Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus for just $7.48. Real or Fake?
We’ve seen thousands of ads offering ridiculously low prices on products such as Microsoft Office 2021 Professional. Firstly, we are not in the business of illegitimate software. Secondly, we always just assumed they were scams! We’ve seen plenty of reputable sites pubishing articles about MS Office 2021 for $40 or 2 for $80. Genuine Office 2021 from Microsoft.com is $400 to $600 depending on the version you get. But $7.48? That just seemed ridiculous!
We assumed it was just a scam. But our curiousity got the better of us. Was it legit or was there a catch?
We couldn’t resist finding out. So we bought it! Not just one but 3 copies – just to triple check it!
In examining the purchase, installation, activation and licensing checks, we sepcifically wanted to know :
- Was this just a scam to get our credit card details?
- Was it just a scam to get our email address etc?
- How would we download the software and would it be filled with malware?
- How long would it take to get the license keys, if at all?
- Would the license keys actually work and complete the activation process?
- What type of license key would we receive? (OEM, Volume Licensing, Academic, Grace (trial) or the full Retail)
- How long would the keys work? (We bought & installed the keys 2 months ago).
We were convinced we would find a problem. Keep reading because the results might surprise you!
Who is selling Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021 So Cheap?
The product we chose to purchase and examine was Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus Bind CD Key Global from gamers-outlet.net.
We chose this product as it claims to bind (link) the MS Office 2021 license to your Microsoft Account.
Further, they claimed that the installation files could be downloaded directly from Microsoft via https://setup.office.com/
In downloading it directly from Microsoft, would mean that question 3 above would be confirmed as a safe download and we wouldn’t be required to download it from a 3rd party where it might be hacked and filled with malware.
Note: the product we reviewed below is advertised as NOT for MacBook users. It is for Windows users only. Other versions for Macbook are available. You can see on the Gamers Outlet website.
A little bit of the background checking we did.
We also did a little research on them. They claim to be a US company, operating from Massachusetts in the USA. So we thought that is good – they would obviously subject to the US laws on piracy etc.
Secondly, we did a little Google searching on them. Whilst we came accross a few people that had a problem, most said that any problems were quickly resolved. An example of what we looked at was here at reddit.com. We found it interesting that the claimed owner of gamers-outlet.net, was participating in this thread!
We did not find any major red flags about them.
Payment – Did they just want our credit card details?
Well – interestingly – NO. We paid via Paypal so they never got to see our credit card details. The PayPal payment went through as per normal and the correct amount was charged to our PayPal account. So question 1 about was it just a scam to get our credit card was answered – No.
How long did it take to get our MS Office Professional 2021 License Keys?
In the first minute or two, we did not get the email confirmation of our order and thought there might be a problem.
However, as soon as we went back into our order history on the Gamers Outlet website, there was an icon to download the product key. So we clicked on it and it didn’t download, it simply revealed the license key! By the time we checked the email again, the emailed order confirmation with a link to the license keys was in our inbox.
So for our question 4 about how long would it take to receive the license keys, the answer was almost instantaneous – within 1 or 2 minutes we had the key.
Below is the image below, shoing the 3 licence keys ready to download. At first we purchased just on copy, after installing it, we went back to get another 2 copies so we could triple check our review.
How did we download MS Office 2021 Professional?
As stated in the product description, one of the main reasons we chose this product was it offered download directly from Microsoft at https://setup.office.com/ . There was no way would download a potentially hacked version filled with malware from a 3rd party.
So once on setup.office.com, we entered in our Microsoft Account login details.
We were then asked to provide our license key. So we simply copied the key from our account in the Gamers Outlet website and pasted it into Microsoft website. Immediately, their website identified the license key correctly and offered us the download of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2021. We simply proceeded by following the prompts and downloaded & installed the new office suite.
Did the product keys bind (or link) to our Microsoft Account?
