Yesterday I laid out the two decisions behind every MSP AI practice in Choosing Your MSP AI Platform. Today is the first one: the seat. That's what your client's people type into every day. Get it wrong and you're reselling a license at zero margin while your techs clean up the mess for free. If you want help picking the right seat for your book, Schedule a Call.
The short version
Microsoft and OpenAI don't publish a reseller margin you can plan on. Anthropic and Google don't either. Across all four, MSPs earn on the work around the seat: readiness, permission cleanup, governance, training, and custom builds. Pick the seat that fits your client's stack, then sell the services.
Microsoft Copilot
What it costs
Copilot Business costs $21 per user per month for organizations up to 300 users. Microsoft's July 2026 announcement extends an $18 promotional price through December 31, 2026, though one partner note says some Copilot promos ended September 30. Confirm with your distributor. Business Standard with Copilot runs $23.50, and Business Premium with Copilot runs $32. The Copilot in 30 trial gives 25 users for 30 days through CSP.
The December 1 change
Starting December 1, 2026, new CSP Copilot Business licenses turn on pay as you go credit billing by default. The default cap is 4,000 credits per user per month. At Microsoft's list price of a penny per credit, that ceiling is about $40 per user per month, nearly double the license. Reports say those charges land on the partner's CSP invoice. You carry the bill until you rebill the client.
Set per user caps at onboarding. Add a monthly consumption review to your QBRs. Write a pass through clause into your client agreement before December 1.
Where MSPs win and lose
Copilot works inside the client's tenant, so existing permissions, labels, and audit logs apply. That's the strength and the risk. Copilot surfaces whatever a user can already reach, so a messy SharePoint becomes a messy Copilot.
The most repeated MSP complaint is weak adoption after rollout. People don't use it without change management. MSPs who make money treat Copilot as the door opener for readiness work, not as a license line. Microsoft now scores partners on paid active usage, so adoption is your job either way.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT Business costs $20 per user per month on annual billing, or $25 monthly, for 2 to 200 seats. It has SOC 2 Type 2 and doesn't train on business data by default.
The gaps matter for MSPs. There's no BAA on Business. SCIM and compliance logs sit in Enterprise. Connectors are on by default in Business. I found no reseller margin and no multi tenant MSP console.
Your clients' people already use it, often on personal accounts. A sanctioned, SSO enabled workspace beats a ban that pushes everyone underground. The billable work is governance setup and cleaning up permissions that connected AI tools expose. Price that cleanup as a project. Don't eat it.
Claude
Claude Team runs $20 per seat per month on annual billing, or $25 monthly, for 2 to 150 seats. Premium seats run $100 or $125. Enterprise has a 20 seat minimum.
Commentators call Anthropic the only frontier lab with a real channel program, and it added a services track in June 2026. The bar is high for a small MSP. The Select tier asks for 10 certified practitioners, 2 production customers, and a public story. No margin is disclosed. Pax8 sells Claude through Amazon Bedrock inside the client's AWS account, which is a heavier lift than a CSP seat.
Where Claude shines for MSPs is inside your own shop. Documentation, scripting, and agentic coding. MSPs have published open plugins that connect Claude Code to dozens of MSP tools. Write a policy before your techs wire it into your PSA or RMM. Scoped service accounts, secrets handling, and audit trails are on you.
A BAA covers Enterprise and the API. Anthropic's BAA article doesn't mention Team.
Gemini
Gemini comes bundled in Google Workspace. Google retired the separate add ons in 2025 and raised base prices about 17% to 20%. There's no license margin. Google measures partners on how many users stay active, so adoption services are where Google wants you anyway.
Gemini inherits Drive permissions. Files shared as anyone with the link become easy to find. Your first billable project in a Workspace shop is Drive sharing cleanup.
I found zero firsthand reports from US or Canadian MSPs rolling Gemini out to clients. Treat that as a signal. The practice is unproven, and you'd be early.
My take on the seat
Microsoft heavy book
Make Copilot the governed default. Lead with a data readiness assessment, not a license quote. Run trials with written success criteria. Rollouts without them are the ones MSPs say didn't land.
Power users
Layer ChatGPT or Claude seats for the people who write, analyze, or code all day. That's the pattern MSPs describe most: Copilot as the default, a second tool for power users.
Google Workspace shops
Sell adoption training and Drive cleanup around Gemini, or stand up ChatGPT Business with SSO.
Your own MSP
Use Claude or ChatGPT internally first. Your engineers get faster, and you learn the product before you sell it.
Before you add any of this, check whether your team can carry another practice. The Operational Maturity Assessment shows you fast.
Do your own homework
This series is built on public information, my own hands-on testing, and written answers from vendors to my questions. It's my read as of October 25, 2026. Prices, terms, and features change fast. Don't take anything here as fact without checking it yourself. Get every claim that matters to you in writing before you sign.
Tomorrow: Hatz, up close. Want help building your seat strategy? Schedule a Call. Want the rest of this series? Subscribe to my newsletter.
FAQ
What margin do MSPs make on Copilot?
Microsoft doesn't publish a Copilot margin. Plan on near zero from the license and earn on readiness, cleanup, and adoption services.
Does the December 1 Copilot billing change hit existing licenses?
Microsoft's announcement covers new CSP Copilot Business licenses. Check your existing subscriptions with your distributor and set caps either way.
Should I resell ChatGPT or Claude seats?
Neither offers an SMB reseller margin I could find. Sell the governance, SSO setup, training, and custom builds around them instead.