Most guides rank virtual cards by price. That is the wrong first question.
The right first question is simpler. Will this card still work next month?
A card that costs $2 and dies at renewal is worse than a card that costs $8 and keeps paying. Here is who each provider suits, based on published fees and stated limits as of 13 September 2026.
| If you need this | Start with | Why |
|---|
| Buy without a local bank account | Us | You sign up with an email. No bank account, no residency test. |
| Pay a merchant in its own currency | Us | We issue in lira, peso, yen, won, Taiwanese dollar, Russian MIR, Egyptian and euro-region cards. Nobody else here does. |
| Make small payments without losing money to fees | Us | We charge nothing per transaction. Moon's $1.00 minimum is 20% of a $5 buy. |
| Buy rarely and pay nothing to wait | Us | No monthly fee. Halocard is $12 a month and Privacy Pro is $10, used or not. |
| Keep a subscription alive month after month | Us or Moon | Both reloadable. Bitrefill's US prepaid Visa openly bans subscriptions. |
| Pay for ads on Google, Meta or TikTok | pst.net | Built for media buying. 69 BINs, 3DS support. Charges a deposit fee per platform. |
| Spend crypto at US stores | Bitrefill | 1.99% top-up fee plus the exchange spread. US residents only. |
| One purchase, then never again | Ezzocard or Moon 1X | Single-use by design. Moon 1X starts at $5. |
| A card in your own name from a licensed bank | Wise | Free virtual card. Not open to US customers. |
| US bank account, want privacy from merchants | Privacy.com | Free tier gives 12 cards a month. US banking required. |
| Widest coin choice | Kripicard | Takes 150+ coins. Does not publish its fees up front. |
The comparison table
All figures are quoted from each provider's own site. Blank cells mean the provider does not publish that number.
| Provider | Card cost | Load / usage fee | Reloadable? | Recurring billing | Who can buy | Verified |
|---|
| Cardwisechoice (us) | $100–$150 per card | No fee per transaction | Yes, on reloadable SKUs | Merchant-dependent — see below | Buyers outside the US banking system | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Moon — Moon X | First card free, then $2.99 | 1% per purchase, $1.00 minimum | Yes | Moon states "exceptional" acceptance on subscriptions | 130+ countries | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Moon — Moon 1X | $1.49 per card | No transaction fee | No | Single load only | US merchants | 13 Sep 2026 |
| pst.net | From $7 (Ultima) | 2.9% Facebook, 6% Google, 4% TikTok. $10 upkeep | Yes | Built for ad accounts | Verification required | 19 Mar 2026 |
| Ezzocard | Not published | Not published | No | Single use only | Anyone, any country | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Privacy.com | $0, $5, $10 or $25 a month | 3% foreign fee on the two lower tiers | Yes | Yes | US bank account holders | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Bitrefill (card) | — | 1.99% plus exchange spread | Yes | Yes | Varies by region | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Bitrefill (US prepaid Visa) | Set by denomination | Shown at checkout | No | Not allowed | US residents only | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Wise | Free | Mid-market rate plus conversion fee | Yes | Yes | 30+ countries, not the US | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Kripicard | Not published | Not published | Yes | Not stated | 190+ countries | 13 Sep 2026 |
| Halocard | $12 a month for 3 loads | 5% card, 1% crypto, stablecoins free | Yes | Yes | See their site | 30 Jan 2026 (their post) |
Sources are linked in each provider section below.
How we checked this
We read each provider's own pricing, FAQ and terms pages and quoted the figures directly. Where a page carried a date, we recorded it. Where a provider does not publish a price, we say so rather than repeating a rival's guess about them.
What we did not do: rank ourselves first by default, or quote fees we could not find on the source site.
What is still coming: we are running live test charges across 12 merchants, and we will publish the results here, including the failures. Until those tests are finished, this guide compares published terms only. We would rather tell you that than dress up a claim we have not tested.
The part most comparisons skip
Here is the thing that decides whether your card survives.
Every card number starts with a BIN. That is the first six to eight digits. The BIN tells the payment gateway who issued the card and what kind of card it is.