Yes they did. We got emails directly from Microsoft confirming that we had placed an order from Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus for $0 (we already paid Gamers Outlet, so this is correct – no money to Microsoft). In the emails from Microsoft, the license keys were also included and they were a direct match to those given to us from Gamers Outlet.
In our Microsoft Account order history, the 3 orders we placed for MS Office 2021 are correctly binded ((linked) to our Microsoft Account. This is important as if we somehow lost the license keys, all we need is our Microsoft Account.
Did the license keys activate MS Office 2021?
Yes. On each computer after the setup.office.com installation was completed, we simply opened Microsoft Word 2021. In the bottom left, we clicked on “Account” and the product version and licensing screen opens. There was a yellow box showing advising that the product need to be activated. From memory, we just clicked on it. Within a few seconds, the yellow box was gone. So that answers our question 5 about will the product keys actually activate. Yes and all 3 copies we tried all activated online without issue.
We also then clicked on “Update” to install the latest versions.
So what type of MS Office Pro 2021 license did we actually get?
Well, this step took quite a bit longer to resolve. Partly because the computers we installed the software on already had previous versions of Office 2010 and the bundled but not activated Microsoft Office 365 installed on them.
All 3 installations of MS Office Pro 2021 were installed on PCs running Windows 11 (22h2). 2 had Windows 11 Pro and 1 had Windows 11 home.
When trying to work this out, it became clear that Office 2021 Pro installs into the same directory as Office 365. They install into the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\ We can only assume that it is just somehow the license key which unlocks Office 365 or Office 2021.
Our first attempt to view the MS Office Pro 2021 license keys failed.
In the command prompt as an administrator, we ran the following command as our installation was the 64bit version:
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatusIn examing the results (as seen in image below) we kept seeing a message about “grace period expired” and the license type as a “Grace Edition” (aka a trial version). At this stage, we honestly thought “OK, here is the problem! Too cheap to be true”. But on closer inspection, we realised that the last 5 digits of the product key the OSPP.VBS command above was displaying was not correct! This was indeed the product key for the bundled/pre-installed version of Office 365 that was on our PCs.
So whilst at first we were thinking we had been duped with a bad license key, we were then confused as to why our MS Office 2021 Pro Edition was installed and activated on our computers and correctly appearing in our Microsoft Account but we couldn’t find the correct license key (or type) on our computer.
So we eventually tried a different method using Windows 11 built in Powershell.
We did this by again, opening a command prompt in administrator mode and issuing the following 3 commands.
cd\
cd Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16
powershell -ep unrestricted -nop -c “iex .\vNextDiag.ps1"This time, we got a different result. Lo and behold, there was the Office 2021 installation revealing what type of license key we actually received.
In our original list of questions, we wanted to know what type of license key we actually got from Gamers Outlet. Was it OEM, Volume Licensing, Academic, Grace (trial) or the full Retail key.
As per the image below, Powershell revealed that we received the full “retail” key meaning that the MS Office Pro 2021 installation can be moved to another PC later if we wish. Further, it means it is not a grace or trial version, not an academic key with usage restrictions and it does not appear to be something from a dubious grey market scam.
The other important revelation was that the key is shown as “Perpetual”. This means it does not expire and that no additional licensing fees will need to be paid. You can see the entitlement expiration is shown as the year 9999!
How long would the license keys last?
Well we have assumed that if there is a problem with the legitimacy of the Office license keys provided to us by Gamers Outlet, that after installing and activating them, then at some stage Microsoft would act and de-activate them.
Well, it has now been 2 months since we installed and activated the 3 copies of MS Office Pro 2021 on 3 different computers (installed in April 2023). We are pleasantly surprised that all 3 versions are working perfectly well. We have not had any issues with the monthly license refreshes , nor have we had any issues with receiving updates from Microsoft. Additionally, 2 months later, the products are still linked/binded to our Microsoft Account.
Summary & Conclusion
We honestly thought we would find a problem in the purchase of MS Office Pro Plus 2021 for just $7.48. It just seemed like an offer “too good to be true”. I am not sure how we would have written this article had we exposed it as a scam.
