Add llm-subscription-resale-markets research topic

InferHub case study: subscription-entitlement resale, free-tier account
farming, proxy-pooled credential fleets, and the cheapest-wins auction that
prices them. Four files: index, analysis, sources, next-steps.

Evidence is public and unauthenticated only: InferHub terms/privacy/docs and its
public API (/api/openapi.json, /api/pricing/config, /api/market,
/api/pricing/usage, /api/status), the npm @inferhub/helper package, CodeBuddy's
own pricing/subscription docs, mastumbas.id, and
code.claude.com/docs/en/legal-and-compliance.

llm-subscription-resale-markets/analysis.md

@@ -0,0 +1,368 @@
+---
+title: Analysis — LLM Subscription-Resale Markets
+description: Mechanism deep-dive for the InferHub case — supply tiers, credential pipeline, quota windows, egress pooling, auction pricing, measured volume, reliability and risk surface.
+status: active
+category: market
+tags: [inference-market, subscription-arbitrage, free-tier-farming, credential-resale, supply-chain, tos-risk]
+draft: true
+created: 2026-10-05
+updated: 2026-10-05
+---
+
+# Analysis — LLM Subscription-Resale Markets
+
+> Part of [[llm-subscription-resale-markets/index|LLM Subscription-Resale Markets]]
+
+All captures unauthenticated and public. Claims labelled **VERIFIED** (observed in a capture
+whose URL and UTC timestamp are recorded), **INFERRED** (reasoned — reasoning given), **UNKNOWN**.
+
+## 1. What the platform actually is
+
+**VERIFIED** — `inferhub.dev/terms` §2 (last updated 2026-10-02):
+
+> "The Service is a reverse proxy and marketplace that resells access to upstream LLM
+> subscription entitlements, including subscriptions accessed via OAuth (such as Claude and
+> Codex), API-key-based plans (such as Command Code), and coding plans offered by third parties
+> (such as z.ai GLM Coding Plan and OpenCode Go). Publishers attach their own authorized upstream
+> subscriptions; consumers call the Service through OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible endpoints
+> using an API key."
+
+It is a **two-sided market**: the platform owns no supply. Publishers list credentials; consumers
+deposit USDC and call an OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible API; the platform routes and takes 20%.
+
+**VERIFIED** — `GET /api/pricing/config` (public):
+
+```json
+{"maxAskPctOfOfficial":0.5,"platformFeePct":0.2,"publisherSharePct":80}
+```
+
+## 2. Supply: all 14 upstream families are subscriptions
+
+**VERIFIED** — `GET /api/market` (public, 200) carries a `family` per model. Complete list, with
+the model counts seen on the pricing page:
+
+| prefix | family | nature |
+|---|---|---|
+| `cc` | Claude Code | vendor subscription (OAuth) |
+| `cx` | OpenAI Codex | vendor subscription (OAuth) |
+| `zai` | Z.AI GLM Coding Plan | third-party coding plan |
+| `ocg` | OpenCode Go | third-party coding plan |
+| `cmc` | Command Code | API-key-based plan |
+| `cp` | ClinePass | third-party coding plan |
+| `cb` | CodeBuddy | coding-agent credits (Tencent) |
+| `cbcn` | CodeBuddy CN | coding-agent credits |
+| `ag` | Antigravity | Google free/IDE tier |
+| `ali` / `alicn` | Qwencloud/Alibaba (+CN) | cloud coding tier |
+| `mm` / `mmcn` | MiniMax (+CN) | coding tier |
+| `mimo` | Xiaomi MiMo | coding tier |
+
+Not one of them is a metered frontier API. This is the single most diagnostic fact about the
+business: **the gateway's supply is other people's flat-rate products.**
+
+## 3. Supply tier A — paid subscription arbitrage
+
+The arithmetic that produces the owner's headline number:
+
+`cc/claude-opus-5-5` in the market feed:
+
+```json
+{"slug":"cc/claude-opus-5-5","family":"Claude Code","minAskIn":0.796,"minAskOut":3.98,
+ "maxAskIn":2,"maxAskOut":10,"lastRate":0}
+```
+
+- Official reference: $4 /Mtok input.
