This guide covers the steps necessary on how to start an IPTV Business. There are literally thousands of services now available for purchase on the Internet and this article explains how these lucrative operations are created.
IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television. It’s simply the delivery of live TV channels through the Internet.
Cable and Satellite companies are losing millions each year due to customers switching to IPTV. The average cable/satellite package in the United States now costs $217.42 per month. Those households moving to unverified IPTV services will save $200 or more per month! That’s right…these off-brand options cost only $10-$20 and offer thousands of live TV channels, along with on-demand movies and TV shows. Most offer Pay-Per-View sporting events within their packages. This alone can cost a consumer anywhere from $50-$120 per event.
Due to the Internet, there is no longer a need for the cable/satellite delivery mechanism and they are dying a slow death. They’re still alive due to the long-term contracts with their media partners and monopolistic business practices. Ten years from now they won’t exist or they will merge into some sort of Internet operator which specializes in serving media.
IPTV Business Structures
Unverified IPTV businesses are the most popular structures found on the Internet due to their low cost and availability.
Unverified means that there is no certainty that the services carry the proper licensing for the media that they deliver. Some people call these illegal operations, but the truth is, it’s difficult for consumers to differentiate due to professional looking Websites and marketing tactics. The legal burden lies with the business owners as they are truly the only ones who know whether or not they have secured the proper licensing. It’s impossible for the consumer to know if they are using a legal service. Yes, common sense would say that paying $15 per month for 20,000 channels can’t be legit but the general public thinks this is the advancement in technology. Actually, they are right as cable/satellite prices should be going down instead of up each year!
Unverified IPTV Business
Heck, the city council in Mapleton, Utah approved the re-selling of a popular unverified service to their residents and businesses. This is a prime example of ‘Joe Citizen’ not knowing the difference. Their city council attorney even gave this idea the green light for crying out loud.
The other type of IPTV Business structures are the legal/verified options such as YouTube TV, FuboTV, Hulu, Philo, etc. These are difficult to form as they require licensing agreements and lots of time to construct the proper relationships. People are now leaving these services in droves due to the fact that their prices are increasing at an alarming rate. For many, they are now paying more for their combined streaming services than what their old cable/satellite plan costs.
YouTube TV – Verified IPTV Business
This article focuses on how to start an unverified IPTV business since this is what most are looking for due to the limitations of verified structures mentioned above.
Legal Ramifications
Before we go any further, it’s extremely important to talk about the possible legal risks of starting an IPTV business.
First, in no way is TROYPOINT suggesting that you start an IPTV business, actually quite the opposite. This resource was put together so you can see why there are so many services available and how easy it is to create them.
We’ve seen numerous cases where those running IPTV businesses are convicted of copyright crimes and sentenced to prison and/or fined substantially. In one example, YouTuber ‘Touchtone’ served as a reseller of the popular service called Nitro TV and was sued by ACE, a coalition of entertainment companies headed up by Universal, Paramount, Columbia, Disney and Amazon.
According to the ACE members, Nitro TV logins were primarily sold through the website TekkHosting.com and acquired in one of two ways – either via a direct purchase or from a Nitro TV reseller. With Nitro apparently having obtained a significant part of the market, the lawsuit demanded huge damages – $150,000 per infringed work and an injunction.
In another case, the operators of Flawless IPTV were sentenced to a total of 30 years in prison. The masterminds behind this service were convicted of copyright infringement, money laundering, and organized crime.
Finally, the most popular IPTV business copyright case in the United States was once-popular ‘Omi in a Hellcat’, Bill Omar Carrasquillo, who operated the Gears TV platform. Carrasquillo was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison and had to forfeit more than $30 million in assets.
Many IPTV operators receive a cease and desist order prior to any legal action and this is why many will take the risk associated with a business like this. It’s less expensive for these copyright alliances to threaten people with lawsuits than actually take them to court, especially for the smaller services.
It’s amazing to see the different legal consequences for individuals who operate in this space. Back in 2020, one of the most popular providers was hit with a lawsuit that was in the hundreds of thousands. Some claim that this service had more subscribers than Gears TV. We were lucky to receive the text messages sent between this individual’s attorney and the organization that was suing him. They ended up settling out of court for approximately $30,000 as long as he agreed to never operate an illegal streaming service again. We’ve made a backup of those text messages along with timestamps and associated names for possible use in the future if needed.
Some see millions of dollars in fines and prison time whereas others are warned or treated to a relatively modest settlement in comparison.
Still want to start an IPTV business?
How to Start an IPTV Business as a Reseller
The most popular method to start an IPTV business is by becoming a reseller. What this means is that you are re-selling a service that already exists.
You can think of this type of structure somewhat like a pyramid scheme. Credits are purchased in bulk at a discount through the main provider and can then be re-sold for profit. In some cases, resellers can activate sub-resellers underneath them.
Most IPTV subscribers are unaware that 95% of services are resellers which means they are duplicates of what is already available. In fact, there are probably only a dozen primary IPTV businesses currently available.
Resellers are lured into these businesses by flashy promotions that promise thousands of dollars in income per month. However, they never spell out the possible legal consequences of managing one of these businesses.
When someone becomes a reseller, they’re provided with an online panel that allows them to manage their customers. These panels are extremely powerful as you will see in my video below.
Reseller Panel Video
In the following video I show how an IPTV business is created through a reseller panel.
