Abstract:With the development of online video industry, a new profit model (paid membership), and a new supply chain mode (account sharing mode) were emerged. However, the existing online video pricing theories and methods based on the traditional supply chain mode (buyout mode) are difficult to meet the needs of practical development. Therefore, we study the pricing strategies of paid membership video platforms under two different supply chain modes, and then analyze the impact of supply chain modes and video quality on the pricing, profit and demand of the paid membership video platform. The result shows that: the video platform will adopt “free to members”, “discount to members” and “symmetrical pricing” successively with the increase of video quality in the buyout mode, while only “discount to members” and “symmetrical pricing” will be adopted successively with the increase of video quality in the account sharing mode. Meanwhile, the selection strategy of the optimal supply chain mode is mainly determined by video quality. Further analysis indicates that the high copyright rate under the buyout mode has a negative impact on the development of the online video industry, and the account sharing mode can make up for the deficiency of the buyout mode. At the same time, the research shows that the paid membership video platform does not directly obtain VOD revenue from ordinary users, and its revenue structure is determined by the proportion of existing members. In addition, the results of extending the model to member-only videos prove the robustness of the main conclusions of the paper. The conclusion of the study can provide useful management implications for paid membership video platforms and online video industry.