+- Cheapest ask: **$0.796/Mtok = 80.1% off**.
+- Highest ask: **$2.00 = exactly the 50% cap.** The cap is a ceiling, not a floor.
+- `lastRate: 0` — the most recent settled rate on that slug was **zero**.
+
+**INFERRED (strong):** with a flat subscription already paid, a publisher's marginal cost per
+token is ~0, so any positive price is profit; the auction routes to the cheapest ask, so the
+rational publisher undercuts toward zero. The "80% discount" is therefore the *residual of a
+dumping auction*, not a purchase discount. It cannot be matched by any wholesale API deal,
+because the competitor's true cost is a sunk fee rather than a per-token price.
+
+## 4. Supply tier B — free-tier farming (the 99% rows)
+
+**VERIFIED** — InferHub's own public OpenAPI (`GET /api/openapi.json`, 138,946 bytes, 73 paths)
+documents bulk credential onboarding as a product feature. Quoted descriptions:
+
+- `POST /publisher/providers/antigravity/bulk` — *"Bulk-add Antigravity (Google) accounts from
+  refresh tokens. The body is the accounts payload itself… Each item needs a `refreshToken` (an
+  Antigravity access token lives about an hour, so the refresh token is the durable input);
+  `email` is optional and only names the row. Each account is refreshed for a live access token
+  and **onboarded onto a Cloud Code Assist project** before it is stored — accounts Google will
+  not onboard are reported as failures rather than saved."*
+- `POST /publisher/providers/codex/bulk` — same shape for Codex.
+- `POST /publisher/providers/codebuddy/refresh-tokens` — bulk OAuth refresh for CodeBuddy.
+- `POST /publisher/providers/recheck-bulk`, `GET /publisher/providers/invalid` — fleet-wide
+  credential health sweeps. The platform **expects credentials to die routinely**.
+- `GET /publisher/providers` — always paginated because *"a single publisher can own **six
+  figures of credentials**."*
+- `PATCH /publisher/providers/{id}/auto-reset-credit` — *"Toggle Codex auto reset-credit spend
+  (Codex only; **auto-spends real money**)."*
+- `GET /publisher/upstreams/{slug}/max-concurrent`, `.../schedule` — per-upstream concurrency and
+  scheduling.
+
+### 4.1 The vendor free tier being farmed
+
+**VERIFIED** — CodeBuddy (Tencent / "Buddy AI" international site), from its own pricing and
+subscription pages:
+
+| Plan | Price | Credits |
+|---|---|---|
+| Free | $0 | 100 credits/month |
+| Free daily activity bonus (limited-time) | $0 | +30 credits/day |
+| Free, new user | $0 | 250 credits on first sign-in, valid 14 days |
+| Pro | $10/mo ($96/yr) | 2,000/mo (1,000 base + 1,000 bonus), +50/day |
+| Pro 7-day trial | card + auto-renew | 500 credits |
+| Team | $40/seat/mo | 1,000/seat/mo |
+
+While the promotion runs, *"all models are available, code completion is unlimited, and up to 99
+automated tasks are included."* Base and bonus credits do **not** roll over month to month, and
+the daily bonus is "non-transferable, non-giftable, and cannot be exchanged for cash".
+
+⇒ **A fresh free account yields roughly 1,000 credits/month at zero cost.**
+
+**VERIFIED** — the vendor bans the method, in its own words (Subscription Policy, "Activity
+Restrictions" — rewards may be cancelled, reclaimed, and eligibility suspended):
+
+> "1. Participating using false, invalid, or non-personal account information;
+> 2. **Using scripts, plug-ins, emulators, API calls, bulk registration, or other means to farm
+> activity or rewards**;
+> 3. Exploiting system vulnerabilities, network abnormalities, or technical faults for improper gain;
+> 4. **Maliciously creating or controlling multiple accounts to participate**;
+> 5. Violating Buddy AI's terms of service, subscription rules, credit usage rules, or applicable
+> laws and regulations; …"
+
+and in the FAQ: *"…users may not obtain improper rewards through **bulk registration, account
+sharing, account trading**, or other abnormal methods."*
+
+**VERIFIED** — geographic control: `www.codebuddy.ai` does not resolve from US, Indian or Russian
+networks (DNS answers `0.0.0.1` to client subnets there). The resale market routes around it.