Prepaid cards carry a flag in that data. Gateways can read it.
This matters more than price. A merchant can accept your card for a single charge and still block the same card for a monthly plan. The card did not break. The merchant read the flag and applied a different rule to recurring billing.
This is why "it worked once, then the renewal failed" is the most common complaint in this market.
Some merchants skip the flag test and refuse prepaid cards outright. Google Cloud is one. Its billing documentation says plainly: "Prepaid cards aren't accepted for payment." Its Cloud Platform help page repeats it: "Prepaid cards cannot be used on Google Cloud Platform."
That is a flat no, not a recurring-billing rule. Google Ads is a separate product with separate terms, so check those before you buy a card for ad spend.
So when you compare providers, ask two questions, not one:
- Will the merchant take this card today?
- Will the merchant take it again on the renewal date?
A provider that only answers the first question is selling you half a product. We include ourselves in that warning. See our weak points below.
What a year actually costs
Headline fees hide the real cost. Two numbers decide it: what you pay per purchase, and what you pay just to keep an account open.
Here is the fee each provider takes from a single purchase. Every figure is their own published rate.
| Purchase | Us | Moon X (1%, $1.00 min) | Privacy free tier (3%, $0.50 min) | Bitrefill Card (1.99%) | Halocard (1% crypto) |
|---|
| $5.00 | $0 | $1.00 — 20.0% | $0.50 — 10.0% | $0.10 — 2.0% | $0.05 — 1.0% |
| $10.99 | $0 | $1.00 — 9.1% | $0.50 — 4.5% | $0.22 — 2.0% | $0.11 — 1.0% |
| $19.99 | $0 | $1.00 — 5.0% | $0.60 — 3.0% | $0.40 — 2.0% | $0.20 — 1.0% |
| $49.00 | $0 | $1.00 — 2.0% | $1.47 — 3.0% | $0.98 — 2.0% | $0.49 — 1.0% |
Read the second column again. A $5 payment on a Moon X card costs $1.00 in fees. That is a fifth of the purchase. With us it costs nothing.
Now the second number. This is what you pay before you buy anything at all.
| Provider | Cost to keep the account open | Over a year |
|---|
| Cardwisechoice (us) | No monthly fee | $0 |
| Moon | No monthly fee | $0 |
| Ezzocard | No monthly fee | $0 |
| Bitrefill | No monthly fee | $0 |
| Wise | No monthly fee | $0 |
| Privacy.com (free tier) | $0 | $0 |
| Privacy.com (Pro) | $10 a month | $120 |
| Privacy.com (Premium) | $25 a month | $300 |
| pst.net | $10 upkeep | $120, plus $7+ issuance |
| Halocard | $12 a month for 3 loads | $144 |
| Kripicard | Not published | Unknown |
Put the two together on one real example — a single $10.99 subscription, run for twelve months.
| Provider | What the year costs in fees |
|---|
| Cardwisechoice (us) | The card price only — no monthly fee, nothing per transaction |
| Wise | $0.00 — if you can open an account |
| Bitrefill Card | $2.62, plus the exchange spread |
| Privacy.com free tier | $6.00 |
| Moon X | $12.00 |
| Privacy.com Pro | $120.00 |
| pst.net | $127.00 |
| Halocard | $145.32 |
| Moon 1X | Not possible — expires after two months |
| Bitrefill US prepaid Visa | Not possible — subscriptions banned in its terms |
Halocard writes the best guide in this market. It also costs $145 a year to run one $10.99 subscription. Both things are true.
Where we genuinely win
Three things, and we can show our working on all of them.
1. We sell cards in currencies nobody else here offers
Every other provider in this guide issues in US dollars, euros, or both. That is the whole list.
We issue in Turkish lira, Argentine peso, Japanese yen, Korean won, Taiwanese dollar, Russian MIR, Egyptian, Finnish and Irish cards, alongside US Visa and Mastercard.
This matters for a reason most guides never explain. When a merchant bills in its own currency and your card is in dollars, two costs appear. Your issuer converts the money and keeps a margin on the rate. And the payment crosses a border, which some gateways score as higher risk, so a card that would have worked gets declined.
