Microsoft Copilot Is Free. Office Integration Is Not.

Microsoft Copilot is free on the web, in Windows and in Edge with any Microsoft account, and Microsoft states that Think Deeper usage is not limited. File uploads allow up to 20 files per conversation at 50MB each. What costs money is Copilot inside Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, which needs a Microsoft 365 subscription, and priority access when capacity is tight.¹

This is the opposite shape of free tier from everything else in this category. There is no message counter, no daily allowance and no credit balance to watch. Microsoft sells priority and product integration, and it gives away the reasoning mode.

The catch is not a number. It is that the thing most people actually want, Copilot sitting inside the documents they are already working in, is the thing that is not free.

What the free plan actually includes

The standalone Copilot Pro plan is gone. Microsoft stopped selling it to new customers in October 2025 and ended support for existing subscribers on 1 August 2026, so any review quoting a $20 Copilot Pro tier is describing a product that no longer exists. Premium Copilot now means Microsoft 365 Premium at $19.99.

Unlimited here means unmetered, not unconstrained

Microsoft's wording is that Think Deeper use is not limited, and that paid subscribers get priority when capacity is constrained. Both statements are true at once, and the second is the one you feel.

In practice, a free user during a busy period waits or gets a slower response, and a paying user does not. That is a quality-of-service limit rather than a quota, and it is harder to plan around than a counter because it depends on what everyone else is doing.

For comparison, ChatGPT moved to unlimited text chats on Free in August 2026 with lower peak priority, which is the same trade. Two of the three largest assistants have now stopped metering text and started metering priority.

The Office integration is the actual paywall

Copilot can read the public web and answer questions about it. It cannot see your inbox, your spreadsheet or your quarterly deck without a Microsoft 365 licence, and that is the entire product for most businesses.

This is where Copilot differs from Notion AI, which meters about 20 AI responses per workspace and then stops. Copilot's free tier never stops. It just never reaches your files.

What free Copilot is genuinely good at

Being already installed. It ships with Windows and Edge, which means the friction of trying it is close to zero, and for a lot of people that decides it.

Image generation is included with limits, voice works, and the web grounding is real. For a free assistant attached to an operating system, the feature set is complete.

When the free plan is enough

General questions, drafting, summarising something you paste in, light image generation, voice use on a phone. Anyone who does not live inside Office files can use Copilot free indefinitely without hitting a wall.

It is also the cheapest way to get reasoning-grade answers. Think Deeper runs on a strong model and asks for no card, which puts it alongside DeepSeek's free chat as one of the few places heavy reasoning costs nothing.

When it stops being enough

The first time you want it to look at a document you did not paste in. That is the licence boundary, and it is a capability gap rather than a usage one, so no amount of careful use closes it.

Priority is the second reason. If you are working to a deadline during a peak period and free Copilot is queuing behind subscribers, $19.99 starts looking like insurance rather than an upgrade.

Worth weighing against Google's bundled approach, where AI Pro at $19.99 includes storage and Workspace integration, and against Perplexity if cited research is closer to what you need than Office.

Frequently asked questions

Is Microsoft Copilot really free?
Yes. Copilot chat on the web, in Windows and in Edge is free with any Microsoft account, with no message cap on standard chat or on Think Deeper.

Is there a limit on Think Deeper?
Microsoft says usage is not limited. Paid subscribers get priority during capacity constraints, so the practical limit is speed rather than quantity.

What happened to Copilot Pro?
It was withdrawn from sale in October 2025 and support ended on 1 August 2026. Premium Copilot is now sold through Microsoft 365 Premium at $19.99 a month.

Can free Copilot read my Word and Excel files?
Not in the desktop apps. Copilot inside Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint requires a Microsoft 365 subscription. You can paste content into the free chat instead.

How many files can I upload to free Copilot?
Up to 20 files per conversation, 50MB each.

Free-tier features, file limits, Think Deeper status and pricing verified against Microsoft's Copilot documentation and consumer pricing pages on 20 October 2026. Microsoft does not publish a numeric message allowance for the free tier.

Sources

1. Microsoft 365 Copilot plans: www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot. Used for: Free Copilot access and the Pro subscription.

All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 20 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.