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Discounts on Office 2013 purchase

Discounts available for buying Office 2013

We’ve said it for years, when it comes to buying Microsoft Office never, ever, pay retail. There’s always discounts available for the same software and license.

Sadly and probably deliberately there’s few discounts available for buying Office 2013, as opposed to renting or ‘subscribing’ to Office 365.

Office 2013: the real startup guide has a chapter devoted to the Office 2013 buying/rental options and how to save money getting Office 2013.

If you hunt around you can save a few shekels on Office 2013. As usual, we used Amazon US as our main guide since their prices are consistently cheaper and, in this case, have a post-purchase credit offer not available elsewhere.  We also checked Best Buy who had almost full retail prices.  The ‘official’ Microsoft Store, as usual, had the worst prices charging full retail down to the cent.


PC Download vs PC Key Card

Amazon has two purchase options:

PC Download lets you get the product key right away and download the install software immediately.

PC Key Card – ships a card to you with the product key then you download and install the software.

Either way, the install software is downloaded. What you’re buying is the unique Product Key that enables the installation. The difference is how and how fast you get the Product Key.

Tip: until the PC Key card arrives, use the Office 2013 trial, Office Online or your previous version of Office.

You would think that PC Download was the cheapest to fulfill and therefore the cheaper option to buy, but no.


Office 2013 Home and Business

(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook) retails for $219.99 and that’s the ‘Best Buy‘ price. ‘Home and Business’ is the most common choice because it’s the cheapest bundle that includes Outlook.

http://img.office-watch.com/ow/Office%202013%20on%20Amazon%20April%202014%20-%201.png image from Discounts on Office 2013 purchase at Office-Watch.com

The PC Download option is only 99cents cheaper than the official price but there’s a ‘Promotional Credit’ worth $47 we’ll detail below.

But the PC Key Card choice also saves you about $47. If you can afford to wait for delivery then the PC Key Card option is cheaper without the hassles of using a credit on later purchases.


Office 2013 Home and Student edition

(Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) retails for US$139.99 and that’s the ‘Best Buy‘ price.

http://img.office-watch.com/ow/Office%202013%20on%20Amazon%20April%202014%20-%202.png image from Discounts on Office 2013 purchase at Office-Watch.com

As you can see, the PC Download option is only 99cents cheaper than the official price there’s a ‘Promotional Credit’ worth $25 we’ll detail below.

But the PC Key Card choice saves you about $30 and there’s cheaper options from Amazon sellers (though the sub-$100 offers are a concern and we’d be wary of them).


Office 2013 Professional

(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher) retails for $399.99 and, again, that’s the ‘Best Buy‘ price.

Over at Amazon the prices look like this:

http://img.office-watch.com/ow/Office%202013%20on%20Amazon%20April%202014%20-%203.png image from Discounts on Office 2013 purchase at Office-Watch.com

Again, PC Key Card is cheaper, this time by $104. PC Download is priced at $399 less a $75 Promotional Credit. PC Key Card is still cheaper even with the shopping credit.


Microsoft Promotional Credit

As you can see, for Office 2013 ‘Home and Student’ and ‘Home and Business’ bundles, the after purchase credit has the effect of making the PC Download option almost the same price as PC Key Card. For Office 2013 Professional PC Key Card is still cheaper even after the credit is considered.

The Amazon ‘Microsoft Promotional Credit’ has some conditions, not overly restrictive, but worth keeping in mind. The main ones are:



  • No ‘One click’. Do NOT use Amazon’s famous ‘One-Click’ option to purchase the PC Download product.
  • Use the ‘Buy and Download’ button.
  • The credit is automatically added to your Amazon account and will be deducted automatically from your next qualifying Amazon purchase.
  • The credit must be used before 1 June 2014.

As usual with these credit or ‘cash back’ offers, you’re better off getting the low price in the first place rather than messing with follow-up offers. If you’re sure that you’ll be buying things from Amazon between purchase and 1 June 2014 then this offer is worth considering.

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