Our original 7 questions we wanted to confirm are as below and our findings are highlighted in red:
- Was this just a scam to get our credit card details?
- No. We paid via PayPal and they never saw our credit card details.
- Was it just a scam to get our email address etc?
- No. We got what we paid for and have not seen any evidence of an increase in email spam etc.
- How would we download the software and would it be filled with malware?
- We downloaded it directly from Microsoft. So there is no malware etc in the software.
- How long would it take to get the license keys, if at all?
- Within 1 to 2 minutes, our license keys were available to us (in plain text with no risky zip downloads etc)
- Would the license keys actually work and complete the activation process?
- Yes. All 3 installations completed online activation without issue or delay.
- What type of license key would we receive? (OEM, Volume Licensing, Academic, Grace (trial) or the full Retail)
- We got the full and important Retail license keys for all 3 purchases. All 3 are also confirmed as Perpetual (ie lifetime)
- How long would the keys work? (We bought & installed the keys 2 months ago).
- It has now been 2 months since we installed MS Office 2021 Pro, and all 3 installations are working perfectly fine.
So was it Real or Fake?
As you can see from our detailed review and screenshots etc, we were unable to to find any evidence at all of it being fake. We can only conclude that to date, our 3 installations of MS Office Pro Plus 2021 is operating exactly as it should. From our invesstigatons, we can only conclude that we have received genuine retail perpetual license keys from Gamers Outlet for MS Office Pro 2021. We have to conclude that without any further evidence, all evidence collected leads to the conclusion of “Real“.
We started this investigation as true skeptics. We genuinely thought it was a scam of some sort and that we would have potentially been writing an article as a warning of a scam. However, after 3 installations 2 months ago, all evidence we gathered has shown that our scepticism was ill-founded. We have found nothing wrong in our investigation. How they get their licence keys so cheap, that question we cannot answer. Only Gamers Outlet knows that exact answer. All we can say is the license keys we got for $7.48 appear to be real.
If any new information is revealed to dispute this finding, we will certainly investigate it and post any updates back to this article.
Disclaimer
We chose to investigate this issue of our own free will and the decision to purchase the licenses was done exclusively of our own free will. We have not ever had any discussions with Gamers Outlet, Microsoft nor any 3rd parties about writing this review. In fact the first they will know of it, is after we have published it. We did not receive any money or any form of compensation to write this review. It is a totally 100% independant review that we initiated and conducted. As we have not been compensated in any way for this article and writing and documenting reviews/articles takes time to prepare, today we did decide to sign up to the Gamers Outlet affilliate program. We have done so, without informing them about the writing of this article. So if you choose to buy MS Office 2021 Pro from Gamers Outlet, please do so by visiting gamers-outlet.net with this link. By doing so, we may receive a small commission which helps us continue to provide top quality, honest, independent and free content to our users. And to be perfectly honest, a small % of $7.48 – we would need 100’s if not 1000’s of purchases just to cover the time involved in investigating, reviewing & publishing this article. So we don’t see that as any issue or conflict of interest. We do not make any representation either actual or implied about the experience other users or yourself may have with Gamers Outlet. Any decision you make to buy cheap license keys, whether it be from Gamers Outlet, or anywhere else, is of your own free doing and we accept no liability in any manner, shape of form at all. We have simply documented and reported on our own individual experience. We hope you enjoyed reading this article.
To buy MS Office Professional Plus 2021 for just $7.48, visit gamers-outlet.net. Direct link to product is here.
(Windows Users only as not suitable for MacBook. They apparently have other versions for MacBook. Details on the product link page above.)
To buy MS Office Professional 2021 from Microsoft, direct link to product is here
Our current understanding is that the Plus edition also includes OneNote and Microsoft Teams. Other than that they are the same.
If you would like to comment about your experiences with cheap MS Office Keys or with Gamers Outlet, you can do so comment below.
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