+
+### 4.2 The credential market that supplies it
+
+**VERIFIED** — `mastumbas.id/product/codebuddy`, an Indonesian digital-goods marketplace (QRIS /
+local rails, "Made in Indonesia"):
+
+- "Codebuddy Global 480-500++Credit [BERGARANSI] (Auto Claim Harian +30 Credit Daily)", store
+  **Dudul**, listed Rp 123,456 → **Rp 2,300 (≈ $0.14)**, **3,303 sold**, stock 720, 2-day
+  warranty, 48 reviews at 5.0.
+- Wholesale: ≥10 Rp 2,200 · ≥20 Rp 2,100 · ≥30 Rp 2,000 · ≥50 Rp 1,900 · **≥100 Rp 1,800/pc**.
+  (100 accounts ≈ Rp 180,000 ≈ $11.)
+- Seller's description: *"1 token = 1 CodeBuddy account containing 450 credits, usable in 9router
+  for 28 AI models: text, coding, image and video. Credits increase +30 per day automatically as
+  long as the account is still active."* Delivery = **access token + refresh token** as a `.json`.
+- Adjacent listings on the same page: Cline accounts (Rp 2,000, "limit per model 10–15 M tokens
+  daily, auto reset 24 h") → `cp/`; "Refresh Token Codebuddy CN 4000-5000 Credit" (Rp 15,000) →
+  `cbcn/`; "Apikey Codebuddy Global 30000 Credit" (Rp 100,000); a CodeBuddy-CN listing attributed
+  to **rdhx** (the operator named in the earlier free-token-gateway study); Gemini Pro links; and
+  1-day **Webshare** proxy packs. Account supply and proxy supply on the same shelf.
+
+**VERIFIED (set comparison)** — InferHub `cb/` slugs vs the 28 model codes that listing
+advertises: **19 exact matches of InferHub's 23**.
+
+```
+claude-opus-4.6  claude-opus-4.7-1m  deepseek-v4.1-flash  gemini-2.5-flash-image
+gemini-3.1-flash-image  gemini-3.1-pro  glm-5.2  glm-5.3  gpt-5.3-codex  gpt-5.4  gpt-5.5
+gpt-5.6-luna  gpt-6-astra  gpt-6-sol  gpt-image-2  grok-4.6  grok-4.7  hy4-preview  kimi-k3
+```
+
+InferHub-only: `claude-opus-5`, `gemini-3.0-pro-image`, `gpt-6-luna`, `minimax-m3`.
+Listing-only: `gemini-3.5-flash`, `gemini-3.8-flash`, `glm-5.3-flash`, `gpt-5.6-sol`,
+`gpt-5.6-terra`, `hy3`, `kimi-k2.6`, `kimi-k2.8-preview`, `seedance-2.5`.
+
+⇒ InferHub asks **$0.04/Mtok** for `cb/claude-opus-4.6` and `cb/claude-opus-4.7-1m` — 99.2% off an
+official $5 — and that capacity is reachable through a ~$0.14 account from this market.
+
+**INFERRED (not asserted as fact):** that MasTumbas supply specifically feeds InferHub. What is
+verified is that InferHub names the family "CodeBuddy", ingests bulk CodeBuddy refresh tokens, and
+serves the same model-code set; MasTumbas is a public example of the supply, not proven to be the
+identical accounts.
+
+## 5. Routing and failure semantics
+
+**VERIFIED** — `inferhub.dev/docs`, "Routing tips":
+
+- *"Auto routing: The router picks the best publisher serving that prefix per request, falling
+  over to another on failure (up to 5 hops)."*
+- `429 capacity_saturated` (Anthropic envelope `rate_limit_error`, `Retry-After: 2`) when every
+  provider for a model is at its concurrency limit. Nothing billed.
