The short answer
Each PC needs its own licence — we explain why in how many PCs one Windows 11 Pro licence covers. After that, the right way to buy depends mostly on how many machines you have.
| Machines | How to buy |
|---|---|
| 2 to 9 PCs | Windows 11 Pro (1 PC), with the quantity set to the number of machines. One order, one invoice, one key per PC. |
| 10 to 200 PCs | Our bulk licence listing, sold in packs from 10 units. Keys arrive as a spreadsheet within 24–48 hours. |
| More than 200, or a centrally managed fleet | Talk to us first. At this scale, how you image and manage the machines usually decides the licensing, not the other way round. |
Most small businesses sit in the first row: a handful of desktops, a couple of laptops, perhaps a reception PC. For them, the simplest route is also the right one.
Order several licences in one basket
Pick the number of PCs you are licensing. The total updates from the live price, and the button puts that many Windows 11 Pro licences straight into your basket.
One genuine retail key per PC, a PDF tax invoice for the whole order, and UK-based support seven days a week. Licensing ten or more? Use the bulk listing instead.
Add 3 licences to basketIf you prefer to do it the usual way, open the Windows 11 Pro product page and change the quantity before adding it to your basket. The result is identical.
What arrives when you order several
A multi-PC order is just several copies of the same licence, so everything that applies to one applies to each of them.
- A separate key for every PC. Each key activates one machine. None of them are shared, and none of them depend on the others.
- Email delivery. Keys for an order from the product page are emailed, normally within a minute of payment. Bulk packs from the bulk listing take 24–48 hours and arrive as a spreadsheet by secure transfer.
- A PDF tax invoice. One invoice covers the whole order, which is what your accounts and any audit trail will want.
- Retail licences. Each key can move to a replacement PC when the original is retired, as long as Windows is removed from the old machine first. Our guide to transferring a Windows licence covers how.
- Our lifetime warranty. If a key ever stops working, we replace it free of charge.
Get in touch before doing anything else, and do not buy another key to replace it. Activation errors often look like a faulty key when they are not — a dropped connection or a key typed into the wrong edition can produce the same message. Send us the order number and a screenshot of the error and we will sort it out.
Keep a simple licence register
The most common licensing problem in a small business is not buying the wrong thing. It is not knowing, two years later, which key went on which machine. Our deployment guide lists it among the usual rollout mistakes, and it costs nothing to avoid. A spreadsheet with four columns is enough:
| Column | What to record |
|---|---|
| Machine | Device name, plus who uses it or where it sits |
| Key | The full key, kept in a file only you and your IT contact can open |
| Activated | The date Windows was activated on that machine |
| Purchase | Order number and invoice, so you can prove where the licence came from |
When a PC is replaced, update its row rather than adding a new one: the licence has moved, not multiplied. To confirm a machine is properly activated before you record it, see how to check Windows 11 is genuine and activated.
How many machines, which of them already run Windows 11 Home or Pro, and whether any are being replaced rather than upgraded. That is usually enough for us to confirm the licence count and flag anything that would cause a problem, before you order.
Is Pro the right edition for every machine?
For a business, usually yes. Pro adds the things a shared office tends to need: joining a domain or Microsoft Entra ID, BitLocker with recovery-key control, Group Policy and Remote Desktop hosting. A PC that will only ever browse the web and run email can manage on Home, and our Home vs Pro comparison will tell you quickly. Mixing the two in one order is fine — they are separate products in the same basket.
If you are wondering whether a business needs more than Pro, our comparison of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise covers where that line falls.
When individual keys stop being the answer
Buying a key for each PC works well for as long as someone is setting each machine up by hand. It becomes the wrong tool once you are imaging machines, enrolling them in Windows Autopilot or managing them centrally through Intune. At that point the deployment method shapes the licensing, and volume activation starts to make sense. Microsoft’s KMS route, for example, will not activate anything until at least 25 Windows client machines are checking in to it.
If that describes you, start with our guide to deploying Windows 11 across multiple PCs, and the licensing glossary if the terms get in the way. If you are buying for a business and want reassurance about where discounted licences come from, we have written about the legality of reselling Microsoft licence keys in the UK.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Set the quantity on the Windows 11 Pro product page to the number of PCs you are licensing, or use the order panel above. Each licence comes with its own key, and the whole order is covered by one invoice.
Yes. A Windows 11 Pro licence covers one device at a time, so five PCs need five keys. Using one key on several machines will fail activation, typically with error 0xC004C008.
Yes. Every order comes with a PDF tax invoice covering all the licences on it. Keep it with your licence register so you can show where each key came from.
For ten or more machines, our bulk licence listing sells keys in packs of 10, 25, 50 and upwards. For fewer than ten, buy the single-PC licence with the quantity set to the number you need.
Yes. They are separate products, so add each to the same basket in the quantity you need. Most business machines are better on Pro, but a PC used only for browsing and email can run Home.
Contact our UK support team with the order number and a screenshot of the error. Many activation errors have harmless causes, and if a key is genuinely at fault, our lifetime warranty replaces it free of charge.
Yes. These are retail licences, so each one can move to a replacement PC once Windows has been removed from the old machine. Update your licence register so the key stays matched to the right device.
Gary Walsh is the Head of Tech Support at Software Supplies, with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Fully Microsoft-certified and experienced across the full business software stack — from Windows and Office to cloud infrastructure and device management — Gary delivers practical, no-nonsense advice that helps users and businesses get the most from their technology.
