cf8619cc5fInferHub 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.
368 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
368 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
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.
|