A crypto-funded virtual card with a rough reputation and unclear pricing

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

LinkPay is one of several newer names in the crypto-card space: a virtual-only Visa or Mastercard paid for in crypto, with a subscription model and a long list of restricted countries. The pitch is straightforward. You load it from a crypto wallet, spend the balance wherever the card network is accepted, and pay a fee that depends on which of the four plans you choose. The reality, once you start pulling at the threads, is messier. The numbers on the home page and in the Terms of Service do not always agree, the issuer and BIN sponsor are not named, and user reviews cluster around frozen cards and stuck withdrawals.

I went through LinkPay’s own pages, the Terms, and the public reviews to put a clear picture together. What follows is what I found, what I think matters, and who I would actually hand this card to.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict

LinkPay earns 5.0 out of 10 in my scoring. The card is cheap on the cheapest plan, broadly available in principle, and accepts top-ups in a handful of major cryptocurrencies. Against that, you have a virtual-only product (no physical card, no ATM), pricing that contradicts itself between the marketing page and the Terms, an unnamed issuer, and a Trustpilot score of 2 out of 5 from around 39–40 reviews. For most people I would not recommend it; for a narrow audience (advertisers who need lots of virtual cards and who are not based in a restricted country) it has some use.

The strongest case for LinkPay is the advertiser use case: a free or cheap way to spin up many virtual cards, with team-member slots on the higher tiers and freeze/unfreeze on subscription plans. If you are not running ad accounts, paying for SaaS, or managing a small team that needs separate cards, the same budget buys a more reputable card elsewhere.

Who will they give you the card

LinkPay is unusually broad on the “where” front, but specific on the “who” front. The card page itself does not list an eligibility country map, but a dedicated “Certain Countries” page is linked (I have not read it). The Terms bar residents and citizens of 27 listed countries, including the Russian Federation, Belarus, Hong Kong, the United States, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, Syria and North Korea. The list is described as “not exhaustive” — meaning LinkPay can refuse other jurisdictions too. US citizens, US permanent residents and US entities are explicitly told they cannot open accounts.

Unofficial sources (third-party review sites, not LinkPay itself) put the available count at 168 countries, with 28 restricted. One of those third-party sites notes that China appears on the map but not in the body text, which is the kind of gap I would not rely on — if your country matters to you, ask support before signing up.

Two details are worth flagging. First, the country rules are about both residence and citizenship, not just where you live now. Second, the KYC partner only accepts ID documents issued by the same country as the user, so a passport from one country and an address in another can be a problem.

If you are not in a restricted country, have a government-issued ID from the country you say you live in, and can pass standard anti-money-laundering checks, the door is open. If any of those three things are in doubt, expect friction.

How to get it

Sign-up is on the web and through the iOS or Android app (a direct .APK is also offered, which I would treat with caution — installing apps outside the official stores is how clipboard-hijackers and fake wallet apps get in). LinkPay has three verification levels, and the level you reach sets your monthly spending limit:

• No verification: $500 per month, advertising cards only.
• Basic verification: $2,000 per month, all cards except Apple Pay and Google Pay, requires full name, address and ID details.
• Full verification: no spending or card-type limit, requires a valid ID photo and a live check.

Verification is generally completed within 24 hours but can take longer. Rejected documents can go to manual review, and the official reasons for rejection are not listed beyond “valid documents with clear photos”. In other words, if your upload is rejected, you may not find out exactly why.

The cards themselves are virtual only. The home page says “Virtual card for all purchases”, and no physical card option is offered. Third-party sites confirm this. The card network (Visa or Mastercard) is not stated on the card page; unofficial sources say LinkPay issues on both networks. Delivery, in the sense of a plastic card in the post, does not apply.

What it really costs: Fees

This is where LinkPay gets uncomfortable. The marketing page and the Terms of Service do not always agree, and the disagreement is large enough to matter.

The subscription model has four plans: Lite (free), Plus ($59/month), Pro ($179/month), Ultra ($209/month). The number of free virtual cards you can issue per month is the main thing the subscription buys: 0, 5, 15 and 79 respectively. The Terms list the same plans but with different numbers: 0, 5, 15 and 100 free cards. Ultra is listed at $299/month in the Terms, with cashback 3% capped at $299 per billing cycle, against the home page’s $209, 79 cards and 2% cashback. Pick a page and use it as your working number, but be aware the other number exists.

