How to Use Copilot in Excel for Free (Trial + 60 AI Credits, Tested)
One prompt, and Copilot built a sales report with a chart, without paying for it. Here's how, what "free" really means, and what six real prompts did with the trial's 60 AI credits. Every prompt is below, word for word.
Follow along with the same 16 orders. The practice file has the messy Orders tab and all 6 prompts on the "Try it" tab.
What "free" really means
Copilot in Excel comes with Microsoft 365 Personal and Family. Both have a one-month free trial, with 60 AI credits a month. After that month it becomes a paid subscription, unless you cancel before it ends. Every prompt uses credits, so this guide shows what each task cost.
Where the Copilot button is
First, the file has to be saved in OneDrive with AutoSave on. A file that's only on your computer won't work. Then look for the Copilot button at the bottom right of the grid.
Allow editing, Plan or Chat only
The Copilot pane has three modes:
- Allow editing: Copilot changes your workbook directly.
- Plan: shows the steps first.
- Chat only: just answers.
All prompts below ran in Allow editing.
What one prompt costs
Opening the pane is free. Each prompt cost one credit in the test, whether it was a quick question or a big task. After the first seven prompts, 53 of the 60 credits were left.
Prompt 1: Ask a question about your data
Start easy. The file has sixteen orders: customer, city, product and amount. Which city sells the most?
Which city has the highest total Amount, and what else stands out in this data?
The second part often finds things you didn't ask for. Amsterdam comes out on top with $7,830. Copilot also noticed that the city names are messy: some in small letters, some with an extra space. A formula sees "Amsterdam" with a space as a different city, so fix that first.
Prompt 2: Clean up messy city names
In Allow editing mode, tell Copilot exactly what it may touch:
Clean up the City column: same spelling, first letter capital, no extra spaces. Change nothing else.
Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam: four clean city names, and the spaces are gone too. Copilot even says all other columns remain unchanged. Below the answer you get Done and Undo. Don't like a change? Click Undo.
Prompt 3: A formula per city (and why you check it)
Say "formula" on purpose: then the result updates, it's not just a typed number.
Write a formula that calculates the total Amount for each City.
Copilot wrote a small summary next to the data: the cities in column G and their totals in H. Click the first city and look at the formula bar: two functions, one inside the other.
=SORT(UNIQUE(C2:C17)) =SUMIF(C2:C17, G2#, E2:E17)
Take them apart, one per cell. The inner one is UNIQUE: every city once, in the order they first appear (Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Madrid). Sixteen rows became four. That's why the cleanup mattered: UNIQUE sees "Amsterdam" with an extra space as a different city.
J2: =UNIQUE(C2:C17) K2: =SORT(J2#)
The outer one is SORT. J2# (with the hash sign) is the whole list that spills from J2. Without extra arguments, SORT goes A to Z, so you get the same four cities in order. That's exactly Copilot's column: SORT around UNIQUE is just these two steps in one cell. Next to each city, Copilot used SUMIF on that list. Amsterdam: $7,830.
Never trust AI blindly. Check one city with your own formula: where to look (the city column), what to look for (Amsterdam, in quotes), and what to add up (the amounts).
=SUMIF(C2:C17, "Amsterdam", E2:E17)
$7,830, the same as Copilot. Before the cleanup, SUMIF would have skipped any "Amsterdam" with an extra space.
Prompt 4: Add a High/Low column
Next, change the data itself. Give Copilot the exact rule; if you just say "big orders", it has to guess where big starts.
Add a column that labels each order as "High" if the Amount is 1000 or more, otherwise "Low".
A new column, Order Level. Copilot says eight High and eight Low, and that's right. Click a cell and you see the formula: if the amount is at least 1,000, High, otherwise Low. The same formula you'd write yourself, just without typing it, and it updates when an amount changes.
Prompt 5: A pivot table on a new sheet
Something that takes a few clicks by hand: two fields, one value, and a place to put it.
Create a PivotTable on a new sheet that shows the total Amount by City and Product.
Copilot made a new sheet with the pivot table: cities down the side, products across. Amsterdam laptops: $5,000. One thing Copilot doesn't tell you: this is a normal pivot table. Add new orders, and you still have to refresh it, just like always.
Prompt 6: A sales report with a chart in one prompt
The biggest one: a complete report in a single prompt. Three things, and a place to put them.
Build a short sales report on a new sheet: total Amount per City, the top 3 customers by Amount, and a chart.
Totals per city, the top three customers (Emma Mol, Lars Vos and Anna Berg), and a chart. Checked against what we already know: Amsterdam is $7,830, the same as the SUMIF check, and Emma Mol's $3,200 is the biggest order.
What's not included in the trial
- On Family, only the owner gets Copilot, not the others on your plan.
- The Analyst and Researcher agents are not included. Those need the Premium plan.
Is 60 credits a month enough?
The whole video cost 13 credits: six for a test run, one for a take that went wrong, and six for what you see. With 60 a month, that's ten runs of six prompts, or two prompts a day.
The trick to make them last: that report took Copilot seven steps, and it cost one credit, the same as a simple question. So write one clear prompt that asks for everything, instead of three small ones. For a few reports a week, that's enough. If you ask Copilot all day, it isn't. And check its work, just like above.
Sources (read on 12 Oct 2026): Copilot in Microsoft 365 subscriptions, FAQ · AI credits and limits · Office-Watch, Copilot access levels (29 Mar 2026) · Cancel your free trial of Microsoft 365 Family
Want every 2026 function on one page? The free Formula Pack is a 3-page cheat sheet plus all practice files from the videos.