A card issued in the same currency as the bill removes both. No conversion margin. No cross-border flag.
If you are paying a merchant that bills in lira, a lira card is not a nice extra. It is the difference between a payment that clears and one that does not. See the full card range.
2. We charge nothing per transaction
Look at the first table again. Moon takes a minimum $1.00 on every purchase. Privacy's free tier takes a minimum $0.50 on anything foreign.
We take nothing. You pay for the card and then you spend the balance.
That is worth most to the people who need it most: anyone paying for a $5 top-up, a small subscription, or a single game.
3. We charge nothing to keep an account open
Halocard bills $12 a month. Privacy Pro bills $10. pst.net charges $10 upkeep. Those run whether you buy anything or not.
We have no monthly fee. Buy a card in March and nothing happens until you come back in November.
Who we are not for
We would rather lose a sale than take one that ends in a refund. Skip us in these cases.
- You can open a Wise account in your country: take it. Wise is not a prepaid card, so the recurring-billing problem in this guide barely applies to it. We will not pretend otherwise.
- You have a US bank account and only buy from US merchants: Privacy.com's free tier gives you 12 cards a month for nothing. We cannot beat free.
- You are spending real money on ads and need to rotate BINs: pst.net runs 69 of them. We do not compete there.
- You want to add the card to Apple Pay: Kripicard tokenizes for Apple, Google and Samsung Pay. Our cards do not.
Everyone else, read the list below. Are you outside the US banking system? Paying a merchant in its own currency? Funding with crypto? Making small payments where a $1 minimum fee hurts?
That is our lane. In it, we think we are the best option here.
The nine providers
1. Cardwisechoice — us
- What we are: we sell crypto-funded virtual Visa and Mastercard prepaid cards. You do not need a local bank account. You sign up with an email.
- What we charge: our cards run from $100 to $150 depending on the type. A US reloadable Mastercard is $100. A US reloadable Visa is $150. Our reloadable Visa Standard is $120. There is no monthly fee and nothing is deducted per purchase.
- Card country choice: nineteen cards across nine currencies. Turkish lira, Argentine peso, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Russian MIR, Egyptian, Finnish and Irish, plus US Visa, US Mastercard, American Express and Visa Platinum. No other provider here issues outside USD and EUR.
- No fee per transaction and no monthly fee: you buy a card and spend the balance. Nothing is deducted per purchase, and nothing is charged while you are not buying.
- No local bank account and no residency test: you sign up with an email. Privacy.com needs a US bank account. Wise needs an eligible country of residence. pst.net needs verification before it will issue.
- Funding: we fund with crypto. Your card details appear in your dashboard once the deposit confirms. How crypto funding works.
Where we fall short: three things, honestly.
- Our pricing page has been showing a placeholder: that is on us and we are fixing it. Until it is live, the prices above are the ones to use. Pricing.
- We do not publish a merchant acceptance table yet: we are building one and it will show failures as well as successes.
- Our cards carry prepaid BINs: like every card in this guide except Wise. That means the recurring-billing rule above applies to us too. We would rather tell you that before you buy than argue about it after.
Best for: buyers outside the US banking system who need a regional card or a crypto-funded card.
2. Moon — Moon X and Moon 1X
Moon sells two different cards. Mixing them up is the main way people get burned here.
- Moon X: reloadable. The first card is free and extra cards cost $2.99 each. You pay 1% on every purchase, with a $1.00 minimum per transaction. Spending is capped at $4,000 a month across all your cards. The card is valid for three years. Moon charges no FX or foreign transaction fees, and says the card works at merchants in over 130 countries.
- Moon 1X: single-load. It costs $1.49 per card and carries no transaction fee. The range is $5 to $1,000. It expires two months after purchase and is aimed at US merchants.
- Funding: Bitcoin on-chain and over Lightning, USDT on Tron, USDC on Polygon, and Moon Credit.
- Strengths: the fee structure is published plainly. No FX fee is a real advantage if you buy in other currencies. Moon says its cards do well on subscriptions and recurring payments.
