Most vendors offer special discounted pricing to accredited higher education institutions, and sometimes to their faculty and students as well. Some software is developed and sold solely to the educational market and, therefore, already priced low and never discounted.
Some software is completely free when used for educational purposes.
Volume pricing The price per copy is often lower when you buy more than one copy and it goes further down at certain increments. Sometimes it costs less to buy 10 copies than to buy 8. An unlimited number of copies can be installed and may be running within one site. The site can determined as one campus, one building, one department, or one lab. A specified number of seats or licenses can be installed on campus computers.