+- *"Quotas: If every publisher serving a prefix has hit their plan's monthly cap, we return
+  `503 no_capacity` until any of their periods rolls over."*
+- `402 no_provider_under_bid` with `min_input_per_mtok` / `min_output_per_mtok` when no provider
+  meets a consumer's bid headers.
+- `x-ignore-upstream: cmc,qd,cx` — a prefix exclusion list that also reveals an unlisted `qd`
+  (Qoder) prefix.
+- Model addressing: `<prefix>/<model>` (e.g. `ocg/glm-5.2`), a bare alias (cheapest-first across
+  members), `combo/<slug>`, or `free/<slug>/<model>`.
+- Minimum charge $0.00001 per billed request; failed requests, no-output requests and free models
+  cost $0.
+
+**Quota modelling:** the home page states *"We poll Claude, Codex, and z.ai for live 5-hour and
+weekly usage windows. No manual caps — exhaustion is detected from the source of truth."* Together
+with the `usage-windows` provider sub-resource and `auto-reset-credit`, this reads as: the platform
+authenticates to the **vendor's own usage/limit API** with the publisher's OAuth token and tracks
+each credential's 5-hour and weekly windows, skipping exhausted ones. **INFERRED** for the
+internal detail; **VERIFIED** that quota windows are polled and surfaced.
+
+## 6. The egress layer
+
+**VERIFIED** — platform copy: *"Per-provider outbound proxy pool routes your traffic through
+least-used egress."*
+
+**VERIFIED** — the owner-supplied Discord screenshot (`owner-proxy.png`) is a proxy-vendor
+dashboard: "1,000 Proxies", "∞ GB bandwidth/month", start "24 Sep 2026 16:23", "2,866,045 Total
+Requests", "4.4 TB / ∞ GB Total Bandwidth used". Posted by handle **ExZork** answering *"penasaran
+sama bandwith usage proxinya inferhub ngehandle puluhan ribu akun"* — "curious about the proxy's
+bandwidth, InferHub handles tens of thousands of accounts."
+
+**INFERRED:** spreading many accounts across many egress paths prevents both rate-limit
+correlation and the vendor's own proxy/VPN detection (Anthropic is documented as detecting
+datacenter-range traffic). The same marketplaces that sell the accounts also sell the proxies.
+
+## 7. Measured scale
+
+**VERIFIED** — `GET /api/pricing/usage` (public), window `2026-10-04T19:30Z → 2026-10-05T19:37Z`:
+**152 routable slugs, 5,684,357 requests, 406,505,881,779 input tokens** (333.3 bn cached = 82.0%),
+**9,616,677,225 output tokens**.
+
+| family | requests | input tokens | tier |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| CodeBuddy (`cb/`) | 2,843,337 | 266.8 bn | free-tier credits |
+| CodeBuddy CN (`cbcn/`) | 1,972,650 | 92.1 bn | free-tier credits |
+| OpenAI Codex (`cx/`) | 343,683 | 15.9 bn | subscription |
+| Antigravity (`ag/`) | 156,661 | 6.1 bn | Google free/IDE tier |
+| Qwencloud/Alibaba (`ali/`) | 155,240 | 10.9 bn | cloud coding tier |
+| Qwencloud/Alibaba CN (`alicn/`) | 93,010 | 5.0 bn | cloud coding tier |
+| Z.AI GLM (`zai/`) | 48,603 | 4.1 bn | subscription |
+| **Claude Code (`cc/`)** | **32,249** | **2.77 bn** | subscription |
+| MiniMax (`mm/`) | 21,573 | 1.57 bn | coding tier |
+| Command Code (`cmc/`) | 7,430 | 0.28 bn | subscription |
+| OpenCode Go (`ocg/`) | 5,990 | 0.64 bn | subscription |
+| ClinePass (`cp/`) | 3,636 | 0.30 bn | subscription |
+| Xiaomi MiMo (`mimo/`) | 181 | 3.0 M | coding tier |
+| MiniMax CN (`mmcn/`) | 114 | 6.0 K | coding tier |
+
+**CodeBuddy alone is 50% of requests and 66% of input tokens. Claude Code is 0.57%.** The
+flagship-discount rows are marketing surface; the throughput is farmed free-tier commodity
+capacity. Largest single slug: `cb/deepseek-v4.1-flash`, 2,434,748 requests, 242 bn input tokens.
