There was a thread here a week ago that basically asked people to comment how much they paid for their service and what they were using.

I mentioned I paid x amount for strong8k. Since then, I have received around 20 DMs from people asking me what source I used and the seller.

I only discovered this sub 6 weeks ago and have no experience outside of it of IPTV. I think a year or so ago I bought a month from a 'premium' reseller and basically it was no different to what I got from z2u for 5th of the price.

I am just going to try and add some further tips and tricks to help people out, as though the guides here seem pretty comprehensive to me, it seems some people are struggling with basics so maybe a beginners perspective might be helpful and then I can just refer them here if they message me.

1) I only have used z2u, it is described in the guide as being tricky but imo its very easy to use.

https://www.z2u.com/

2) Type "IPTV" into the search bar, you will get these options come up underneath, click the first one that says 'accounts'. You will then get the filters which makes searching it an absolute breeze. Just click the operator you want (strong, trex etc.), click the subscription you want (1 month, 12 months etc.) and then filter price low to high.

Accounts - https://imgur.com/zMaAhN5

Filters - https://imgur.com/eZFjriY

3) After this its about using your common sense to pick a seller at a good price with lots of positive reviews and a high completion percentage. I cannot link to a seller or screenshot there profile name, but you click on the product listing, and then within there you can click to see the seller profile. Here is an example with the name hidden and some info on what to look for.

https://imgur.com/4lobnn9

(NOTE - This is an especially strong seller page, it doesn't have to be THIS positive imo. Dont rule out someone with 200 positive reviews because this guy has 3500 in the past 90 days lol)

4) You can use this page to then click on chat with the seller. These chats are saved and you can come back and message them anytime, even after sales. Ask for a trial if you want, but be aware, sometimes they trial you a better operator, then try to sell you a cheaper operator, make sure to use the verification methods on the sub if you're unsure. The guy I linked above doesn't give trials he asked me to buy a month as a trial so I didn't go with him, but he has the reputation clearly to justify this, use common sense. Make sure you let them know you have knowledge of the specific operators " Is this Strong 8k' etc. This will make it less likely for them to try anything.

5) If you are worried about the seller doing a runner, get monthly, if 20-40 bucks a year is an issue, for me its not so I just get a year so I dont have to do this every month. If the seller does a runner I don't really care.

6) I had a problem with mine, I messaged the seller using the chat a few weeks later and he sorted it out for me straight away giving me a new code. Use this if you have any problems.

Do resellers add any value?

I see lots of people here mentioning resellers and talking about buffering and EPGs etc.

As far as I am aware, they all use these operators, so they can only be as good as they are when it comes to quality or buffering, channels going down etc. All they can do is add an EPG and organise the channels, maybe they can link in different operators to have multiple sources.

In relation to that point, the good operators have about 10 different versions of the main sports channels at least, so if one goes down there is usually a backup. This is mainly related to sports when lots of people watch events. I have had this happen to me twice and I just switched over to the other channel. See here the number of channels strong has for 'Sky Sports Main Event' channel.

https://imgur.com/sKk4nEw

(bonus tip, I saw someone recommend the channels with the 'RAW' suffix at the end, I personally also like the quality and FPS on these channels for sports!)

I cannot think of a good reason to pay anything more for a resell service, though some do seem to suggest there are good reasons. I can't see it myself, you can add EPGs pretty easily and theres guides on how to do everything they do here in the sub.

The only reason I can think of is if you want a heavily curated and organised channel category and selection tailored exactly to your needs and requirements, this can be time consuming in an IPTV editor when it comes to testing each channel and making sure they are correct, but is it worth paying a minimum of 4 times the price. The ones that literally just sell you the same service are 4 times the price. so ones taking the effort to curate and maintain a channel list will probably be more that this.

If you want to know whats an operator or a resell, just look at the filters on z2u where they are listed.

Operator quality and cost

Here is basic rule of thumb based on 12 month subscriptions.

Weaker operators (mega, dino) = $10 - $20 for 12 months.

Stronger operators (Strong, Trex) = $25 - $45 for 12 months.

I am completely happy with strong, but if you want to check other services then this is a basic guide as to what the quality might be, I would reference this with the sellers reputation. So if they have a high reputation expect this to be a reasonable estimation.

I have no idea at all what you get if you buy strong8k for $40 or $30, I imagine there is no difference at all. Ask the sellers for trials.

I think the main factors here are going to be reliability, number of channels and quality of stream (FPS, HD).

Strong8k, does not have a lot of VERY HIGH quality streams, none of them do from what I can see. You might get 10-20 channels in total that are 4k and some of them dont have great fps so it looks janky. That said, I have been able to find a perfectly suitable quality everytime I want to watch something.

If you just want sport, an operator like Mega might be perfectly fine for example, I cannot speak for the reliability and outtage though, so this might be an issue. Just do your research, for me the budget for strong is fine so its not really a decision to spend an extra 15 bucks on it for the year.

Be wary of resellers, even here

The resellers are on the ball and virulent. When you know whats going on they stand out a mile away. Look at other IPTV subs and you can tell they are completely taken over by resellers, operating numerous accounts, creating posts asking for help, backing each other up with fake comments and fake users, all designed to do one thing.

Get you to message them and ask if they can help you.

Just as has happened to me since I made a simple comment about getting strong8k on z2u, despite all the info being here 15-20 people have DM'd me.

It works. It's not inherently bad, its just slightly dishonest marketing, but this sub exists to enable you to circumvent them and its dissapointing to see they have started to show up here, hence why I have tried to clarify this further.

Just be suspicious of ANYONE mentioning resellers, again, thats a service not included on the z2u filters list above. Unless you really are specfically interested in a curated or customised experience, that offers nothing more in quality and likely LESS in service, and are happy to pay 4-20 times the price, just ignore all of it.

Everything you need is here, the good operators are all pretty similar, and so are the cheaper ones.

VOD and on demand

Do not buy for this alone unless you cannot afford to buy real debrid and get Stremio. If that's an issue the VOD here is fine, but Stremio and real debrid is on another level.

Summary

This info is supplementary for complete beginners, like myself. It won't be useful for most people, but for newbies like myself it might help them take the leap and actually read everything here and use z2u instead of being suspicious of it, as I think some people are.

I have created it so I can simply post people a link when they ask me where I got my sub from etc. so its completely spelled out for them with some images as well.

I hope this is ok to post here. Thank you to the contributors and sub admin here for everything you have done to help people not overpay when buying IPTV, and also for all the guides on how to do virtually everything. Lets try and keep this place clean of misinformation and report the resellers when we see them.