What not to go looking for
Sourcing a cheap windows 11 key and not getting ripped off is hard! There are plenty of scammers out there ready to take your money and not reply when you contact them to complain about your faulty key. Don't worry, we've had plenty of those experiences before so we've done the hard work for you so you can buy your keys with a peace of mind.
OEM keys
When you're looking to buy a cheap windows 11 key, don't opt for an OEM key. They're probably the most popular form of cheap key that you can get. However, they are not for individual sale! These keys are for manufacturers who are building computers and activating them in bulk. Whoever is reselling them probably has a manufacturer contract with Microsoft and is selling them illegally. When Microsoft finds out that this is the case and revokes their license then your key could potentially stop working. Even if it doesn't, if you run and business and happen to find yourself in the middle of a piracy audit, it's easy for software compliance teams to look these codes up on Microsoft servers and find out it was sourced illegally. Potentially leaving you out of pocket with huge fines.
MaK volume keys
Business can get a hold of a volume license that allows them to generate a bunch of licenses for cheap, the catch of this contract is that the computers you're activating need to be owned by the business with the volume license. Sometimes businesses will do a dodgy and sell these licenses for cheap. You'll find that using one of these keys comes with the same downfalls as using an OEM key.
Retail keys
These are the keys you're after. These were intended by Microsoft to be for individual sale. You also don't necessarily need to make sure that you're buying the key for an authorized dealer. If it displays as retail then that's good enough for the courts as the resale of these keys is protected by First-Sale doctrine.
Piracy
We recommend against piracy. It comes with a lot of the same issues as using a non genuine Windows license key. It's particularly problematic if you run a business. On the other hand, there is also a major risk of malware when pirating your copy of Windows. The scripts that are used to illegally activate windows often trigger as a malware threat. Obviously because Microsoft doesn't want you using these but these does leave you open to a major threat. An actual virus. There's nothing stopping distributors of these scripts from modifying it and adding malware on top. You should definitely stay away from going down this route. It's not worth all the headaches.
ebay & Amazon
While it is possible to get a key from these sites that work. It's often impossible to decipher what type of key you're being sold. They don't seem to mention in the product descriptions whether the key is OEM, Volume or Retail. Even if they do say it's retail, they'll decide to send you a dodgy OEM key anyway. Relying on your naivety and assuming you don't know how to tell the difference. These sellers don't care anyway because selling these keys is against eBay's or Amazons terms of service and they usually get banned after a few days, then need to make a new account. If you need to determine what type of key you have you can use ShowKeyPlus on the Microsoft store.
Google Shopping
We've used plenty of sites from Google shopping. Some work, others send faulty keys and their customer service don't reply. Sometimes you won't even receive a key at all or you're left waiting days for it to arrive. Unless they're using a trustworthy payment processor it can be a headache to get a charge back on one of these sites.
Kinguin
This is one of many big sites that are known for selling cheap game and software license keys. Though, there's one problem with this site and others like it and that's the fact that the site is a marketplace for smaller sellers. They rely on individual sellers for their profits and take a small percentage from each sale. This business model leaves them open to the same downfalls as platforms like eBay and Amazon. Sometimes a seller will sell a bunch of faulty keys and run. They even have the cheek to try to charge you insurance on your order. Like you aren't already entitled to a refund by consumer law if the product is faulty? I don't know what they're thinking there. I think they mean that Kinguin themselves will foot the bill if the key is faulty and provide you with credit to order another. You know, because technically they're a marketplace. Technically you are entitled to a refund without their insurance if the key is faulty but good luck chasing that up with the seller that has taken your money and ran.
Digital Chill Mart
This by far is our favorite seller in the Windows license key space. Their business is focused towards providing cheap windows keys that are all retail! If the key doesn't work (which has never happened to us) they will happily provide you with a refund or replacement according to their terms and conditions (without having to buy 'insurance'). They are also cheaper than Kinguin, the keys get sent instantly to your email after purchasing and the customer service is actually responsive. They are definitely the place to go if you're after a cheap windows 11 key.