+
+**VERIFIED** — pricing page headline counts: **14 curated upstreams, 155 routable model IDs,
+74,310 active providers** (marketplace supply). One Claude slug (`claude-opus-4.7`) shows 6,758
+available slots.
+
+## 8. Reliability and latency
+
+**VERIFIED** — `GET /api/status` (public): overall 24 h availability 99.6%, 7 d 99.59%; **API
+availability 24 h 96.4%**. API error causes: **no_capacity 62.7%**, upstream_failed 37.2%,
+billing_unavailable 0%.
+
+Auto-route alias availability: `claude-fable-5` **35.07%** over 24 h (currently degraded at
+82.35%); `claude-fable-5.1` **major_outage**, 27.5% current.
+
+| prefix | family | avail 24 h | p50 | TTFT 1 h | tok/s |
+|---|---|---|---|---|---|
+| `cp` | ClinePass | 93.10% | 7.5 s | 5.0 s | 62.8 |
+| `alicn` | Qwencloud/Alibaba CN | 96.72% | 30 s | 18.1 s | 27.2 |
+| `cx` | OpenAI Codex | 96.84% | 15 s | 8.5 s | 23.6 |
+| `cc` | Claude Code | 97.71% | 5 s | 5.1 s | 42.0 |
+| `cmc` | Command Code | 98.30% | 60 s | 8.6 s | 39.6 |
+| `ali` | Qwencloud/Alibaba | 98.90% | 7.5 s | 5.0 s | 41.7 |
+| `ocg` | OpenCode Go | 99.48% | 15 s | 8.4 s | 24.7 |
+| `zai` | Z.AI GLM Coding Plan | 99.50% (degraded) | 15 s | 18.7 s | 24.3 |
+| `ag` | Antigravity | 99.78% | 7.5 s | 10.6 s | 73.9 |
+| `mm` | MiniMax | 99.84% | 7.5 s | 4.6 s | 38.2 |
+| `cb` | CodeBuddy | 99.85% | 7.5 s | 11.5 s | 115.2 |
+| `cbcn` | CodeBuddy CN | 99.98% | 10 s | 5.9 s | 39.0 |
+
+First-token times of 5–19 s and a 3–7% failed-request rate are not first-party API
+characteristics. **INFERRED:** the discount is paid for in availability and latency, and a
+capacity-constrained pool is the binding constraint (no_capacity dominating the error mix).
+
+## 9. Risk surface
+
+**VERIFIED (policy text)** — InferHub privacy policy:
+
+- On an upstream security-policy rejection, the **system prompt, tool definitions and request
+  parameters** of that request are retained **7 days** ("the scaffolding of that one request").
+- Safety screening reads the consumer's messages and system prompt against a keyword/pattern list
+  **before** sending upstream, expressly *"to keep content prohibited by our Acceptable Use terms
+  (material involving minors, and malicious tooling) **off the provider accounts that serve
+  you**"* — i.e. the pooled provider accounts are the asset being protected. Flagged text is
+  retained **14 days**, rule/score metadata **90 days**. Tool results, file contents and
+  attachments are excluded.
+- Publisher credentials (API keys, OAuth refresh tokens, outbound proxy credentials) are stored
+  **AES-256-GCM** encrypted (`api_key_enc`, `oauth_refresh_enc`) and decrypted *"only in-process,
+  in memory, when a request is routed"*.
+
+**VERIFIED (docs):** some upstreams *"add to or reshape your system prompt (for example, Cursor
+prepends its own agent prompt)"* — surfaced as `systemPromptNote` from `GET /api/catalog`.
+A publisher's agent scaffolding can therefore land inside a consumer's request.
+
+**INFERRED:** (a) plaintext credentials exist in the operator's process memory, so a host
+compromise or a rogue operator exposes live vendor credentials for every connected subscription;
+(b) consumers cannot verify which credential served them, so a substituted backend is not
+detectable from the outside.