- Weak points: that $1.00 minimum fee bites on small buys. A $3 purchase costs you $4. The $4,000 monthly cap rules out serious ad spend. And Moon's own comparison page is marketing, so treat its claims about rivals as claims, not findings.
- Best for: small recurring payments, if you can live with the cap.
Source: Moon FAQs · Moon comparison page
3. pst.net
- What it is: a card issuer built for media buyers. Not a general-purpose card.
- What it charges: card issuance starts from $7 on the Ultima plan, with 100 cards included. Deposit fees are set per platform — 2.9% for Facebook, 6% for Google, 4% for TikTok, 6% for general advertising. Upkeep runs $10 for Facebook, Google and advertising cards. A Facebook transaction carries a $0.50 fee; Google, TikTok and advertising transactions carry none. Declined transactions cost you nothing.
- Coverage: 69 BINs in USD and EUR, with 3DS support. Funding comes from bank transfer, wire, Bitcoin or USDT.
- Strengths: the BIN count is the point. If one BIN gets blocked by an ad platform, you move to another. Charging nothing on declines is fair and rare. 3DS support is needed for European merchants.
- Weak points: verification is required to issue cards, so this is not a route for buyers without documents. The 6% Google deposit fee is steep next to Moon's 1%. And the platform-specific pricing means your real cost depends entirely on where you spend.
- Best for: media buyers running real budgets who need BIN choice more than they need low fees.
Source: pst.net profile, AffCatalog, updated 19 March 2026
4. Ezzocard
- What it is: the oldest name in this market and the one most buyers compare against.
- What it charges: Ezzocard does not publish its pricing on its FAQ page. We looked. Halocard's comparison claims Ezzocard runs 25% to 50% above face value. But that is Halocard's figure about a rival, not Ezzocard's own. We are not repeating it as fact. Check the price on the product page before you buy.
- What it offers: Visa or Mastercard cards issued by banks in the United States and Canada. Cards are not reloadable — Ezzocard's FAQ says so plainly: "Our cards are not reloadable, but you may always purchase another one." You can buy from any country. Funding is crypto plus Perfect Money.
- Strengths: it sells to anyone anywhere. There is no account approval step to clear. Delivery is quick.
- Weak points: pricing is not published up front, which makes comparison hard by design. Cards are single-use, so every renewal means a new card and a new payment method on file. And Halocard's guide warns that fake Ezzocard mirror sites exist. We found the brand operating across several domains ourselves. That makes it easy to land on the wrong one.
- Best for: a one-off purchase where you do not need the card again.
Source: Ezzocard FAQ
5. Privacy.com
- What it is: a US service that generates cards on top of your existing US bank account.
- What it charges: four tiers — Personal $0, Plus $5, Pro $10 and Premium $25 a month. Card limits run 12, 24, 36 and 60 new cards a month. The two lower tiers carry a 3% foreign transaction fee, minimum $0.50. Pro and Premium carry no foreign transaction fee.
- Strengths: the free tier is genuinely free and 12 cards a month covers most households. Merchant-locked cards are a real protection against a store leaking your details. The company is established and reviewed.
- Weak points: one, and it is decisive for most readers here. You need a US bank account. If you had one, you would probably not be reading a guide about crypto-funded cards. The 3% foreign fee on the free tier also hits anyone paying a store priced in another currency.
- Best for: US residents who want to hide their real card number from merchants.
Source: Privacy.com pricing
6. Bitrefill
Two products again, and the difference matters a lot.
- The Bitrefill Card: reloadable. Adding money costs 1.99%, which Bitrefill describes as "the fixed fee that Bitrefill charges on top of the variable cost of exchange." So your true cost is 1.99% plus whatever spread sits in their exchange rate. Read that twice before you compare it against a flat 1% elsewhere.
- The US Digital Prepaid Visa: a different thing. It is non-reloadable, available to US residents and only usable in the United States at US-based merchants. Bitrefill warns that using it abroad could get your account suspended. Spending is capped at 1,000 USD per week.
