At Ignite 2025, Microsoft unveiled the Metered Agent Factory, a landmark pay-as-you-go service designed to help enterprises develop, deploy, and scale custom AI agents across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. This innovative model provides a flexible and predictable path for integrating powerful AI capabilities without significant upfront investment.
How the Metered Agent Factory Works
Microsoft’s Metered Agent Factory is a consumption-based service for building and deploying custom AI agents within Microsoft 365. It operates on a credit system using Agent Commit Units (ACUs), which simplifies billing and cost management, allowing businesses to scale AI usage without complex licensing or unpredictable expenses.
Developers can leverage Microsoft Foundry or Copilot Studio to build, test, and run AI agents before deploying them seamlessly into any Microsoft 365 Copilot experience. The service operates under a single consumption contract, the Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (P3), where organizations purchase a pool of Agent Commit Units (ACUs). These units are consumed as agents are created or used, with one ACU equivalent to one US dollar of AI activity, standardizing cost tracking across Microsoft’s AI services.
A Flexible Model for Enterprise AI Budgets
This pay-as-you-go model is being hailed as a significant advantage for budgeting. The P3 pool provides access to 32 different Microsoft services, removing complex licensing hurdles and establishing a predictable annual spending cap. According to a Microsoft Partner Blog recap, organizations can reallocate unused ACUs to other projects, minimizing wasted resources and shelf-ware risk.
To support smaller organizations, Microsoft also introduced a Copilot Business plan for $21 per user per month. An analysis from Direction on Microsoft projects a mid-sized company could cut its first-year AI costs by more than half compared to 2024’s enterprise licensing by combining the new SKU with an Agent Factory block.
Enhanced Governance and Competitive Positioning
Microsoft’s focus on billing innovation provides a distinct competitive advantage. While platforms like AWS Bedrock Agents bill by model-minutes or API calls, the Metered Agent Factory anchors all spending in a single, transparent ledger. By unifying billing for both Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio through ACUs, the company offers developers flexibility while providing enterprises with clear financial governance.
What the New Pricing Means for Your AI Budget
The structure of the Metered Agent Factory offers clear and direct cost controls.
- Cost Equivalence: 100 ACUs are consumed for every $100 of Copilot or Foundry usage.
- SMB Pricing: The Copilot Business plan (for under 300 seats) is priced at $21 per user per month.
- Flexibility: P3 pools can be replenished at any time, and unused ACUs roll over within the contract term.
This model directly translates optimization into savings. For example, Direction on Microsoft estimates that a large retailer could offset 20% of its AI costs by fine-tuning agent performance. As all usage draws from a single ACU pool, efficiency gains immediately reduce overall spend, accelerating the industry’s shift toward outcome-based AI funding.
What is Microsoft’s Metered Agent Factory and how does it work?
Microsoft’s Metered Agent Factory is a new pay-as-you-go service introduced at Ignite 2025 that allows organizations to build, deploy, and scale AI agents across Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio platforms. The service operates on a Agent Pre-Purchase Plan (P3) where companies purchase Agent Commit Units (ACUs) upfront for a one-year term. These ACUs are consumed as agents are built and deployed, with 100 ACUs equaling approximately $100 in retail costs. The system supports universal deployment across Microsoft 365 Copilot, enabling custom AI integration directly into productivity workflows.
How does the pricing model benefit enterprise AI adoption?
The metered consumption model significantly lowers financial barriers for enterprise AI adoption by eliminating upfront licensing fees and enabling predictable budgeting. Organizations can now experiment with AI agents without large initial investments, reducing perceived risk. The unified billing system allows access to 32 Microsoft services through a single ACU pool, simplifying procurement processes. For smaller businesses, Microsoft offers Copilot Business at $21 per user/month for organizations under 300 users, making AI capabilities more accessible than traditional $30 per user licensing models.
What cost control features does the new billing system provide?
Microsoft’s enhanced billing policies offer real-time usage monitoring and departmental cost allocation through the Microsoft 365 admin center. IT administrators can now set budget limits, receive usage alerts, and assign agent consumption to specific departments or projects. The system provides granular visibility into AI resource consumption, supporting proactive financial management and preventing budget overruns. Organizations can also link billing policies to specific Azure subscriptions, aligning AI costs with existing cloud budgeting processes.
How does Agent Factory compare to competitor offerings?
Unlike traditional platforms that charge per API call or user, Microsoft’s agent-native billing tracks workflow outcomes and multi-step processes. While competitors like Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud AI Platform offer consumption-based pricing, they typically require higher technical setup complexity and lack Microsoft’s integrated productivity ecosystem. Microsoft’s approach uniquely combines low-code agent building in Copilot Studio with enterprise-grade deployment across familiar Microsoft 365 applications, creating a seamless AI adoption experience for existing Microsoft customers.
What deployment options are available for AI agents built with Agent Factory?
AI agents created through Agent Factory can be deployed anywhere within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint. The platform supports cross-platform integration, allowing agents to work across different Microsoft services while maintaining consistent billing through the ACU pool. Organizations can deploy specialized task-specific agents for various business functions – from customer service automation to document processing – with all usage tracked against their prepaid ACU allocation, ensuring transparent cost management across all deployment scenarios.
