We sell genuine Microsoft licenses — and only that.

We've been buying, auditing and reselling Microsoft volume licensing since 2014. After a decade inside SAM consultancies watching small businesses overpay Microsoft list price by 4–6×, we built LicenseVault as a direct-to-buyer alternative — fully legal under EU exhaustion of rights (UsedSoft v. Oracle, C-128/11), and backed by a lifetime activation guarantee on every product key.

• 120,000+

  Orders shipped since 2014

• 60+

  Countries served

• 4 min

  Median payment → inbox

• 4.9 / 5

  Verified buyer rating

The 30-second version

• Founded: 2014, by former EU SAM consultants.
• Catalog: ~40 SKUs across Windows, Office, Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio, Project, Visio, Microsoft 365.
• Customers: 120,000+ orders shipped to 60+ countries.
• Rating: 4.9/5 across verified buyers (see reviews).
• Median delivery: 4 minutes from payment to inbox.
• Median support reply: < 2 hours, 24/7.
• Guarantee: lifetime replacement on every key.

How we got here

1. 2014

   Founded by three SAM consultants

   After years of running license audits for mid-market EU companies, we kept seeing the same thing: unused volume entitlements sitting on a shelf while the same company bought fresh retail seats. LicenseVault started as a way to move those entitlements to buyers who needed them.

2. 2017

   Automated fulfilment goes live

   Manual key dispatch was replaced by an automated vault that verifies, releases and logs every key. Median delivery dropped from six hours to under ten minutes, and it has stayed there ever since.

3. 2020

   Remote-work surge and the 24/7 support rotation

   Demand for Office and Microsoft 365 tripled in eight weeks. We moved support to a three-timezone rotation (CET, EST, JST) so nobody waits overnight for an activation fix.

4. 2023

   Server, SQL and developer catalog

   Windows Server 2022, SQL Server, Visual Studio and CAL bundles were added for IT teams, with staged delivery and CSV key exports for larger deployments.

5. 2026

   Multilingual knowledge base and buyer tooling

   Comparison matrices, guides, glossaries and answer pages in six languages — because most licensing mistakes happen before checkout, not after.

What we stand for

• Provenance over price

  Every batch has a paper trail back to the original EU buyer. If we can't document where a key came from, we don't list it — even when the margin is good.

• Written guarantees

  Lifetime replacement, 14-day refund and VAT invoicing are contract terms, not marketing lines. They're in the order confirmation you receive.

• Humans answer tickets

  No chatbots, no scripted offshore queues. The person replying to your activation error has deployed the same product themselves.

• Legality first

  We operate strictly inside the EU exhaustion-of-rights doctrine and refuse the categories — OEM-transfers, NFR, academic-for-commercial — that get buyers revoked.

• Longer device lifecycles

  An affordable Windows 11 Pro upgrade keeps a working PC out of landfill for another three years. Resale is quietly one of IT's best sustainability levers.

• Data minimalism

  We store an order, an email and an invoice. No behavioural profiles, no ad-network pixels, no marketing email unless you ask for it.

What we sell

Genuine perpetual licenses for Windows 10/11, Windows Server 2022/2025, Office 2019/2021/2024, SQL Server 2019/2022/2025, Visual Studio 2022/2025, Project, Visio, plus Microsoft 365 Family and Business subscriptions. Every product page lists the exact edition, supported activation method and expected delivery time. If you're not sure which edition fits, the side-by-side comparisons and buying guides walk you through it.

What we don't sell

No OEM-bound-to-other-hardware keys. No academic NFR for commercial use. No "lifetime Microsoft 365" subscriptions (those are scams — Microsoft 365 is, by definition, a subscription). No antivirus, no bundled junk, no "PC optimizer" upsells. If we wouldn't deploy it on our own machines, we don't list it.

How a key gets onto the site

1. 11

   Source

   We buy surplus volume licensing batches from EU/EEA businesses winding down, consolidating, or migrating to cloud subscriptions.