- The detail almost nobody quotes: this card cannot be used for subscriptions or bills. That is in Bitrefill's own terms. It also blocks ATM withdrawals, money transfers, gift card purchases and services like Venmo, CashApp and PayPal.
- Funding: Bitcoin, Lightning, Ethereum, USDC, USDT, Solana, Base, Polygon, plus Apple Pay, Google Pay, Visa and Mastercard.
- Strengths: huge coin support. A long track record. The terms are unusually clear about what will not work, which we respect.
- Weak points: the 1.99% is not the whole cost, because the spread sits on top. And buying the US prepaid Visa for a Netflix plan is a wasted purchase — the terms rule it out before you start.
- Best for: spending crypto at US stores on one-off buys.
Source: Bitrefill top-up fee · Bitrefill US Digital Prepaid Visa
7. Wise
- What it is: not a prepaid card seller. A licensed money service with a card attached to a real account in your name.
- What it charges: the virtual card is free to personal and business account holders. You can hold up to 3 digital cards at a time. Conversions use the mid-market rate plus a stated fee.
- Where it works: 30+ countries. Wise states plainly that the virtual card is not available to customers in the US.
- Strengths: this is the only entry here that is not a prepaid card. That single fact removes the prepaid BIN problem almost entirely. Recurring payments behave normally. The rates are honest and published.
- Weak points: you need to open and verify a Wise account, which means documents and an eligible country of residence. If your country is not supported, nothing else on this list matters. And the card is tied to your identity, so it does not separate you from the merchant the way a prepaid card does.
- Best for: anyone who can open a Wise account. If you qualify, start here before you buy a prepaid card.
Source: Wise virtual cards
8. Kripicard
- What it is: a crypto card service aimed at people living outside their home banking system.
- What it offers: Visa and Mastercard, virtual debit and credit, across multiple BINs. Cards are reloadable and can be tokenized for Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. It accepts 150+ coins, including USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, TON, Litecoin, Tron, Dogecoin, Monero and BNB. Top-ups start from $1. It claims 190+ countries and 90M+ merchants.
- Verification: it runs identity verification, sanctions screening and AML monitoring, with no credit check.
- Strengths: wallet tokenization is a genuine edge — most prepaid cards in this market cannot be added to Apple Pay. The coin list is the widest here.
- Weak points: pricing is not quoted up front. The site points to a fees page and a calculator rather than a number. You cannot compare it against Moon's 1% without doing the work yourself. Subscription support is not stated anywhere we could find, which is a strange omission for a reloadable card.
- Best for: people who need Apple Pay or Google Pay from a crypto-funded card.
Source: Kripicard
9. Halocard
- What it is: our closest competitor in search results, and the reason this guide exists.
- What it charges: their own comparison post lists $12 a month for 3 loads. Funding costs 5% on debit and credit, 1% on crypto, and nothing on stablecoins. That post is dated 30 January 2026, so check it before relying on it.
- Strengths: their content is the best in this market and we will say so. Their provider comparison runs about 6,500 words, carries a named author, shows fee tables for every provider, includes screenshots, and offers a filter tool. They also warn readers about fake Ezzocard mirror sites, which is a useful thing to do for a rival's customers.
- Weak points: the 5% card-funding fee is high. The monthly fee applies whether you use the loads or not. And their comparison ranks Halocard first, which is exactly what ours does for us — read both and make your own call.
- Best for: readers who want a US-facing service with strong documentation.
Source: Halocard provider comparison, 30 Jan 2026
What we got wrong
We are including this because every other comparison leaves it out. Both of these are still true as we publish.
- Our pricing page has been showing a placeholder: it says "Pricing Coming Soon" where the prices should be. We wrote a guide arguing that a provider who will not publish its fees is hard to compare, while our own pricing page sat empty. That is a fair thing to hold against us. It is being fixed.
- Our sitemap stopped updating on 17 June 2026: every guide we published after that date went missing from it. Search engines had no reliable way to find them. Some of those pages took weeks to write. Nobody complained, because nobody could find them.
Neither of these is a clever confession. It is just what happened.