+
+**VERIFIED** — Terms of Service posture: §7 puts every upstream-ToS obligation on the publisher
+("represent and warrant" authority; "solely responsible" for compliance "including any
+restrictions on shared, transferred, or resold access"; indemnify InferHub). §8: balances are
+**non-refundable** and a chargeback forfeits the whole balance. §6: paid capacity may be resold,
+**free-pool capacity may not**. §10: no warranty on output rights.
+
+## 10. Legal exposure (the landing vendor's own words)
+
+**VERIFIED** — `code.claude.com/docs/en/legal-and-compliance`:
+
+> "Customers may not pay for, resell, or **intermediate Claude usage on their end users'
+> behalf**. Each end user must authenticate with their own Anthropic API key, Claude subscription
+> plan credentials, or 3P inference provider credential…"
+
+> "Anthropic does not permit third-party developers to offer Claude.ai login into their own
+> applications, or to **route requests through Free, Pro, or Max plan credentials on behalf of
+> their users**. Moreover, developers may not **collect, store, or intermediate Claude.ai
+> credentials or session tokens** — sign-in to a Claude account must complete through Anthropic's
+> own flow."
+
+For the Claude Code upstream, InferHub does all three at once. **INFERRED:** the platform's
+indemnity chain (publisher warrants authority; publisher indemnifies) cannot extinguish the
+upstream's own prohibition — it only reallocates who pays. Secondary sources report enforcement
+tightening through 2026 (subscription tokens blocked in third-party harnesses), which is
+consistent with the platform's need for 1,000 rotating proxies and its `invalid` /
+`recheck-bulk` sweep endpoints. **UNKNOWN:** whether any specific publisher or consumer has been
+banned (deep lane pending).
+
+## 11. Model-substitution risk
+
+**INFERRED, literature-supported.** The same market is the subject of black-box auditing work:
+*"Which Model Is Actually Serving You? IRIS: Budgeted Black-Box Auditing of Model Substitution and
+Routing Dilution in LLM Gateways"* (arXiv 2607.20860) and *"Your 'Pro' LLM Subscription May
+Actually Be 'Free': Exposing Fingerprint Spoofing Risks in LLM Inference Services"*
+(arXiv 2606.16100). Both treat "the served backend may not match the advertised one" as a known
+property of commercial gateways. Combined with settling prices at 0.1–1% of official on
+free-tier families, substitution or mislabelling **cannot be excluded from public data**.
+**UNKNOWN** for InferHub specifically — settling it needs a paid account plus a fingerprint audit,
+which is outside the passive scope.
+
+## 12. This is a category, not an original
+
+- **Surplus Intelligence** (`surplusintelligence.ai`) — *"Open Market for Models: your API calls
+  routed to the cheapest offer, your surplus capacity sold to the highest bidder"*, with "list
+  your API credits" as the seller path; Base-native with a `SURPLUS` token (116.5 bn LLM tokens
+  reported through that ecosystem per a public project page).
+- **inferencehub.tech** — same niche; its own comparison copy places "**Gray-market supply ·
+  Start in minutes**" opposite "Real supply through hyperscaler and enterprise channels", and
+  states plainly "We're not cheaper than the labs."
+- **FreeLLMAPI** — aggregates 34 free providers / 635 endpoints, claims 7.4 bn tokens/month.
+- **OmniRoute** — peer gateway that **publishes a ToS table naming 15 providers whose terms
+  prohibit proxy access**, i.e. the community documents its own prohibited-use footing.
+- The **September 2026 study** (`RESEARCH/free-token-gateways/`) found four separate operations
+  doing the operator-run version of the same thing, with first-party admission of bulk account
+  creation, one-account-per-proxy signup, and edu-mail resale inside the operator's own community.
+
+**Conclusion of the analysis:** the cheap-frontier-model product is a **credential logistics
+business dressed as an API company**. Its cost base is other people's flat-rate entitlements and
+free tiers; its moat is the operational machinery (bulk onboarding, token refresh, quota polling,
+egress rotation, failover) rather than any supply relationship; and its main risk is that the
+landing vendors actively prohibit the arrangement.