2. 22

   Audit

   Every batch is reviewed against Microsoft's Volume Licensing Service Center records and the seller's original Microsoft Product Terms agreement.

3. 33

   Decommission

   The seller signs a binding declaration that the corresponding copies have been removed from their estate — the requirement set by the CJEU in UsedSoft.

4. 44

   Test

   A random sample of each batch is test-activated against Microsoft's servers before any key goes live in the catalog.

5. 55

   Vault

   Keys are encrypted at rest and released only by the fulfilment system at the moment payment clears — never stored in a spreadsheet or an inbox.

6. 66

   Deliver

   The key, the official Microsoft installer link and a product-specific setup PDF land in your inbox, usually inside four minutes.

How we operate

Orders are delivered digitally to your email within minutes, 24/7, through an automated fulfillment system. Support runs on a global rotation so you get a real human reply within a few hours regardless of timezone. We don't use chatbots, off-shore call-center scripts, or outsourced ticket queues.

The legal basis, in plain English

In 2012 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in UsedSoft GmbH v. Oracle International Corp. (Case C-128/11) that once a software copy has been lawfully sold inside the EU by the rightholder, the distribution right over that copy is exhausted — the buyer may resell it, even if the original license forbids it. The ruling has been repeatedly upheld and clarified for SaaS, downloads and volume agreements. We operate inside that doctrine: we only buy and resell keys whose first sale happened inside the EU/EEA, and we require the original buyer to certify decommissioning.

Sustainability angle

Every resold license is one fewer license Microsoft has to manufacture from a marketing budget. It's also one less reason for a buyer to keep an old PC on Windows 7 because they can't afford a Windows 11 upgrade at retail prices. Pre-owned software extends device lifecycles — which is, quietly, one of the most leveraged things you can do for IT sustainability.

How to reach us

Support: support@licensevault.net (24/7, < 2h median).
Sales / volume: sales@licensevault.net.
Press / partnerships: press@licensevault.net.

Frequently asked

Who runs LicenseVault?

LicenseVault is operated by a small, fully remote team of long-time Microsoft licensing specialists, formerly working with SAM (Software Asset Management) consultancies in the EU. We sell exclusively genuine, sourced-from-volume-channels Microsoft product keys and Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

Are the licenses genuine?

Yes. Every key activates against Microsoft's activation servers and is backed by a lifetime replacement guarantee. If a key ever fails activation, we replace it free of charge for as long as the product is supported by Microsoft.

Where do the licenses come from?

We source surplus volume keys (MAK, NFR, retail-channel) within the EU single market — the same exhaustion-of-rights doctrine confirmed by the EU Court of Justice in UsedSoft v. Oracle (Case C-128/11) that allows the legal resale of pre-owned software licenses.

Where are you located?

Our support team operates from the EU and serves customers worldwide. All transactions are processed in EUR.

Is buying pre-owned software legal?

Yes — within the EU/EEA, the Court of Justice ruling in UsedSoft v. Oracle (C-128/11, 2012) and the follow-up Microsoft v. Software Inc. cases confirmed that the right of distribution is exhausted after the first lawful sale inside the single market. The original buyer is required to make their copy unusable before resale, which is precisely what our audit process verifies.

How is this different from a 'cheap keys' site?

Grey-market sites typically resell MSDN, NFR, education or region-locked keys outside their licensed scope — which Microsoft can and does revoke. We only purchase and resell volume keys that are valid for commercial resale under EU exhaustion, with a paper trail for every batch.

Do you issue VAT invoices?

Yes. Every order receives a EUR invoice with our VAT number, suitable for business expense and B2B reverse-charge accounting in the EU.

Do you support enterprise / volume buyers?

Yes. For 25+ seats or any combination of Windows Server, SQL Server, Microsoft 365 Business, or Visual Studio Professional, email sales@licensevault.net for a custom quote, invoice and (where applicable) staged delivery.