Three everyday scenarios make the cost concrete.

Buying a $30 subscription online on Lite. Transaction fee 2% with a $2 minimum applies, so you pay $0.60 (which is above the $2 minimum only at $100+). At $30, you pay 2% = $0.60. The card balance is debited the merchant amount plus the fee, so the $30 purchase costs you $30.60. There is no cashback on Lite, so the net cost is $0.60 in fees.

Buying a $30 subscription online on Pro. Transaction fee is 1% with no minimum, so the fee is $0.30. Cashback is 1%, so you get $0.30 back. Net fee: roughly zero. But the subscription itself is $179/month, so unless you are issuing 15+ cards a month and using them regularly, the plan does not pay for itself.

Paying in a currency other than USD on any plan. The card currency is not stated beyond a FAQ note that USD cards are “planned to release soon”. The FX fee is not stated. In practice, that means the conversion is happening somewhere in the stack, and you have no published number to compare against. This is a real gap.

Other gaps: ATM access is not stated because the product is virtual, but third-party sources confirm no physical card and no ATM. Daily limits are not stated. Network fees for the crypto deposit are paid by you to the blockchain, not to LinkPay.

The summary: on paper Lite is free, but the 2% transaction fee with a $2 minimum is high for small purchases, and almost every other fee in the Terms reads differently from the home page. Read the Terms before you commit, and if your use case is small one-off purchases, Lite is the only plan where “free” really means free.

How to top up your LinkPay card: Top up methods

LinkPay is crypto-only on the funding side. The home page says “Deposit options for 7+ digital currencies” without naming them. Unofficial sources name Bitcoin and USDT, and the Terms mention TRC20 (Tron) and BTC confirmations explicitly (20 confirmations for TRC20, from 4 for BTC). USDT-on-Tron is a common pairing, so the TRC20 reference is consistent with USDT being supported there. USDT is also widely available on Ethereum (ERC-20), Solana and other chains, and which of those LinkPay supports is not publicly listed.

Fiat top-up is described as “planned”, and a built-in on-ramp (the kind of “buy crypto with a card” feature some cards have) is also “planned”. If you do not already hold crypto, this is not a card for you yet.

The activation minimum — the smallest amount you need to send before the system will issue a card — is shown in the dashboard before the card is created, and LinkPay says it is “usually around $15”. Send less than that and the issuance fails. This is a small but important detail: a $5 test transfer will not produce a card, and there is no public list of minimums per coin or network.

Three other points to know:

• The deposit fee follows the plan: 1% on Lite, 0.75% on Plus, free on Pro and Ultra per the home page (the Terms say 0.5% on Pro). You will see this fee deducted from the amount credited.
• Network fees are paid to the blockchain, not to LinkPay, and on Ethereum those fees fluctuate with congestion.
• The network fee payer is not stated, so I cannot tell you whether LinkPay absorbs it for you. Assume it is on you.

The risk profile of the top-up flow is the same as for any crypto card: send to the wrong network, or to an address that does not belong to LinkPay, and the funds are gone. Crypto transfers are not reversible.

Paying with it every day

Once a virtual card is in your dashboard, you can use it anywhere the network is accepted online. The product is a prepaid-style balance: you load first, then spend, and the card cannot overdraw. The card page does not list Apple Pay, Google Pay or any blocked merchant categories, but unofficial sources say tokenised mobile wallets are “in final integration, will be available soon” and are not available on Basic verification. The same unofficial source notes the eWallet page says some cards can be added today, while the FAQ says “coming soon” — pick a side and accept that the other one is wrong.

Cashback is the obvious sweetener, and again the numbers do not line up. The home page says “2% cashback for all payments” and shows 0% / 0% / 1% / 2% across the four plans. The Terms show 1% on Pro and 3% on Ultra, with caps of $179 and $299 per billing cycle respectively. The currency of the payout is not stated. On the Lite plan you get nothing back; on Pro you get 1% (Terms) or 1% (home page, agreeing here), with a cap.

A few mechanics worth knowing:

• Failed transactions with a pending authorisation: funds return in 5–10 minutes.
• Merchant refunds: usually within 4 weeks.
• Holds (the kind ad platforms place): usually 10–14 days.
• Unverified card top-ups are auto-cancelled, with refunds in 2–14 business days. Verified card top-ups are non-refundable.
• The cardholder is responsible for chargebacks and disputed transactions, and complaints are reviewed within 30 days. There is no chargeback process in the FAQ.

