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Open Source Copilot Alternative

Is Microsoft Copilot free? Kortix, the open-source alternative, and what it costs

Microsoft Copilot is free in a limited tier, and self-hosted Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System, is free too. The paid Copilot plans add per-seat features; what a team pays for Kortix is a seat or nothing at all.

Try Kortix

Self-host for free in three commands

terminal
$ curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash$ kortix self-host init --domain kortix.example.com --admin-email you@example.com$ kortix self-host start
Source https://kortix.com/docs/host

From the Kortix self-hosting docs. Point DNS at the server and open ports 80 and 443 first.

What each Copilot tier costs, and what self-hosting costs instead

The Kortix column is the open-source option we recommend; the Microsoft columns state what Microsoft publishes.

Kortix

Open source
Yes
Free tier
Free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project
What the paid tiers add
$40 per seat per month with 2,500 pooled credits
Running it yourself
Self-host is free on your own network

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Open source
No
Free tier
A limited free Copilot; Copilot Chat with an M365 plan
What the paid tiers add
$30 per user per month, paid yearly
Running it yourself
No self-host

Copilot Studio

Open source
No
Free tier
A free trial that builds agents but cannot publish
What the paid tiers add
A $200 capacity pack per month, or pay-as-you-go
Running it yourself
No self-host

Kortix figures come from kortix.com/pricing; Microsoft figures come from Microsoft's Copilot pricing pages, checked October 2026.

Is Microsoft Copilot free?

Microsoft Copilot is free in a limited tier. The chat assistant runs at no cost, subject to capacity and limits, and when you reach a limit you can choose a paid option or come back later; signing in with a personal account adds chat history, image creation and longer conversations (Copilot plans for individuals). Copilot Chat, the web-grounded assistant for work, is included at no additional cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans (Copilot for enterprise).

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the paid, per-seat product. It costs $30 per user per month, paid yearly, and it needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan (Copilot Studio pricing). Microsoft 365 Copilot Business lists at $21 per user per month, promoted to $18 through December 31, 2026, for existing Microsoft 365 customers (Copilot for business). Copilot Studio has a separate shape: a Copilot Studio user seat is free of charge, and usage is bought as Copilot Credits, not as seats (Copilot Studio billing rates). Figures checked October 2026.

What the paid Copilot tiers add

A Microsoft 365 Copilot seat adds Copilot across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, pre-built agents such as Researcher and Analyst, and a Copilot Studio lite experience for internal agents, with internal use zero-rated against the credit pool (Copilot Studio pricing). Copilot Studio standalone is sold as a tenant-wide plan: capacity packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month, or a pay-as-you-go meter billed by the credit, or a pre-purchase plan. Publishing agents to external channels such as a website or a social platform needs the standalone plan, not the Microsoft 365 Copilot seat.

What an open-source alternative costs a team

Kortix is open source, and its pricing has two shapes. Free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project. The team plan is $40 per seat per month with 2,500 credits per month per seat, pooled Kortix. Credits buy sandbox compute. If you choose Kortix-managed models, their tokens draw from the same pool; you can also bring your own keys or connect the ChatGPT plan you already pay for and pay your model provider directly.

The comparison a buyer should run is seat plus usage against seat plus usage. A Kortix team pays a flat $40 per seat and tops up only when the pooled credits run out, and the software is free to run yourself. Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network. For a team that wants to run the agent layer itself, see self-hosting, the wider open-source Copilot alternatives, and the direct Kortix vs Copilot breakdown. The longer answer to whether the alternative is free is on the Kortix blog.

FAQ

Free tiers and costs, answered

  1. Q1

    Is there a free version of Microsoft Copilot?

    Yes. Microsoft Copilot is available at no cost, subject to capacity and limits, and Copilot Chat is included at no additional cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans. Microsoft 365 Copilot itself is the paid product, $30 per user per month paid yearly with a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan. Copilot Studio's user seat is free, and its usage is bought as Copilot Credits.

  2. Q3

    Is the open-source alternative free?

    Kortix is open source, and it has a free tier and a free self-host path. Free is $0 with 200 credits per month and 1 project; self-host is free on your own server. The team plan is $40 per seat per month with 2,500 pooled credits per seat. So the software is free to run yourself, and the managed cloud is a flat seat plus usage.

  3. Q4

    What do Kortix credits buy?

    Credits buy sandbox compute, billed per second per resource, and free credits stay sandbox-only. If you choose Kortix-managed models, their tokens draw from the same pool; you can also bring your own keys or connect the ChatGPT plan you already pay for, so the model is paid directly to the provider.

Start free, then pay per seat or self-host

Bring your own model keys, or run the whole stack on your own network.

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