A crypto card you cannot hold, priced like a SaaS tool

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have been searching for a card that works when your ordinary bank card will not open, you are probably weighing two things at once: whether this service will actually issue you a card, and whether you can get your money out when you need it. LinkPay is a crypto card platform, and on paper it is built for exactly that situation — virtual cards, funding in digital currencies, no bank account in the traditional sense. On paper. Below I walk through who it will accept, what it charges, how a top-up travels to your card, and what the people who already use it say when something breaks. My score for the whole package is 5.0 out of 10, and most of that number comes from two places: the price of the paid plans, and what users report when a card gets frozen or a withdrawal stalls.

The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict: 5.0 out of 10

Let me give you the number first, then explain it, because a bare score tells you nothing on its own. LinkPay scores 5.0 / 10 overall. That is a middle-of-the-road result for a service that is genuinely useful for a narrow purpose — but the narrow purpose is exactly what it is good at, and outside that purpose it gets expensive and shaky.

Who does this suit? Someone who already holds crypto, cannot get a normal card in their country, needs a virtual card for online payments, and is comfortable with a custodial balance that someone else can freeze. If that is you, LinkPay does a real job — the free Lite plan with no verification at all is genuinely open, and the reach is very wide.

Who does it not suit? Almost everyone else. If you have a bank card, a debit card from a mainstream bank, or a regulated exchange card, you pay more here for less comfort. If you are sensitive to a 2% payment fee, look elsewhere. If you need to hold money for months and be sure you can withdraw it, the complaint pattern makes me cautious. And if your country is on the closed list, there is no version of this that works for you.

One more thing for the person who asks “who is this for?” most often: the card’s own marketing leans toward non-Russian advertisers who need many virtual cards — team members, merchant accounts, and a large monthly quota of free cards on the upper plans. If that is you, the plan economics make more sense than they do for a single shopper.

Will they give you the card?

Yes in most places, no in a specific named set — and the official page does not actually tell you which countries those are.

Here is what is public. The service states it is not provided in 27 listed countries, including the Russian Federation and Belarus, and also Hong Kong, United States, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, Syria and North Korea among others. The page explicitly labels that list as not exhaustive, which in practice means you cannot rely on it as a complete answer to “am I allowed?” The Terms go further than the list: they bar residents and citizens of the listed countries, and they state that US citizens, permanent residents and US entities cannot open accounts at all. Notice the difference — it is not only where you live but where you are a citizen of.

Then there is the unofficial picture. Third-party reviews, which the card itself has not confirmed, describe the service as available in 168 countries with 28 restricted. One of those sources, dated 11 August 2026, marks Russia as restricted. Treat all of this as background, not as the card’s own statement.

What the official public pages do not say is anything beyond the link itself: the page points to a “Certain Countries” document without spelling out the contents on the page I read. So if your country matters to you, the honest position is that the full restriction list is not stated publicly on the card’s pages — check the linked page yourself, and check it again before you send money, because that kind of list changes.

What this means for you in practice:

• If you live in one of the 27 named countries, stop here. The Terms bar residents as well as citizens.
• If you are a US citizen or permanent resident living anywhere, that is a separate bar and the geography does not save you.
• If you are anywhere else, you are probably fine to apply — but “probably” is doing real work in that sentence, because the list is stated to be incomplete.

How to get it

The application is a sign-up, a level of verification, and a card in the app. There is no physical card in the offer — the page advertises “Virtual card for all purchases” and does not present a plastic option. Cards run on Visa or Mastercard networks.

Verification comes in three tiers, and this is the part that decides how much you can actually spend:

• No verification — $500 per month, advertising cards only. That is a real, usable ceiling for a first test: you can spend up to $500 a month, but only on advertising cards.
• Basic — $2,000 per month, all cards except Apple and Google Pay, and it needs your full name, address and ID details.
• Unlimited — no spend limit and no card-type limit; needs a valid ID photo and a live check.

A note on the last one, because it is the interesting one: “unlimited” is the marketing word, and it means no limits are set on the platform. Your bank’s own rules, and any limit the issuer applies on its side, still exist. Nobody can promise you an uncapped card through an app.

Timing: verification is generally completed within 24 hours but can take longer. Rejected documents can go to manual review, and the official rejection reasons are not listed beyond wanting “valid documents with clear photos.” In plain terms, a rejection is usually about the photo, not about you — but the manual review that follows is where time goes, and that is worth factoring into any plan you make.

What the public pages do not state is the identity-verification process itself in detail — the signup page links to an Anti Money Laundering document without showing its content. So the honest answer to “does LinkPay require KYC?” is: yes, at the Basic and Unlimited levels it clearly requires identifying documents, and the details of the checks live in a document I could not read. Ask for it before you commit money.

Fees: what it really costs

This is where the number lives, and where my discomfort with LinkPay starts. There are four plans, and the paid ones are priced like business software, not like a card.

• Lite — free. 0 free cards per month.
• Plus — $59/month. 5 free cards per month.
• Pro — $179/month. 15 free cards per month.
• Ultra — $209/month. 79 free cards per month.

Now the part I would want you to notice before you read further, because it changes how you read the whole table. The figures on the home page and in the Terms do not agree. The Terms list the transaction fee as 2% (min $2) / 1.5% (min $1) / 1% / 1% — matching the page. But the decline fee is 0.5% / 0.5% / 0.3% / free in the Terms against 2% / 1.5% / 1% / 1% on the page; the deposit fee is 1% / 0.75% / 0.5% / free in the Terms against 1% / 0.75% / free / free on the page; and the withdrawal fee is free on all plans in the Terms against 3% / 3% / 2% / 1% on the page. Ultra is also listed as $299/month with 100 free cards in the Terms, against $209 and 79 cards on the page, and the cashback cap there is $179 for Pro and $299 for Ultra.

I cannot tell you which set is correct. What I can tell you is that a company whose own two documents disagree about whether withdrawals cost anything is asking you to take a risk on the number rather than on the service. Assume the worse figure until you have confirmed it for yourself, and get the answer in writing before you load real money.

Three everyday payments, so this becomes concrete:

• A $12 subscription on Lite. 2% with a $2 minimum — the minimum bites, so you pay $2 on the transaction fee alone. Small purchases are where percentage fees hurt most.
• A $200 online purchase on Lite. 2% of $200 is $4, above the minimum, so $4 in fees.
• Taking $500 out on Lite. 3% with a $5 minimum means $15 in withdrawal fees on the page figures — and $0 under the Terms figures. That gap is the single most expensive uncertainty on this card.

Two fees are not stated at all: the FX fee and any ATM cost. The ATM question is arguably moot — an unofficial source reports no ATM access and no physical cards at all, consistent with the virtual-only offer. The FX fee is a real gap: the FAQ says USD cards are “planned to release soon” and no other currency is stated, so if you travel, you have no published number to budget against.

How to top up

Crypto only. That is the entire answer, and it is the answer most people can live with — but it excludes anyone without crypto, and fiat rails are only “planned.”

The page advertises deposit options for 7+ digital currencies. It does not name the coins or the networks on the page I read. Unofficial sources name BTC and USDT, and mention the TRC20 and Bitcoin networks. Treat that as background rather than as a confirmation.

The mechanics have one step that trips people up. Before a card is issued, the dashboard shows an activation minimum, usually around $15. Send less than that and the issuance simply fails. That is not a fee; it is a threshold, but it means you need real balance in place before the card exists, not after.

Confirmation requirements: 20 confirmations for TRC20, from 4 for BTC. That is the on-chain waiting, and it is why a Bitcoin deposit can feel slow when the rest of the setup was instant.

The deposit fee follows the plan table above, with the same caveat: the page says Pro and Ultra are free, the Terms say 0.5% for Pro. Who pays the network fee — the gas or bandwidth the blockchain charges for your transfer — is not stated. That cost comes from the chain, not from LinkPay, so it varies with how busy the network is and with which network you choose.

One thing the Terms are clear about, and it is worth knowing: you cannot withdraw from the platform straight onto a LinkPay card. Internal transfers are possible between users by recipient email.

Paying with it every day

This is the weakest part of the offer, and it is where my score drops hardest. Apple Pay and Google Pay are “in final integration, will be available soon” — and they are unavailable at Basic verification regardless. An unofficial source points out that the pages contradict themselves here too: one page says selected virtual cards can be added to the wallets, the FAQ says “coming soon.” Wallets are not mentioned at all in the article, nor are blocked merchant categories.

So picture the daily reality: you open an app, copy a card number, and type it into a checkout page. No tap. No ATM. No physical card in a wallet. For subscriptions and online services that is fine — for anything in person it does not exist.

Cashback, for what it is worth: 0% on Lite, 0% on Plus, 1% on Pro, 2% on Ultra. The homepage headline says “2% cashback for all payments,” which does not match the plan table, and the Terms describe a cap per billing cycle of $179 for Pro and $299 for Ultra. The currency of the payout is not stated. And cashback cannot be withdrawn to a bank.

The apps exist on the App Store and Google Play, plus a direct .APK download — that last one matters if you are on a phone that does not carry the store. Ratings are not shown on the company’s own site.

The payment-failure rules are the most useful thing in this section, because they tell you what happens when things go wrong:

• A failed transaction with a pending authorisation returns the funds in 5–10 minutes.
• Merchant refunds usually arrive within 4 weeks.
• Holds — the kind advertising platforms place — usually last 10–14 days.
• Top-ups to an unverified card are auto-cancelled with refunds in 2–14 business days; top-ups to a verified card are non-refundable.
• You are responsible for chargebacks and disputed transactions.
• Complaints are reviewed within 30 days.
• There is no chargeback process described in the FAQ at all.

Read the third bullet again if you are an advertiser: a ten-to-fourteen-day hold on your own money, with no published dispute process, is a working-capital problem, not an inconvenience.

What can go wrong

Let me be plain, because this is the section where a review earns its keep.

Frozen cards and stuck withdrawals. The most serious pattern in user reports. One account on Trustpilot describes a card frozen before a transaction and reportedly unfrozen only after buying a paid plan, withdrawals stuck “processing” for more than four weeks, and waits of months to get a card issued. The company’s replies to these reports cite security protocols and insufficient verification. A competitor’s site (Halocard, no date shown, treat it accordingly) says a banking partner issue froze cards and withdrawals during a move to a new partner, with waits of 3 months. I found no Reddit thread to cross-check.

The aggregate numbers are not flattering: Trustpilot 2 out of 5 from 39–40 reviews, while independent reports cite 2.3 from 44 reviews and 4.7 from ten reviews, with support described as slow and repetitive.

You do not know who issues the card. LinkPay is registered at Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, with MSB registration M23039048. An MSB registration is a money-services registration; it is not the same as a banking licence, and it does not tell you who stands behind the card. The issuer and BIN sponsor are not stated. That matters more than it might sound: the entity that actually issues your card is the entity whose rules decide whether your card works tomorrow.

The balance is custodial, and the provider can freeze it. Funds sit in a Wallet, and the Administrator may suspend all wallets without notice on suspicion or on violation of terms, with funds possibly frozen during an investigation. Accounts lock after three failed login attempts. The site displays GDPR, ISO and PCI DSS badges. Freeze and unfreeze of your card is available only on subscription or custom plans — so on the free Lite plan, that is one control you do not have. Whether customer funds are insured is not stated.

The platform can be switched out from under you. Programme changes happen in this category: WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme. In November 2022 Visa said it had terminated its global agreements with FTX, and the FTX US debit card programme was wound down by its issuer. Closures follow a pattern — notice, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw what is left. That last part is where the withdrawal fee question stops being academic. On closure, remaining funds go to the payment details you specified, minus fees.

Records and irreversibility. The Terms say records are kept for five years. Crypto transfers are generally irreversible, and the card says nothing about recovering a deposit sent on a network it does not support.

What the company itself has said publicly about these issues: not stated. The banking-partner account comes from a competitor, not from LinkPay.

Support, when you need it, is a Telegram bot, an email address and live chat on the site, in English.

What to take instead

If LinkPay’s weaknesses — the price of the paid plans, the virtual-only format, the frozen-card reports — are the things that stop you, these are the alternatives I would actually weigh. Note that none of them publishes a comparable fee table, which is itself informative.

Cardex scores 5.6 — the highest of the four, though only slightly. Its advantages are concrete: it is a debit card rather than a prepaid balance, it offers physical as well as virtual, and it runs on four networks including UnionPay, which helps where Visa and Mastercard do not reach. Its funding mix includes stablecoins plus BTC. The catch: no fee percentage is published anywhere on the site, and it leans on an “AI-Powered Conversion Rate” that scans exchange rates for the best moment — which is a mechanism, not a price. Its app listing is Naira-focused. Reach is claimed as 200+ countries with no exclusion list, so the “can I have it” question is no better answered there than here.

CardFlow scores 4.9. It is aimed squarely at Nigeria, creates a virtual USD Mastercard in 3 minutes, and creating the card is free. It is also the only one of the four that takes a bank transfer in naira alongside crypto, which matters if you want a fiat rail at all. Its fee structure is not stated.

HyperCard scores 4.7. It is a prepaid card with a balance in USD or EUR, funded with USDT, BTC or ETH converted on deposit. Fees are not stated on the pages I could read, the network is not named, and there is no country list — the 176-country figure describes where the card is accepted, not who can open one.

My honest comparison: Cardex edges LinkPay on score and on the physical/virtual choice, but neither of you publishes a price you can check in advance. For someone who needs a fiat top-up, CardFlow is the only option here that has one. For someone who needs UnionPay or a physical card, Cardex. If your decision hinges on “will my money come out,” none of them publish enough to answer it, and that is the question to put to support before you load anything.

Who I would recommend it to

Three groups, in order.

Someone with crypto already, no usable bank card, and a specific online-only need. A $500 monthly advertising budget on the unverified level, or a Basic-level $2,000 for subscriptions and services, funded with USDT over TRC20. You accept a custodial balance, a 2% fee on Lite, and that the card exists only in your app. This is LinkPay doing its job.

An advertiser or team needing many virtual cards. This is where the plans make arithmetic sense: free cards per month rise to 5, 15 and 79 as you climb to Plus, Pro and Ultra, team members go from 3 to 50, and merchant accounts from 1 to 3. If you genuinely need that volume, the Pro and Ultra tiers are defensible against competitors that give you one card.

Nobody else. Not if you have a functioning debit card. Not if you cannot accept a card that only exists as numbers. Not if a 2% fee on a $12 purchase bothers you. And not if the possibility of a four-week withdrawal freeze would keep you up at night — because the reports say it happens.

Before you load money, do three things: find the current “Certain Countries” page and read it for your own country and nationality; get the withdrawal fee confirmed in writing against the plan you intend to use, given that the two published sets of figures disagree; and send a small test amount first, so that a frozen account costs you a coffee rather than a month’s savings. And remember what this kind of card is: a payment tool, not a bank. Your balance is held by a company whose issuer it does not name, in a jurisdiction that may not be the one you live in.

Frequently asked questions

What is the LinkPay card?

LinkPay is a crypto payment card platform. You load digital currency into an internal wallet, and the card spends the resulting balance as ordinary currency — the way a prepaid card works, rather than drawing on a bank account. The card is virtual, sits on Visa or Mastercard networks, and is managed through an app on iOS, Android or a direct APK download. There is no physical plastic card in the offer.

Is LinkPay a bank?

No, and this is worth being careful about. LinkPay is registered at Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, with MSB registration M23039048 — a money-services registration, not a banking licence. The company does not name the entity that actually issues the card or sponsors the BIN. Funds sit in a custodial wallet the provider controls, and whether they are insured is not stated.

Who can get a LinkPay card?

A wide range of countries — third-party sources, not confirmed by the card, put it at 168 open and 28 restricted. Officially the service is not provided in 27 named countries including Russia, Belarus, Hong Kong, the United States, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, Syria and North Korea, and that list is stated to be not exhaustive. Residents and citizens of those countries are barred, and US citizens, permanent residents and US entities cannot open accounts at all.

Does the LinkPay card require KYC?

Partly, and which level you choose decides how much you can spend. No verification gives $500 a month for advertising cards only. Basic verification needs your full name, address and ID details and raises that to $2,000, excluding Apple and Google Pay. Full verification removes spend and card-type limits and requires an ID photo plus a live check. Approval usually comes within 24 hours, but rejections can go to manual review.

What does the LinkPay card cost to use?

On the free Lite plan the transaction fee is 2% with a $2 minimum, so a $12 purchase costs $2 in fees. Paid plans cut that: Plus $59/month at 1.5% (min $1), Pro $179/month at 1%, Ultra $209/month at 1%. Deposit fees run 1% down to free and withdrawal fees 3% (min $5) down to 1% (min $1) — though the Terms instead say withdrawals are free on all plans.

How do I top up the LinkPay card?

With crypto only; fiat and on-ramp funding are described as planned rather than available. The card advertises 7+ digital currencies without naming them, though unofficial sources point to BTC and USDT on the TRC20 and Bitcoin networks. Before issuance the dashboard shows an activation minimum, usually around $15 — below that, card issuance fails. TRC20 deposits need 20 confirmations, Bitcoin from 4.

Can I use LinkPay in Apple Pay or Google Pay?

Not yet. Both are described as being in final integration and “available soon,” and neither is available at Basic verification. One page says selected virtual cards can be added to the wallets while the FAQ says “coming soon” — the pages contradict each other. So plan on typing your card number into checkout forms rather than tapping a phone.

Is the LinkPay card safe?

It carries the usual crypto-platform risks and one specific to this card. Funds are custodial and the provider can suspend wallets without notice, freeze/unfreeze of the card is only available on subscription plans, and the issuer is unnamed. User reports describe cards frozen before transactions and withdrawals stuck “processing” for more than four weeks, with a Trustpilot score of 2 out of 5. Treat any balance you leave there as exposed, and keep it small.

Is the LinkPay card free?

The Lite plan is free, but it carries a 2% transaction fee with a $2 minimum, 0 free cards per month and, on the published page figures, a 3% withdrawal fee with a $5 minimum. Card creation is therefore not costless — you pay per payment. The paid tiers start at $59 a month for Plus and rise to $209 for Ultra on the home page, though the Terms list Ultra at $299 with different free-card and cashback numbers.

Is the LinkPay card worth it?

Worth it if you have crypto, cannot get a normal card, and need a virtual one for online payments — the free level alone is usable. Not worth it if you want a physical card, a wallet tap, a published FX fee, or certainty that you can withdraw promptly. Its score of 5.0 out of 10 reflects a broad reach offset by published fees that conflict and a complaint pattern centred on frozen cards and stalled withdrawals.

Content created by the «cryptocardtested» team