Please take note of the security precautions that I employ in this video to protect my identity.
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Primary IPTV Business Startup
Those who don’t want to become a reseller may opt to create a primary business where they’re capturing the channels themselves. This type of IPTV business requires large amounts of funds to build servers and capturing technology to acquire the media.
As mentioned earlier, there aren’t many businesses that go this route due to the initial cost and large availability of reseller plans. This type of operation also requires lots of technical know-how that most individuals would never have.
IPTV Business Payment Processing
You would think that most of these IPTV businesses are on auto-pilot when it comes to payment processing but that’s not necessarily the case.
Many services add their customers manually to a panel (see my video above) once an order has been placed through their website. This is why it can sometimes take 24 hours to process an order. However, the better services have integrated billing into their reseller panel so everything is done automatically.
The three most popular payment methods for someone who wants to start an IPTV business are credit cards, crypto (bitcoin), and PayPal.
Cedit Card Processing
If a business is lucky enough to be approved to use credit card payments, this will be their main source of funding. Many times, these services are not approved due to the questionable legal nature of an IPTV business. Many services pretend to be website hosting operations to avoid the scrutiny by credit card processing companies.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of credit card processing sites available for online merchants. Stripe stands out as one of the most popular choices on the Internet today due to their strong security.
Cryptocurrency
Another popular form of payment for those who want to start an IPTV business is cryptocurrency.
Some IPTV businesses won’t accept anything other than this due to the fact that they can’t get approved for credit card processing. Some only use this form of payment to fly under the radar and hide payments even though it can be traced by IT forensic experts.
PayPal
PayPal has also been used by many businesses as well however they are also clamping down on unverified IPTV providers. If someone is fortunate to be approved for a PayPal business account in this space, eventually they will probably be terminated. This is due to complaints from customers when things go south and then PayPal launches an investigation.
Website & Marketing
When starting an IPTV business one of the first things needed is a Website. Some think that this is an expensive endeavor but it’s not.
First, a web host is needed to serve the website. This is extremely inexpensive and a plan with Hostinger costs as low as $2.99/month. When someone purchases a hosting plan, they will also usually get a domain name and email capability as well. It’s all bundled together.
Most use the free software, WordPress to power their websites due to the available plugins that allow for any feature one could think of. WordPress is easy to use and there are thousands of tutorials available on the Internet. As of this article, WordPress accounts for 810 million websites on the Internet today! This represents approximately 43% of all sites. WordPress can be quickly installed through the Hostinger platform for free.
Many IPTV businesses also advertise on Google for the term ‘best iptv’. It’s incredible that ACE and other copyright enforcement agencies allows Google to take ad revenue for these unverified services.
Some businesses don’t want the attention brought to them by flashy websites and advertisements. They rely on word of mouth advertising which keeps them out of the legal crosshairs so to speak. These people operate in the dark on websites such as Telegram and Discord.
Total Cost of Starting an IPTV Business
The initial cost to start an IPTV business is extremely low which entices people to enter this space.
$180 Reseller Panel Subscription (see video above)
$36/year Website Hosting
Total = $216
How Much Money Can I Make?
The first question most ask themselves is, “How much money can I make running an IPTV business?”
Well, let’s do a simple breakdown based on the reseller plan that I purchased in the video above.
I paid $180 for 60 IPTV credits. This equals $3.00 per credit.
Most services charge anywhere from $10 to $20 per credit. So, my initial $180 reseller purchase could yield $600-$1200. Now, take that amount times thousands of customers.
Net Profit = $420- $1,020 – Expenses indicated above
Keep in mind that my initial IPTV credit purchase was extremely low and only included 60 credits but you can see the large markup available in this space.
Avoiding Legal Trouble
We’ve seen numerous IPTV operators avoid legal trouble for a number of years and one notorious business is BestBuyIPTV. This outfit has been on the Motion Picture Association’s notorious markets list for quite sometime but have eluded law enforcement.
Here’s how many IPTV Businesses evade legal problems.
Operate by word-of-mouth
Base IPTV business in country that won’t impose penalties (Vietnam is popular choice)
Hide activities with a quality VPN
Communicate via private email service
Register website anonymously and pay with crypto
Purchase everything with crypto
Receive all payments via crypto
When it comes to starting an IPTV business, many people are willing to take the gamble. Some think that they will never have legal problems because they cater to a small audience. You may say, “I’m just going to sell to my friends, neighbors, and family members.” The problem is, what happens when the main supplier gets shut down and your name is all over the reseller plan?
Summary
As you can see, starting an IPTV business can be very lucrative but it comes with legal risks. This article was created to inform TROYPOINT fans how these businesses are operated and why there are so many currently available.
The copyright enforcement groups will continue shutting down these unverified services but when one goes down, ten more will pop up. We’ve always said, once there’s an affordable model that mimics the Spotify success, people will be willing to pay for what they consume. But as long as the cable/satellite lobbyists are hard at work, we will continue with what we have and unverified services will flourish.
There are literally thousands of unverified IPTV businesses available on the Internet today yet there are only a few primary ones that the others resell from.
What are your thoughts? Do you think the rewards outweigh the risks? Tell us in the comments section below.
The post How to Start an IPTV Business – Do Rewards Outweigh Risks? appeared first on TROYPOINT: Tech Tutorials On Firestick, Kodi, Android TV Box, VPN, IPTV, Streaming, & More.
