilot protects your data but knows nothing about your business. Paid Copilot knows your business. We wrote up the full comparison, including when $21 per user is worth it and when it is not, in Free Copilot vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot.

One honest warning before you buy it for everyone: paid Copilot is only as good as the data you point it at. If your SharePoint is a mess, Copilot reads the mess. More on that in Copilot is only as smart as your SharePoint.

Copilot Pro, the one you can stop googling

Copilot Pro was the $20 per month consumer upgrade. Microsoft retired it: closed to new sign-ups in late 2025, and support for existing subscribers ended August 1, 2026. Its features moved into a consumer plan called Microsoft 365 Premium at about the same price.

If you were searching “Copilot vs Copilot Pro” to decide for your business, the real answer is that neither was the business product. For work, the choice is Copilot Chat (free) versus Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid), on work accounts. Copilot Pro was for personal use, and now it is for nobody.

Copilot Studio, the one for building agents

Copilot Studio is not an assistant, it is a workbench. It is what you or a partner uses to build custom AI agents: a bot that answers HR questions from your handbook, an agent that drafts quotes from your price list, that kind of thing. It bills by usage (Microsoft sells prepaid credit packs, roughly $200 a month for a healthy allowance, or pay as you go).

Most businesses under 100 people do not need to think about Copilot Studio until they have a specific, repetitive workflow they want to hand to an agent. When you do, that is a project conversation, not a license checkbox.

Copilot+ PC, the one that is a laptop

This one causes real purchasing mistakes, so let us be clear: Copilot+ PC is a hardware badge, like “Intel Inside.” It means the laptop has a neural processing chip fast enough for certain on-device AI features. It does not include, activate, or substitute for any Copilot license. You can buy ten Copilot+ laptops and have exactly as much business Copilot as you had before: whatever your Microsoft 365 licenses say.

We wrote that one up separately, because we keep seeing the confusion at quote time: You bought a Copilot+ PC. You still don’t have Copilot.

GitHub Copilot and the other ones

GitHub Copilot is an AI assistant for software developers writing code. Same brand, different product, different bill. Security Copilot is an AI tool for security operations teams. If your business does not employ programmers or run a security operations center, neither is your problem. They are on this list only because they show up when you search “Copilot” and muddy the water.

So which one do you actually have?

Quick self-check, in order:

1. Do you pay for Microsoft 365? Then everyone already has Copilot Chat free. Look for the green shield when signed in with a work account.
2. Does anyone have the paid license? Check your Microsoft 365 admin center under licenses for “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” If you do not know who holds them, that is worth finding out; at $21 to $30 per user per month, unused seats add up fast.
3. Are people using AI outside both of those? Personal ChatGPT, personal Copilot, whatever else. In our experience the answer is yes at almost every company, and it is nobody’s fault, because nobody made a decision.

That third one is the real finding at most businesses we assess. You cannot get value from AI your business never decided to use.

If you want the picture for your company: we run a complimentary AI maturity assessment that inventories what your team is actually using, what your licenses already include, and what is worth paying for. It usually finds free capability you already own and at least one surprise. Book a complimentary AI maturity assessment and we will walk it with you.