M365 E7 Buy 5 Get 5 offer: what it's worth

The free credits are capped at five packs, so the offer is worth the same to a 300-seat buyer as to a 2,000-seat one. The bigger number is what year two costs if your agents get used to the doubled capacity.

Microsoft told its reseller partners on October 21 about a new offer for Microsoft 365 E7, its $99-a-user suite that bundles E5, Copilot, Entra Suite and Agent 365. Customers who buy through a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner, take at least 300 new annual E7 seats, switch on pay-as-you-go billing with an Azure subscription and buy at least five annual Copilot Studio capacity packs get the packs matched. Microsoft adds one free pack for each pack bought, for 12 months, with a cap of five free packs. The offer runs through December 31, 2026.

Microsoft's post gives the terms but no dollar figures. Here they are, worked from Microsoft's own list prices: E7 at $99 a user a month on an annual commitment, and Copilot Studio capacity packs at $200 a month for 25,000 Copilot Credits.

What the match is worth

Five packs give you 125,000 Copilot Credits a month for $1,000, or $12,000 a year. With the match you get 250,000 credits a month for the same money. Your rate drops from $8 per 1,000 credits to $4, which is half off list.

That is bigger than the up to 20% Microsoft gives for prepaying credits up front. But the match stops at five packs, so the most anyone gets is five free packs for a year: $12,000 at list.

	300 E7 seats	2,000 E7 seats
E7 at list, per year	$356,400	$2,376,000
Five Copilot Studio packs, per year	$12,000	$12,000
Total	$368,400	$2,388,000
Free matched packs, at list	$12,000	$12,000
Match as a share of the deal	3.3%	0.5%
Credits per seat with the match, per month	833	125

At the 300-seat floor, the match takes 3.3% off the deal. At 2,000 seats it is 0.5%, and the doubled credit pool spreads to 125 credits per seat a month. Microsoft bills "a varying number of credits" per agent action, so what 125 credits buys depends on what your agents do.

These are list prices. Seat discounts change the percentages, and the reports on whether any are still running disagree. Work 365's July list of partner promotions showed E7 discounts of 10% to 15% running to December 31. Trusted Tech Team, updated October 9, says Microsoft's E5, E7 and enterprise Copilot promotions ended on September 30. Ask your partner which applies to your quote.

The bundle saving is bigger

Seen against the E7 bundle itself, the credit match is small. SAMexpert prices E7's parts bought separately at $117 a user a month: E5 at $60, Copilot at $30, Entra Suite at $12 and Agent 365 at $15. That puts the bundle $18 a user a month under the parts. At 300 seats that is $5,400 a month, or $64,800 a year, more than five times the match. At 2,000 seats it is $432,000 a year. SAMexpert notes one catch: $12 is the list price of Entra Suite as an add-on for Entra ID P1 customers, and Microsoft does not publish the special price it offers P2 and E5 customers, so the real saving on that part is unknown.

So if your company is already headed for E7, the match is a modest extra. It should not be the reason to make the move.

Year two

The match lasts 12 months. If your agents are using 250,000 credits a month by the end of year one, keeping that capacity at list costs ten packs, or $2,000 a month. That is $24,000 a year, double what you paid in year one. The offer also requires pay-as-you-go billing to be switched on, so watch for use beyond the packs.

E7 does not cover agent running costs. No Jitter lists Copilot Studio agent execution among the consumption charges that sit outside the $99 seat price. Microsoft's post points to admin-center spending limits as the way to keep that in check.

Who qualifies, and what to get in writing

The post asks for "300 new annual" E7 seats, but it also says the offer supports "upgrade and renewal conversations." It does not say whether renewing seats you already have counts as new. The full terms are in a partner launch kit FAQ, so get your partner to confirm in writing:

whether your seats count as new, if you are renewing or moving up from E5;
whether the five annual packs must be bought at the same time as the seats;
what happens to the matched packs if you cut seats below 300 during the year.

Microsoft's post also tells partners they earn margin and incentives on both the E7 seats and the packs.

Two more Copilot changes land on December 1. New Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Business offers can be bought without a base subscription, at the same price as today. And new Copilot Business licenses bought through CSP get usage billing switched on by default, with a spending limit of 4,000 credits per user a month. We worked through that one in Copilot Business metering from Dec 1.

What IT teams should do

If an E7 move is already planned for this quarter, ask your CSP partner whether your deal qualifies, and get the terms in writing before December 31.
Before you buy five packs, estimate your agents' monthly credit use. Five packs make sense only if you would have bought that capacity anyway.
Put the year-two cost in the budget now: at list, keeping the doubled capacity is $24,000 a year.
Set credit spending limits in the admin center on day one, since pay-as-you-go has to be on to qualify.

Microsoft's E7 'Buy 5 Get 5' credit offer: worth $12,000 a year, max