How to choose in 60 seconds
Answer these in order and stop at your first yes.
- Is the merchant billing in lira, peso, yen, won, Taiwanese dollars, roubles or Egyptian pounds? That is our lane. A matching card removes the conversion margin and the cross-border flag.
- Are your payments small, under $20 a time? Us. A $1.00 minimum fee on a $5 buy is 20%, and we charge none.
- Do you buy a few times a year rather than monthly? Us. No monthly fee means waiting costs you nothing.
- Do you need a card without a local bank account or a residency test? Us, Ezzocard or Kripicard. We are the only one of the three that is reloadable and publishes its prices.
- Do you need Apple Pay? Kripicard.
- Are you buying ads at real volume? pst.net. You are paying for BIN choice, not for cheap fees.
- Do you have a US bank account and only buy from US merchants? Privacy.com's free tier gives you 12 cards a month.
- Can you open a Wise account in your country? Take it. A card in your own name beats a prepaid card for recurring billing.
- A single purchase you will never repeat? Moon 1X at $1.49, or Ezzocard.
Still not sure? Look at the card range and pick the currency your merchant bills in. If your currency is not there, tell us and we will say honestly whether one of the others in this guide suits you better.
Frequently asked questions
Which virtual card provider is cheapest in 2026?
On published fees, Moon 1X is the cheapest single-use card at $1.49 with no transaction fee. Moon X is the cheapest reloadable option at 1% per purchase, though the $1.00 minimum makes small buys costly. Wise is free if you can open an account. Ezzocard and Kripicard do not publish prices, so they cannot be ranked on cost.
Can I use a virtual card for a monthly subscription?
Sometimes. It depends on the merchant, not the card. Merchants can read the prepaid flag in your card's BIN and apply a different rule to recurring billing than to one-off charges. Bitrefill's US prepaid Visa bans subscriptions outright in its terms. Wise avoids the problem because it is not a prepaid card.
Why did my virtual card work once and then fail?
The first charge was a one-time payment and the second was a recurring one. Many gateways treat those differently for prepaid cards. Nothing broke. A different rule was applied.
Do I need a bank account to buy a virtual card?
Not for every provider. We sell to buyers with no local bank account — you sign up with an email. Privacy.com requires a US bank account. Wise requires an eligible country of residence.
Which virtual card has no monthly fee?
Cardwisechoice, Moon, Ezzocard, Bitrefill, Wise and Privacy.com's free tier charge nothing monthly. Halocard charges $12 a month, Privacy Pro $10, Privacy Premium $25, and pst.net $10 upkeep. Those run whether you buy anything or not — $120 to $300 a year before you spend a cent.
Which virtual card is cheapest for small payments?
Ours, because we take no fee per transaction. Moon X charges 1% with a $1.00 minimum, which is 20% of a $5 purchase and 9.1% of a $10.99 one. Privacy's free tier takes a minimum $0.50 on foreign purchases. On small payments the minimum fee, not the percentage, is what costs you money.
Can I get a virtual card in a currency other than dollars or euros?
From us, yes. We issue Turkish lira, Argentine peso, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Russian MIR, Egyptian, Finnish and Irish cards. Every other provider in this guide issues in USD, EUR or both. A card in the merchant's own currency avoids the conversion margin and the cross-border risk flag that causes some declines.
Which providers are reloadable?
Moon X, pst.net, Privacy.com, the Bitrefill Card, Wise, Kripicard, Halocard and our reloadable range. Not reloadable: Moon 1X, Ezzocard, and Bitrefill's US Digital Prepaid Visa.
Does Google accept prepaid cards?
Not on Google Cloud. Its billing documentation states "Prepaid cards aren't accepted for payment". Its Cloud Platform help page states "Prepaid cards cannot be used on Google Cloud Platform." That is a flat refusal, not a rule about recurring billing. Google Ads is a separate product with separate terms, so check those before buying a card for ad spend.
Are these fees still correct?
Each provider section carries the date we checked it. We re-check this guide monthly and log changes below. If you find a stale figure, tell us and we will fix it.
