"Cheap" Microsoft Office

Witterings

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I was searching for a "one off purchase" for Microsoft Office and came across a few sites like rapidlicenses.com, onbuy.com and gamekeydiscounter.co.uk that were selling product licence keys at heavily discounted prices for around £10/20.

Does anybody have any experience with these and are they genuine .... I heard something a few years ago that if a corporate bought a batch of licence's and weren't using them all they'd sell off the keys so they were totally genuine, is there any truth in this.

In essence would you use one and are there "better" sites to buy these licences from that are more likely to be genuine, if so if anybody could point me in the right direction would be apprciated?
 
Second hand keys are legal, but such sites have been shown many times in the past to sell whatever they can get their hands on, with lots of illegally obtained keys mixed in.

As far as I'm aware none of them have established a good reputation for transparency, so you can know what you're getting. I'd avoid the lot of them.
 
Both times I have bought discount keys (Windows 7 and Office 2016) they have been fine. Considering the cost of keys bought from Microsoft, I considered it worth the gamble.
Maybe go to Allkeyshop.com they have a selection of sites you can choose from
 
Both times I have bought discount keys (Windows 7 and Office 2016) they have been fine. Considering the cost of keys bought from Microsoft, I considered it worth the gamble.
Maybe go to Allkeyshop.com they have a selection of sites you can choose from

Cheers to EndlessWave and Greg Hook as well .... I must admit I'm tempted as I'm guessing the worst thing that happens is in 4 months it stops working and you just buy another key and update it.

Totally with you DavidG1 .... I think they just totally take the pi55 with their pricing for a 1 off purchase to try and force you into the pay monthly option which they know they'll extract more money from you over the longer term .. corporate greed!
You used to be able to buy Office 95 / 97 for about £90 and even approx 6 years ago bought home / student with 3 licenses for less than £100 which I didn't mind paying but they've cranked it up to around £350 for a single user licence .... bastards!!!!
 
Do you need cloud service for storage..?
365 for single use is £60 a year / family for £80 . Both I believe come with 1tb storage...that’s a good size for backing up everything
Always up to date with latest version and fixes etc.
If you’re a student it’s probably cheaper/free.
Might be worth a look at.
 
Do you need cloud service for storage..?
365 for single use is £60 a year / family for £80 . Both I believe come with 1tb storage...that’s a good size for backing up everything
Always up to date with latest version and fixes etc.
If you’re a student it’s probably cheaper/free.
Might be worth a look at.
Microsoft 365 (its been renamed this year for some reason) is a out the equivalent of £75 for five users here. Each gets 1TB of OneDrive. Not that bad for a family. You can spilt use and therefore cost with anyone - doesn’t have to be family
 
Cheers to EndlessWave and Greg Hook as well .... I must admit I'm tempted as I'm guessing the worst thing that happens is in 4 months it stops working and you just buy another key and update it.

The trouble with such industries where they're not picky about their suppliers is that criminals inevitably get involved. We've had evidence surface in the past about such sites being used to launder stolen credit cards:

but they've cranked it up to around £350 for a single user licence .... bastards!!!!

Office Home and Student 2019 runs to around £110, cheaper than it was in '97 considering the £ <> USD exchange rate then was much more favourable. It's Office Professional that's £350.

Office is cheap among professional software, look at Autodesk or Adobe CC pricing for comparison - both widely used across many industries.

If you only want it for occasional use that doesn't justify the price then have you considered alternatives?
 
Office 365 for five gets five installs for less than the price of home and student single installation. You don’t have to work online.

Unless you need Professional the single home and student install seems poor value nowadays?
 
Do you need cloud service for storage..?
365 for single use is £60 a year / family for £80 . Both I believe come with 1tb storage...that’s a good size for backing up everything
Always up to date with latest version and fixes etc.
If you’re a student it’s probably cheaper/free.
Might be worth a look at.


I had seen this was available ..... it's just a "me" thing but whether it's cars, sofa, mobile phone or anything really I'd rather just buy it and own it. My business can be very feast or famine so I like to keep monthly outgoings down to a minimum for the leaner periods.

The rental scheme as well, whilst it's "sold " to you as being in your best interest the reality is it's simply so they can extract more money from you ... I ran Office 95 for probably 10+ years at a cost of £100 whereas 10 x Microsoft 365 annual subscription at £60pa = £600 ... no wonder they want you to rent it.
 
If this is just for personal/home use and you don't need any special "Office" features, you can try LibreOffice which is free (opensource). I made the switch a few years ago and never missed anything from Office.
 
There’s quite a few free ones out there including office online. Most look very good.
I just upgraded to 365 family as everyone here runs an iPhone and the free iCloud storage is small. This way all of us can upload our pictures to the one drive and keep iCloud for apps and other stuff. £7 a month for backing up everything.. all my home pc’s to the cloud and having the latest office software, for me is a no brainier. But I understand buying something out right also has its pros. Good luck.
 
If this is just for personal/home use and you don't need any special "Office" features, you can try LibreOffice which is free (opensource). I made the switch a few years ago and never missed anything from Office.

I used to have an office and staff a few years back and ran my own Exchange Server but did switch over to Ofice 365 Busieness basics for £3.65 a month (per user) and I must admit it's been virtually faultless and e-mail is absolutley critical to my work.

I installed Libre on my dad's laptop as he's a very low user but it does have some compatability issues and don't feel I could use it for sending things to clients they may not be able to or have to "mess around" to get them to open.

The main things I use and are of crtical importance are a full version of Outlook (not a cut down like you get on a phone / tablet), Word to be compatable with all clients and over 20 years ago my Database (now PC not Server based) was writen in Access so need to be able to open / view /ammend it with updates / notes and add new clients / client contacts etc.

There’s quite a few free ones out there including office online. Most look very good.
I just upgraded to 365 family as everyone here runs an iPhone and the free iCloud storage is small. This way all of us can upload our pictures to the one drive and keep iCloud for apps and other stuff. £7 a month for backing up everything.. all my home pc’s to the cloud and having the latest office software, for me is a no brainier. But I understand buying something out right also has its pros. Good luck.

Whilst I'm fighting it I hate to say it this will probably be the way I'm forced to go and the back up / storage is appealing, I've got 2 kids at Uni (kids at 20 and 22 haha :) :) ) so they get it for free for now so again I don't really need the multi user ... although tehMrs can use it as well.

The Outlook that's with 365 ... is that a full stand alone version or is it the App version??
 
They are all full versions as far as I can see. (same as my work outlook) (Please check online though) And my son says the word etc versions are better than the online version he gets with school/college. I wanted office and cloud backup for personal use... now increased for the rest of family for photo backup etc. For the business I work for we also use office 365. All integrated into my personal iphone/home office pc. Swapping between the two seamless.
I can’t see me changing from this setup for the foreseeable future.
 
They are all full versions downloaded onto the device - plus access from any device via Office online.
 
HHHmmmm ... seems like it's getting close to decision time for me but a big thank you to everybody for all their help / input .... it's much appreciated!!!
 
HHHmmmm ... seems like it's getting close to decision time for me but a big thank you to everybody for all their help / input .... it's much appreciated!!!
Honestly just get a code from ebay for around £5.
I have bought a few for computers around the home over the last few years and no problems what so ever.
 
I bought my windows 10 pro key from amazon. £10. Worked great. Even when I changed/upgraded the pc and entered the key again it worked. :thumbsup:
 

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