Windows 11 Pro is being offered at a reduced price and possibly with certain conditions.
Windows 11 Pro is being offered at a reduced price and possibly with certain conditions.
When i googled this before, i would see people claim they are cheap because they have stolen keys, but is that just an assumption? I checked if selling volume keys is illegal, most sites seem to say no. I couldn't find the prices for Windows 11 Pro, Education, or Enterprise volumes, nor how many keys are included. I noticed someone making a profit by simply reselling their extra keys.
How many keys are in a Windows 11 volume? What is the cost? Also, is it safe to purchase from third-party sites? Who can be trusted?
I found this too, which suggests paying more for online activation.
Volume Licensing is exclusively offered through Microsoft. Reach out to them for more information. The number of keys you receive varies based on the particular agreement and your payment amount. For businesses purchasing large quantities, such as 1,000 licenses, costs per license are reduced compared to smaller purchases like buying just 20. Single-user licenses typically cost around $100 for Windows 11 Home.
Anyone offering keys below Microsoft's rates is involved in questionable activities. You are not allowed to buy an Enterprise license, nor an Educational license unless you are a teacher or student at an authorized institution.
In my assessment, these locations manage to secure such low prices likely through strategic purchasing methods. They might indeed possess a special 'cheap aisle' at Microsoft.
And they might not be 'stolen keys', but instead 'credits bought using stolen cards'
Money laundering in action.
If you manage to secure 100 valid credit card accounts worth $100, what method do you use to convert that into real cash?
You can't simply walk into a shop and purchase tangible items for resale...there are records and surveillance footage involved.
You also can't acquire physical products and have them shipped discreetly—again, paper trails and addresses remain.
So you opt for digital goods, which are only linked to disposable email addresses.
With those illegally obtained cards, you can legally purchase software licenses at standard retail prices.
Your cards aren’t yours anymore, so you’re indifferent.
Once you sell those licenses for $20 each, you turn your $100 investment into $20,000.
This is pure money laundering.
Now...if the cardholder discovers the fraud and disputes the transaction, Microsoft might revoke any licenses tied to that card.
You, now holding one license, lose it entirely.
But the person who actually used the card is long gone.
You need to examine the company closely. For instance, I checked a site stating it's based in California. However, upon reviewing the owner details, the city appears to be Toronto, the state Ontario, and the country California. Try searching on www.whois.com. It seems there might be some confusion or outdated information.
It violates the contract. Microsoft sells volume license keys with the condition that they must be used on company assets. If the key isn't being used on a company asset, it breaches the agreement they signed with Microsoft, allowing the company to pursue legal action.
I believe the notion that Kinguin purchases excess Windows keys from other companies is questionable for these reasons:
Most organizations don’t build their own systems requiring separate Windows licenses. Even when needed, purchasing a license for an entire computer is impractical.
The only plausible explanation for having surplus keys is through a volume licensing program, which still ties the keys to company assets and prohibits sharing them.
Of course, these companies might simply disregard Microsoft’s interests since they’re small players with other priorities. Yet I’m confident Microsoft has simplified the revocation process for them.
Many big firms purchase systems without an operating system and rely on an enterprise license. Yes, they don’t develop their own machines, yet they rarely commit to the vendor’s offerings. Occasionally, sellers refuse to offer it unless an OS is included, especially in direct purchases. At my previous organization, each new system came with an OEM Windows Pro license. Although the OEM installed our Enterprise image during deployment, around 65,000 Windows licenses were essentially wasted. We never used them, but some dishonest individuals repurpose those licenses, violating the terms of service for those keys, which are meant solely for the original hardware.
Also, MSDN and earlier TechNet licenses were available. I once had a TechNet license before Microsoft discontinued it. It cost $300 at first, then $200 a year. Around 10 or 20 licenses for each operating system and version, starting from DOS 3. Supported systems included Windows 8, 8 Pro, 8 Enterprise, Windows 7 Home, 7 Pro, 7 Ultimate, etc. These were intended for internal testing within your development environment. Not for resale. However, selling them at $25 each would generate a profit. But Microsoft understood that using the same license key across different locations—Boston, Budapest, Boca Raton, Beaverton—was not authorized for your company or internal use. The system was disabled instantly.
Had several colleagues who also used their MSDN/Technet licenses on personal devices.
I had the chance to inform the last three license holders about the discontinuation. Probably they didn’t realize we were actually correcting something, so we ended up paying twice. It was always entertaining when we found some old Windows servers still in use. It’s surprising how many people keep their systems running, spin them up for emergencies, and then leave them idle for years.