Disclosure: This post was drafted with AI assistance from my own first-hand dataset, and every price below was checked by me against the source pages on 2026-11-08.

I run a small price-comparison page for digital memberships (streaming, music, AI subscriptions). This week I normalized 184 listings from 18 supplier stores into one strict definition: official direct top-up, to your own phone number, monthly plan. Three lessons:

  1. The real floor is boring. For iQIYI Gold monthly, the floor was ¥15.10 (verified in a supplier backend), with comparable direct top-ups at 15.60 / 15.78 / 16.09. Real markets cluster; they don't scatter.
  2. Outliers are a different product. The ¥2.25 listing was a link-based top-up, mobile numbers only, warranty measured in hours. The ¥6.00 one was a card code that deducts phone credit and works once per number. Ranking them against direct top-ups is a category error, so my page quarantines them in a separate "high-risk" section instead of letting them win the "cheapest" slot.
  3. Label the delivery, not just the price. Every row on the page carries source, check date, and delivery type. Prices expire; the labelling scheme doesn't.

Full dataset with per-listing sources: https://xwdeshenghuo.github.io/rights-price-hub/
I post updates and new comparisons on my Telegram channel: https://t.me/AIShengzhang