The channels through which large model manufacturers sell Tokens are quietly shifting from the official website to the shopping cart that ordinary people are most familiar with. MiniMax has officially joined Tmall and opened its first brand official flagship store. The M Plan subscription packages available in the store come in three tiers: Go, Explore, and Build, and can be purchased monthly or annually. What was previously only possible on the official website is now directly available on the e-commerce platform’s shelves.
This wave of store openings came faster than expected. Before Double 11 this year, Zhipu, Alibaba Cloud, and Qianwen Office have already opened up on Tmall. The platform also launched the “AI Space Station” Token recharge center, bringing the subscription services of multiple large models into a single entry point. According to a report in the Shanghai Securities News on September 5, many manufacturers such as Kimi and Qiyue Xingxing are also in talks with Tmall, planning to open stores and offer Token subscription packages. In other words, the model calling quotas that were previously only transferred between developer documentation and the official website payment page, are now treated as a clearly priced product, where consumers can click into the store and add it to their cart.
For manufacturers, this step makes logical sense: no matter how convenient the official website is, it cannot reach those mass users on Tmall who may not understand APIs but are willing to pay for AI tools. Turning subscriptions into packages and credit limits into recharges means converting transactions that were originally in the technical realm into e-commerce terms that ordinary people can understand. When MiniMax hung its first flagship store sign on Tmall, the competition among large models has shifted from parameter rankings and benchmark tests to who is closer to the user’s wallet.