The AI Credit Resale Economy: Inside the Token Broker Market

A report published on August 10 by the security research team at Vectoral describes a grey market in AI inference: token brokers who buy unused API credits from startups and resell them at a discount. The post, written by Matt Lenhard, follows an earlier investigation into the token relay market that powers resellers and fraud.

What the brokers offer

Lenhard says he first heard about the practice from a friend who was receiving offers for Anthropic tokens at steep discounts. Talking to more founders, he found the same story: a steady flow of inbound email from people looking to buy or sell off-market inference. Two pitches forwarded to him by founders offered direct relays at 40–50% off list price.

When he reached out himself, the first two emails bounced; the third started a conversation that moved from email into chat. The seller was offering $100,000 in spend per day. Notably, brokers do not hand over provider keys: they act as a proxy that likely picks from a pool of keys and forwards each request.

Marketplaces and “bulk discount” routers

Several websites now promote credit brokering. AI Credits bills itself as a credit marketplace; AICreditMart is a pure-play credit reseller marketplace. Both offer credits across most major cloud and inference providers. On AI Credits, seller listings advertise 30–80% off, the onboarding is straightforward, and sellers can pick a preferred delivery method. Lenhard listed his own credits; they were still pending approval.

A second category is “bulk discount” routers. CheapCredits (cheapcredits.ai) claims it achieves its discounts through bulk pricing and advertises a flat 40% off list on every model, with a data processing agreement for buyers who need GDPR compliance. Tokvana and Neokens position themselves similarly. Lenhard is sceptical of the number: a 40% discount is very unlikely unless you are one of a provider’s top customers, so he suspects CheapCredits acquires its supply in other ways.

Telegram, Reddit and market size

Looking where underground marketplaces usually live, he found a handful of Telegram channels, one of them relatively active, plus sporadic Reddit posts: credits from YC Startup School on r/saasforsale, and $10,000 in discounted API credits on r/indiehackers, expiring in November 2026. Similar posts circulate in closed startup groups.

His rough estimate is that tens of millions of credits are on offer across the sites, forums and resellers he examined. Tokens have become a pseudo-currency, and the market holds enough liquidity to make abuse easy. As companies grow more aware of their costs, crackdowns on this type of resale probably are not far behind.