Frequently Asked Questions

For in-stock items paid for with PayPal, Skrill, credit/debit card, Sofort or Paysafecard, your key is available instantly on Autokey the moment your payment confirms — usually within seconds.

A few exceptions:

• Bank Transfer — processed manually once your payment arrives in our account, usually within one working day.
• Bitcoin & other cryptocurrencies — keys are released as soon as the network confirms the payment (typically 10–30 minutes for Bitcoin; faster for most altcoins).
• Pre-orders — keys are released approximately 2 days before the game's global release date.
• Risk-flagged orders — first-time customers with mismatched address / payment details may be asked to complete a quick SMS or phone verification first. This is rare and usually clears within a couple of hours.

Autokey is the name of the unique digital delivery system that CJS‑CDKeys.com built and uses to dispatch items to customers. CJS are proud to be the original designers and creators of the Autokey system — an online system which allows customers to collect their purchased codes with ease.

No. Our system does not generate the codes — it simply stores them and dispatches them to customers as required. When you collect a code from Autokey, it grabs a key from our stock, assigns it to your order, and displays it to you. Autokey purely distributes activation codes from purchased stock held within our fulfilment systems.

CJS CD Keys have taken care to design the Autokey system in a way that is as easy as possible for the customer to use.

Immediately after your payment, you will be redirected from the payment screen back to our website, where you will see an order confirmation. To collect your purchased code(s), simply go to your Order Status page and click the "Collect on Autokey" button.

If your order is marked as Awaiting Fulfilment it means your order is ready for collection on Autokey. If your order is marked as Shipped, Autokey has already dispatched the code to your email and you are free to go back to view your code on the Autokey page as many times as you wish.

This is normal. We ship our game pre-orders approximately 2 days before the global release date of the game. When the game arrives in stock and is uploaded to Autokey, you will receive an email notification.

We strive to keep all games in stock at all times, but in the rare event that Autokey is out of stock, keys will generally be re-stocked within approximately 12 hours. Please be patient — you will receive an email once the key is available.

If your order has been flagged as suspicious by our risk checks, our staff will manually approve your order. We will normally approve your order within around 2 hours. Keys paid for via Skrill or PayPal are usually approved instantly.

In rare cases this can happen due to a temporary sync issue between the publisher's activation servers and the platform you're activating on. Please wait a few minutes and try again.

If the issue persists, please open a support ticket with your CJS Order ID and a screenshot of the error message. Our team will investigate immediately and either provide a working replacement key or issue a full refund.

1. Open the Steam client (download it from steampowered.com if you don't have it).
2. Sign in to your Steam account.
3. Click Games in the top menu, then choose Activate a Product on Steam…
4. Follow the prompts and paste in your key when asked.
5. The game will appear in your Steam library, ready to install.

You can also activate a key directly at store.steampowered.com/account/registerkey.

1. Download and install the EA app from ea.com (it has replaced the old Origin client).
2. Sign in with your EA account.
3. Click your profile icon in the top-right → Redeem Code.
4. Enter your activation key and click Next.
5. The game will be added to your library, ready to download.

1. Visit microsoft.com/redeem — or open the Microsoft Store app on Xbox or Windows and choose Redeem code from the menu.
2. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
3. Enter the 25-character code exactly as it appears.
4. The game or item will be added to your library / account.

1. Sign in to your PlayStation account at playstation.com — or directly on your PS4 / PS5 console.
2. Open the PlayStation Store and scroll to the bottom of the menu, then choose Redeem Codes.
3. Enter the 12-character voucher code.
4. The content will be added to your account, ready to download.

Region information is clearly displayed on every product page before you buy. Most of our keys are Global (activate worldwide), but some are restricted to specific regions such as EU, North America, or RU/CIS, depending on how the publisher distributes that title.

If the product page says Region Free or Global, the key will work anywhere. If it lists a specific region, you'll need to activate from within that region — for Steam keys, this usually means your Steam account region must match.

If you're unsure whether a key is right for your region, please contact us before buying and we'll be happy to confirm.

This is a normal order status that will occur immediately after you make the payment. Simply go to our Autokey system and attempt to collect your key.

This usually means that your payment did not arrive. However, if you paid via Bank Transfer or Bitcoin, our staff will manually set your order to Shipped once your payment arrives in our account.

