By Surfshark | Fact-Checked by Irfan Ahmad
Third-party subscription resellers offer access to popular digital services at prices well below official rates. But should consumers focus solely on the savings, or consider what could go wrong?
To explore this, Surfshark analyzed reseller subscriptions for 10 popular video, music, and online-learning platforms. The findings show that consumers could pay 65% less through resellers, saving an average of $8.53 per month. However, buying through third parties may expose customers to privacy risks and put revenue from official platforms and content creators at risk.
Image: Surfshark. CC BY
Across a sample of ten popular video, music, and online-learning subscriptions (priced on Cheapzy and Cheapsubs Store), reseller prices averaged $4.60 per month, compared with $13.13 for official plans. Consumers could therefore pay approximately 65% less through a reseller, equivalent to an average monthly saving of $8.53. However, lower prices can often involve trade-offs such as shared accounts, upfront annual payments, reduced access control, and reliance on an intermediary for customer support.
Cheap reseller subscriptions often break the service’s terms or rely on fraud, which puts consumers' accounts, data, and money at risk and takes revenue away from the official platforms and creators behind the content. For example, HBO Max Terms of Use states that you may not sell, copy, distribute, publish, or otherwise share your Account details except as expressly permitted by these Terms, including via social media platforms, online marketplaces, or subscription sharing websites or platforms.
Many reseller offers require customers to commit for a full year. Surfshark's analysis of two reseller websites found that the shortest available subscription period was 12 months for 8 of the 10 services in the study, while the remaining two had a minimum term of six months. These long-term offers create an attractive monthly price, but also expose customers to greater upfront risk than cancellable monthly plans. If access is terminated before the subscription ends, customers may have to rely on the reseller to restore the service or issue a refund.
Purchasing subscriptions through intermediaries can introduce additional data-privacy risks. The checkout process on one analyzed reseller platform requested customers’ full name, physical address, ZIP code, and email address, while another asked for full name, country, and WhatsApp number. Sharing personal data and payment information with a reseller company may increase consumers’ exposure to data breaches, spam, phishing, and targeted scams.
The potential reward from using resellers varies widely across services. Coursera showed the steepest average price drop at 86% below its official rate, while Apple Music and Spotify were 71% and 67% cheaper, respectively. At the lower end, HBO Max and Netflix had more modest reductions of 45% and 51%, with the remaining platforms falling between 53% and 63%.
Reseller platforms listed different prices for the same subscriptions. Disney+ was listed at $3.08 per month on one reseller website and $9.16 on another, a nearly threefold difference. Similar disparities appeared for HBO Max, with prices ranging from $2.50 to $7.50, and Netflix, from $3.33 to $5.41, while Prime Video cost $5.00 on both platforms. These differences show that consumers who do not compare resellers could pay considerably more, eroding their expected savings while taking on the same privacy and security risks.
Editor's Note: Figures may vary slightly due to rounding.
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Third-party subscription resellers offer access to popular digital services at prices well below official rates. But should consumers focus solely on the savings, or consider what could go wrong?
To explore this, Surfshark analyzed reseller subscriptions for 10 popular video, music, and online-learning platforms. The findings show that consumers could pay 65% less through resellers, saving an average of $8.53 per month. However, buying through third parties may expose customers to privacy risks and put revenue from official platforms and content creators at risk.
Across a sample of ten popular video, music, and online-learning subscriptions (priced on Cheapzy and Cheapsubs Store), reseller prices averaged $4.60 per month, compared with $13.13 for official plans. Consumers could therefore pay approximately 65% less through a reseller, equivalent to an average monthly saving of $8.53. However, lower prices can often involve trade-offs such as shared accounts, upfront annual payments, reduced access control, and reliance on an intermediary for customer support.
Cheap reseller subscriptions often break the service’s terms or rely on fraud, which puts consumers' accounts, data, and money at risk and takes revenue away from the official platforms and creators behind the content. For example, HBO Max Terms of Use states that you may not sell, copy, distribute, publish, or otherwise share your Account details except as expressly permitted by these Terms, including via social media platforms, online marketplaces, or subscription sharing websites or platforms.
Many reseller offers require customers to commit for a full year. Surfshark's analysis of two reseller websites found that the shortest available subscription period was 12 months for 8 of the 10 services in the study, while the remaining two had a minimum term of six months. These long-term offers create an attractive monthly price, but also expose customers to greater upfront risk than cancellable monthly plans. If access is terminated before the subscription ends, customers may have to rely on the reseller to restore the service or issue a refund.
Purchasing subscriptions through intermediaries can introduce additional data-privacy risks. The checkout process on one analyzed reseller platform requested customers’ full name, physical address, ZIP code, and email address, while another asked for full name, country, and WhatsApp number. Sharing personal data and payment information with a reseller company may increase consumers’ exposure to data breaches, spam, phishing, and targeted scams.
The potential reward from using resellers varies widely across services. Coursera showed the steepest average price drop at 86% below its official rate, while Apple Music and Spotify were 71% and 67% cheaper, respectively. At the lower end, HBO Max and Netflix had more modest reductions of 45% and 51%, with the remaining platforms falling between 53% and 63%.
Reseller platforms listed different prices for the same subscriptions. Disney+ was listed at $3.08 per month on one reseller website and $9.16 on another, a nearly threefold difference. Similar disparities appeared for HBO Max, with prices ranging from $2.50 to $7.50, and Netflix, from $3.33 to $5.41, while Prime Video cost $5.00 on both platforms. These differences show that consumers who do not compare resellers could pay considerably more, eroding their expected savings while taking on the same privacy and security risks.
Editor's Note: Figures may vary slightly due to rounding.
Read next:
• Reddit's Logged-In Strategy Could Change How Millions Browse the Platform
• How to Exclude Apps From Siri AI and Limit Gemini's Access on Android
• From Fire Watch to Fab Tools: The First Graduates of an ASU Program Built for TSMC Arizona
