Catalog the obsession.

Built solo, in a back office, in 2026.

How this got built

I discovered vertical drama in April 2024. Two shows did it: Escorting the Heiress and The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband. Within a few weeks I was running ten platform subscriptions in parallel, tracking actors in a spreadsheet, and trying to remember which app a show was on so I could watch the next episode.

I was spending somewhere around five or six hundred dollars a year on these apps instead of Netflix. And I was getting sick and tired of not being able to find something to watch. I was close to stopping altogether.

I checked for a tool. There wasn’t one. No actor search. No cross-platform title database. No way to know if something was AI-generated before I clicked. So I built one.

Why “follow actors, not platforms”

Vertical drama is fragmented by design. Dozens of platforms, the same show often listed under different titles, no industry-wide actor database. Fans navigate it by following the people they love watching. That’s the signal that survives the platform churn. Every feature I’ve built starts from that thesis.

What I’m building

I’d rather tell you what’s actually working than oversell what’s coming. The features marked in the pipeline and coming soon will ship as fan input and engineering catch up.

• Actor database

  19K+ verified profiles with full credits, searchable by name, nationality, show, and platform.
  Live
• Title catalog

  25K+ English and dubbed shows in the public catalog across 45+ verified platforms. The full database holds 28K+ titles. Same drama, different titles, one entry.
  Live
• AI transparency flags

  Visible badge on the AI-generated shows I've identified. Best-effort, not a guarantee. Flag the ones I miss with the Suggest an edit button.
  Live
• Search by your platforms

  Filter the catalog to only show what's available on apps you actually subscribe to.
  Live
• Content warnings

  Fan-sourced, two-severity (mild / major). Needs more fan input before launch.
  In the pipeline
• Full subscription tracker

  Spending and coin tracking across every platform you pay for.
  Coming soon

What I won’t do

I won’t knowingly promote AI-generated dramas without flagging them, take sponsored placement that biases coverage, or favor any platform editorially. I’m building this as the picky, budget-conscious, actor-obsessed fan who needed the tool to exist, not as a marketing surface for the platforms.

On how this is free

Right now VerticalVault doesn’t charge you to find shows. Here’s how that’s funded.

I get a commission when you sign up to a platform through a link on this site. The platforms cover it. You don’t.

Which platforms a show is listed on is decided by the platforms themselves, not by who pays me more. No ads on the site. No selling your email. No paywall on the catalog.

The catalog is the product; affiliate revenue funds it. It’s the cleanest setup I could come up with. If a platform ever asks me to bury a competitor, I won’t. If you spot a show I should add, the Suggest an edit button is on every page. You don’t pay me to use it.

On AI in art

I am against AI for creating art. Movies and vertical dramas are human work. The reason I started watching verticals was for the actors, and the actors are what keep me watching. The micro-expressions, the line readings, the small choices a human makes between “good take” and “great take” do not come from a model. If I wanted to watch something fake, I’d watch cartoons.

I do use AI as a tool to build this website. Every piece of code, every UI decision: me with AI assistance. That’s how a solo person ships at this scope. A tool to build infrastructure is one thing. A model replacing actors and writers is another. Fans deserve to know which is which.

That’s why I flag every AI-generated show I can identify. I’m one person reviewing thousands of titles, so I’ll miss some. When you spot one without a flag, use the Suggest an edit button (bottom-right of every page) and I’ll add it.

A bit about me

Fourteen years in retail and customer service, twelve years in operations and compliance for the financial advisory industry. I hold securities and life insurance licenses. My career has been the back office: building the processes, maintaining the systems, ensuring the rules get followed.

I am a natural-born problem solver. I will hit the big red button that says “do not touch” because I need to know what it does. The difference between me and most people is that I fix what I break.

Get in touch

Questions, suggestions, or partnership ideas: hello@verticalvault.app