If a merchant runs an Address Verification Service check, and LinkPay issues in a country different from your billing country, AVS is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which can produce a decline that has nothing to do with your balance. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign BINs by policy. Both of these are normal category behaviour, but they are more visible on a card with an unclear issuer.

What can go wrong

This is the section I would read twice. The product mechanics are one thing; the track record of the company behind them is another.

LinkPay is registered in Richmond, BC, Canada, with an MSB (money services business) registration number M23039048. The issuer and BIN sponsor are not named on the public pages. An MSB registration in Canada is not the same as a bank or e-money institution licence; it is a FinCEN-equivalent registration category in the US, and in Canada it is a registration with the financial transactions regulator. It does not by itself carry the same customer-fund protections that an EMI or bank charter does. None of the standard “your funds are safeguarded” or deposit-insurance language appears on the site.

On Trustpilot, the card sits at 2 out of 5 from around 39–40 reviews. The complaints that come up repeatedly:

• Cards frozen before a transaction, with the freeze reportedly lifted only after the user bought a paid plan. The company replies cite security protocols and “insufficient verification”. I cannot verify the pattern from individual anecdotes, but the existence of the pattern in the public reviews is a fact.
• Withdrawals stuck in “processing” for over four weeks. LinkPay’s own Terms say withdrawals are processed “during 10 working days”, so anything beyond that is outside the stated window.
• Months-long waits to issue a card after sign-up.

A third-party review (CryptoCardHub, 11 August 2026) puts the Trustpilot score slightly higher, at about 2.3 from 44 reviews. The same source describes support as slow and repetitive.

A separate, single-source claim from a competitor (Halocard, date not shown) says LinkPay’s banking partner had issues that froze cards and withdrawals during a move to a new partner, with waits of approximately 3 months. I would treat this as a single data point, not a confirmed pattern, but the underlying idea — that the card programme depends on a banking partner whose issues can freeze customer funds — is true of the category generally.

Custodial risk is structural. Your balance sits in LinkPay’s wallet; the Terms allow the Administrator to suspend all wallets without notice on suspicion of violations, and funds can be frozen during investigation. Insurance is not stated. There is no third-party custody, no proof of reserves, and no segregated-account disclosure. As with all custodial crypto products, “not your keys, not your coins” applies: if LinkPay is hacked, becomes insolvent, or is sanctioned, your balance is at risk alongside everyone else’s.

Security features I did find: GDPR, ISO and PCI DSS badges on the site; three-failed-login lockout; and freeze/unfreeze on subscription or custom plans. None of these are substitutes for the issuer-and-custody questions above.

Support channels: a Telegram bot (t.me/Anna_LinkPay_Premium_Support_Bot), email, and live chat on the website, in English. The bot and live chat are a long way from a regulated support function with formal complaint escalation; the “30-day complaint review” timeline in the Terms is the only formal route.

What to take instead

If LinkPay does not feel right, three other cards in the same general space are worth a look. I have not used any of them, but I have read their pages and put the comparison in the same shape.

Bitrefill is the most polished of the three on the funding side, with a long list of payment options including SEPA, and a clean 2% cashback structure (1% on the deposit, 1% on the purchase, no cap). The card page says it is free through the app; the inactivity fee after 12 months of no spending or cash-out is not stated. Card currency is EUR per the terms. If you want both virtual and physical, this is a real option.

UPay offers virtual and physical, personal and business, and a long country list (180+) — but the published fees and limits are thin, and the KYC partner only accepting same-country ID is a real friction point if you live somewhere other than where your passport is from.

Kemy is the most expensive of the three on paper. Virtual issuance is $15 (valid 3 years) with a $2/month fee, and the physical Mastercard is $250 with DHL Express shipping (valid 3 years, one per user) and $10/month. Transaction fees are 3.5% plus $1 on the virtual card. The published “main-account deposit fee” of 8% in one place and 5% in another is its own internal contradiction, and FX fees are not listed. Cashback is not mentioned. Unless you specifically need the physical contactless card and the Kemy country list fits you, this is hard to recommend.

For a US-based reader, none of the four above will be straightforward: LinkPay explicitly bars US citizens and permanent residents, and the other three will each need a check at sign-up. For a reader in a non-restricted country who is choosing between these, Bitrefill is the clearest pick, UPay is the middle option, and Kemy is the pick only if you need the physical card and accept the price.

