Microsoft has revealed that nearly 60% of its customer service customers are already purchasing usage-based credits.
Disclosed by CEO Satya Nadella during the company’s Q3 2026 earnings call, the figure confirms something that has been building in the background since late 2025.
The shift from per-seat to consumption-based AI pricing in the contact center has been well documented, but has perhaps sometimes seemed more like a roadmap to a future model than the reality for current organizations.
Microsoft’s results, however, reveal that it is now the majority purchasing behavior among its customer service base.
“The customer service category is at the forefront of this transformation,” Nadella said, pointing to growing demand for usage-based credits across the business applications portfolio.
As a proof point, he cited HSBC, which is using prebuilt agents within Dynamics 365 to manage customer inquiries across products, markets, and regulatory requirements, reducing resolution time by over 30% in the process.
Arguably, that data point carries weight beyond Microsoft's own results. If the company with one of the broadest enterprise footprints in CX is seeing a majority of its service customers move to consumption-based purchasing, it suggests a structural shift in how contact center AI is being bought and budgeted more broadly.
How the Pricing Model Got Here
Microsoft's pricing evolution has been a gradual build over the past 18 months.
When Dynamics 365 Contact Center launched in July 2024, the offering was primarily seat-based. The consumption layer came later.
In October 2025, Microsoft introduced Copilot Credits as the mechanism for accessing its first-party AI agents, bundling 1,000 credits per user per month into Premium SKUs, including Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium.
Shortly after, it added a Copilot Credit Pre-Purchase Plan: a one-year, pay-up-front option with tiered discounts for organizations ready to scale.
A pay-as-you-go option also exists, billed through Azure at $0.01 per message with no upfront commitment.
The result is a pricing architecture that increasingly resembles Azure itself: a base entitlement, pre-purchase tiers for those who want predictability, and a metered layer for overage or experimentation.
On the earnings call, Nadella was explicit that this is the direction of travel across the whole portfolio:
“The basic transformation of any per-user business of ours – whether it is productivity, coding, or security – will become a per-user and usage business.”
CFO Amy Hood put it in terms that budget-conscious CX leaders will recognize: