Comparison
Trainwork vs Microsoft Copilot Academy
Microsoft Copilot Academy is free, it is already in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and it teaches Microsoft Copilot. If Copilot is the only AI tool your people will touch and your budget is zero, use it, and we will say so plainly. Trainwork is for teams who use more than one AI tool, who need practice on their own work rather than courses to finish, and whose manager needs to know whether anything at the desk actually changed.
What Microsoft Copilot Academy is
Microsoft's own training for Microsoft Copilot, delivered through Viva Learning as curated courses and learning paths with role-based recommendations. Reached at no extra cost through the Viva Learning Seeded plan that is part of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 products, and on by default for Viva Learning users since April 2025 rather than requiring a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Administrators can restrict it to Copilot-licensed users if they choose.
Price: No additional cost. It is included with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 through Viva Learning Seeded, so for most tenants it is already paid for. This is the honest headline of this comparison: the alternative is free. Source, checked 2026-10-05. List prices change and are negotiated down at volume, so treat this as a starting point rather than a quote.
Side by side
| Microsoft Copilot Academy | Trainwork | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | Nothing extra. Included with Microsoft 365 | $99 per person, once, no renewal |
| Which tools it teaches | Microsoft Copilot | Whatever the team actually uses, including Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini |
| Format | Courses and learning paths to work through | Coached practice, 45 conversations on the learner's own tasks |
| Whose work you practise on | The course's examples | A real task from their week, named by them in the first minute |
| Who can use it | Microsoft 365 tenants with Viva Learning | Any company, no Microsoft dependency |
| What a manager sees | Course completion inside Viva Learning | A dashboard of practice done per skill, and a certificate at the end |
| If you leave Microsoft | You lose it | The licence is yours, it does not renew |
When Microsoft Copilot Academy is the better buy
These are real. If one of them describes you, buy theirs. We would rather lose the sale than have you find this out after paying us.
- Microsoft Copilot is genuinely the only AI tool your people will use. It is the vendor's own training for it, it is current with the product, and it is free.
- Your budget for this is zero. We cannot compete with free and will not pretend otherwise.
- You need to cover thousands of people. Per-head, nothing we do is cheaper than something already in the tenant.
- Your IT or L&D function wants training governed inside Microsoft, alongside everything else in Viva Learning.
- You want vendor-authored certification on Microsoft's own terms rather than a third party's.
When Trainwork is the better buy
- Your team uses more than Copilot. Most do, and training that can only speak about one vendor's tool leaves them guessing everywhere else.
- You have watched people complete courses and change nothing. Practice on their own work is the thing that transfers, and it is the whole product here.
- You are not on Microsoft 365, or your people do not have Viva Learning, in which case this comparison does not apply to you at all.
- You want the judgement half: when to trust what the model gives back, and when not to send it. A product tour does not teach that.
Questions people actually ask
Copilot Academy is free. Why would anyone pay $99?
If Copilot is the only tool your team uses, often they should not, and we would rather say that than win the sale badly. The $99 buys two things Academy does not sell: practice on the learner's own work instead of a course's examples, and tool-agnostic judgement for a team that has ChatGPT or Claude open as well. If neither matters to you, use the free one.
Can we run both?
Yes, and for a Microsoft shop that is the sensible shape. Academy covers the buttons in Copilot at no cost. Trainwork covers whether the person can actually do the job well with AI, on their own tasks, whichever tool is in front of them.
Do you teach Microsoft Copilot?
Yes. Copilot is in the tool guidance the coach draws on, and a company can restrict the coach to its approved stack so nothing outside it is ever named. We are not a competitor to Copilot, we are training for the people using it.
Trainwork is 15 skills at three coached conversations each, 45 in total, on your team's own work. See everything it teaches or why it is built as practice.
Last reviewed . Every figure on this site links to its source.