Who I would recommend it to

Putting all of this together, here is the audience I think LinkPay genuinely serves:

• Non-Russian advertisers and affiliate managers who need many virtual cards, can live with the 1% Pro fee and the 1% cashback, and benefit from the team-member and merchant-account slots on the higher tiers. The “Lite plan for occasional use, Pro plan for serious media buying” framing is the one case where the pricing makes sense.
• Users in non-restricted countries who already hold BTC or USDT, are comfortable sending crypto to a third-party wallet, and want a no-monthly-fee card for low-value online purchases.
• Users who do not need a physical card, do not need an ATM, and do not need mobile wallets today.

And here is who I would steer away:

• Anyone who needs a physical card or ATM access. The product is virtual only.
• Anyone whose country is in the 27-country restricted list, or whose citizenship is — the rule covers both.
• Anyone who needs predictable fees. The Terms/home page disagreement on the Ultra plan, on decline fees, on deposit fees and on withdrawal fees is large enough to make a real difference over a year of use.
• Anyone whose main concern is fund safety. The issuer is not named, the custody is full and undocumented, and the public complaints cluster around frozen balances. Compare to a card issued by a named, regulated bank or EMI before you commit.
• Anyone who needs to add the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay today. Both are “in final integration, will be available soon” as of the page snapshot, with unofficial sources noting a contradiction with the eWallet page.

If you are not in the first group, the safer use of the same money is a card from a named issuer with a published Terms document, a track record of customer-fund safeguards, and a card network that the major merchants in your country accept without foreign-BIN friction.

Frequently asked questions

What is the LinkPay card?

LinkPay is a virtual-only prepaid card, issued on either Visa or Mastercard, that draws on a crypto balance. You top up the balance in supported cryptocurrencies, the balance is converted to spendable funds (with a fee), and the card is used online like any other Visa or Mastercard.

How does the LinkPay card work?

You create an account, verify your identity to one of three levels (no verification, Basic, or full), top up with crypto, and issue a virtual card from the dashboard. Each purchase deducts the transaction fee from your balance. There is no physical card and no ATM.

Is LinkPay a bank?

No. LinkPay is registered as a money services business (MSB) in British Columbia, Canada (registration M23039048). The card issuer and BIN sponsor are not publicly named. An MSB registration is not the same as a bank or e-money institution licence and does not carry the same customer-fund protections.

Who owns LinkPay?

The company behind the card is named LinkPay, with a registered address in Richmond, BC, Canada. Ownership beyond that is not publicly disclosed on the company’s pages.

Is the LinkPay card available in my country?

The Terms list 27 countries where service is not provided, including the Russian Federation, Belarus, Hong Kong, the United States, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, Syria and North Korea, and the list is described as “not exhaustive”. Unofficial sources put the available count at 168 countries with 28 restricted. If your country matters, ask support before signing up.

How do I get a LinkPay card?

Sign up on the web or in the iOS or Android app, complete verification, deposit crypto above the activation minimum (LinkPay says it is “usually around $15”), and issue a virtual card from the dashboard.

Does the LinkPay card require KYC?

Yes. The level of KYC sets the monthly spending limit: $500 with no verification (advertising cards only), $2,000 with Basic verification, and unlimited with full verification. Verification is normally completed within 24 hours.

How do I add the LinkPay card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay?

The public pages say Apple Pay and Google Pay are “in final integration, will be available soon” and are not available on Basic verification. Unofficial sources note a conflict between the eWallet page and the FAQ on whether some cards can already be added; assume “not yet” until your dashboard shows otherwise.

Is the LinkPay card safe?

The site shows GDPR, ISO and PCI DSS badges and a three-failed-login lockout, and freezes are available on subscription plans. Against that, the issuer is not named, the balance is fully custodial with no published segregation or insurance, and the public reviews cluster around frozen cards and stuck withdrawals. Treat the balance as a deposit with an unregulated custodian, not as a bank account.

Is the LinkPay card worth it?

For most people, no. The free Lite plan is cheap but the 2% transaction fee with a $2 minimum is high, and the higher plans only pay off if you are using the team-member slots, the merchant accounts, or issuing large numbers of cards. For non-Russian advertisers and affiliate managers with that need, it can be worth it; for everyone else, the alternatives in this review (Bitrefill, UPay, Kemy) are stronger on transparency and safety.

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