This order status flags to our staff that the game you ordered needs to be manually packed or emailed. You will get an "Awaiting Pickup" status if your key is due to be manually emailed by our staff, or if you bought a physical game that is to be sent via the mail.

If you pay with Store Credit your order will automatically go to "Awaiting Pickup" and our team will email you the code within around 2 hours in most cases.

This means that your key has been manually emailed to you. If you bought a physical game, it means the item has been shipped and you must now wait for the item to arrive in the physical mail.

This order status signifies that your order is collectable on Autokey. In most cases you will be able to collect the key on Autokey straight away.

If you're a first-time customer and your PayPal / Skrill account address is mismatched against your CJS account information, you may be required to complete a simple telephone or SMS verification before you can get your key. Just follow the simple instructions that our Autokey system gives you to retrieve your key with ease.

This order status signifies that your order has been cancelled by CJS CD Keys upon your request, or because the payment did not process properly.

This order status signifies that there was an error processing your payment. It usually occurs if you abort the payment process half-way through. If your order status is "Incomplete" then no money has been taken from you.

This order status signifies that the order could not be approved by our payment or risk checks, and you have been refunded in full. If you get this order status but believe this to be in error, please contact us via our support ticket system for assistance.

This order status signifies that your order was refunded to you in full via Store Credit, PayPal, Skrill or Bank Transfer.

This is normal. We do not email the keys. You can instantly collect your activation code via our Autokey system.

This is normal. As soon as the money arrives, your order status will be marked as Shipped and you will be sent the key. Orders paid for with Bank Transfer are manually emailed to customers.

This can be caused if you paid with a mismatching PayPal email address. If you have completed a PayPal payment but your order status is still Awaiting Payment, your order may not have tracked properly. Please contact us with your order ID and let us know that you don't think the PayPal order tracked properly — one of our staff will manually approve your order for you.

This is normal. Please email [email protected] with your order ID and we will manually email the key for you.

We accept the following payment methods:

• PayPal
• Credit Card
• Debit Card
• Sofort
• Skrill Balance
• Paysafecard
• Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Zcash, Litecoin, DASH, and more

Unlike our competitors, we do not charge any payment fees, regardless of which payment method you choose to use.

To benefit from the best exchange rates, we do recommend purchasing with credit or debit card, as PayPal are known to overcharge on exchange rates.

Yes. If you have not yet collected your key on Autokey, we can refund your order in full at any time — just contact our support team with your order ID.

If you've already collected the key, refunds are still possible in cases such as:

• The key is faulty, already used, or invalid
• The key is for the wrong region and this wasn't clearly stated on the product page
• You haven't activated or used the key, and there's a genuine reason for the request

Please open a support ticket and our team will look at your case individually. We always aim to resolve every order fairly.

A few reasons:

• No physical inventory. Every product we sell is purely digital, so there's no warehousing, packaging, or shipping cost built into the price.
• Lean operation. We've been running since 2009 and built our own in-house systems (including Autokey), which keeps our overheads low and lets us pass the savings on to customers.
• International distribution channels. We work with established suppliers and distribution partners around the world, which lets us source keys at competitive wholesale prices.
• No platform tax. Official stores like Steam build their own platform fees into their retail prices. As a third-party retailer, we don't have to.

Every key we sell is genuine, brand new and unused — the only difference is the price.

Yes — your payment details are never stored on our servers.

All payments are processed directly by trusted, PCI-DSS compliant third-party providers (PayPal, Skrill, Stripe and others, depending on the method you choose). When you enter your card details, you're entering them on the payment provider's secure form, not ours.

Our entire site is served over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate, so all data sent between your browser and our website is encrypted.

Our company works with established suppliers and distribution partners to offer competitive pricing across a wide range of digital products. Any activation or regional requirements are clearly stated on the relevant product page before purchase.

You can read more about our company on our About Us page.

Yes. A CD key is a software licence — your right to activate and use a game or program — and buying or reselling a lawfully obtained licence is legal. Every key activates directly with the official platform it belongs to, such as Steam, EA, Xbox or PlayStation.

For a fuller explanation, please read our Buying With Confidence information page.

No. We source our products through established suppliers and distribution channels, and every order passes through fraud and risk checks before a key is released. Our goal is simple: a genuine, working key, delivered to a genuine customer, every time.

To learn more, please read our Buying With Confidence information page.

We usually respond to emails within 5–10 minutes. However, if you email us while the office is closed it can take up to a few hours for our staff to reply.