Virtual only, priced in four tiers, and thin on the details

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

LinkPay is a virtual crypto card, not a physical one, and almost everything you want to know about it comes in the same awkward shape: a promise on the home page, and a different figure in the terms. That tension runs through the whole product. The card is sold to people who cannot get an ordinary bank card, and the four paid plans are aimed at advertisers and teams who need many cards rather than one. If that is you, there is a real product here. If you want a card you can tap on a train, take out of an ATM, or hold in your hand, there is not.

My score for LinkPay is 5.0 out of 10. That is not a rounding of something worse, and it is not a hedge either. It is a card that works for a narrow job, prices that job in a way you can compute, and a set of published terms that disagree with the marketing in several places. I have read both, and I have read the complaints.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict: 5.0 out of 10

The score breaks into six criteria, and reading them together tells you more than the total does. Cost is the weakest link at 3, everyday use is weaker at 2, and reliability is the reason I would not hand this to anyone who needs their money to be there on a specific day.

Who this suits: someone outside the closed countries who already holds crypto, who cannot get a normal card, and who needs a virtual card number for online payments — ideally several, for ad platforms or a small team. The plan structure, with team members and merchant accounts per tier, was built for exactly that person.

Who it does not suit: anyone spending day to day in the physical world. There is no plastic in your hand, no ATM, no confirmed mobile wallet yet, and a monthly spend ceiling until you complete full verification. It also does not suit anyone who wants to hold a balance for a long time without asking what happens to it. The custodian — the company itself, effectively — can suspend all wallets without notice on suspicion.

Who they will give you the card to

Yes — this is unusually open by the standards of crypto cards, and that is the strongest thing about it. The official position is a list of closed countries rather than a list of open ones, and the terms bar residents and citizens of those countries specifically. Two things follow that you should know before you start.

First, the exclusion is on people, not just addresses. The Terms bar residents *and citizens* of the listed countries, and separately US citizens, permanent residents and US entities cannot open accounts. So if you hold a passport from a closed country but live legally somewhere else, the citizenship clause is the one that will stop you. Do not assume that moving your address solves it.

Second, the list is described as not exhaustive, which in practice means the company may add closures without the page changing in a way you would notice. Check the current page at the moment you apply, not the version you read six months ago.

Unofficial sources paint a wider map: 168 countries available with 28 restricted, according to third-party card directories. One of them notes China on the map but not in the body text, which is exactly the kind of small inconsistency that makes me treat the unofficial number as a rough picture rather than a fact. The same source says Russia is restricted, which the official list covers anyway. None of this is confirmed by LinkPay.

The verification requirements themselves are not stated on the page I read — it links to an Anti Money Laundering page whose content was not shown to me. So I can tell you the eligibility rule and I cannot tell you the document checklist from the official source. If you need to know exactly what to upload before you start, that page is the place to read, and I would rather tell you that plainly than guess.

How to get it

The signup path is a verification level, and the level you reach decides almost everything about how the card behaves for the rest of its life. This is the single most important thing on this page, because the lowest tier is not a trial — it is a permanently capped product unless you upgrade your documents.

Three levels, and they are not cosmetic:

• No verification — $500 a month, and advertising cards only. That phrase means the card is not meant for general spending. If you take nothing else from this review, take this: unverified is for ad platforms.
• Basic — $2,000 a month, all cards except Apple and Google Pay, and it needs your full name, address and ID details. The Apple Pay and Google Pay exclusion matters more than it looks, because those wallets are not live yet anyway.
• Unlimited — no spend limit and no card-type limit, and it needs a photo of a valid ID plus a live check. This is the only tier where the card behaves like the product the marketing describes.

On timing: verification is generally completed within 24 hours, and it can take longer. Rejected documents can go to manual review, and the official reasons for rejection go no further than “valid documents with clear photos”. In practice, a blur or a glare on an ID is the most common cause of a loop, and it is worth photographing in daylight on a dark surface before you upload.

The card you get is virtual. The site sells a “Virtual card for all purchases” and does not offer a physical one, states no network, and states no currency. Third-party sources say the cards run on Visa or Mastercard. So the number exists, it works online, and it will not arrive in the post — there is no delivery question to answer, because there is no delivery.

One thing to weigh before you apply: this is a custodial arrangement, so you are not opening a bank account, you are opening a wallet with a payment card attached to it. The balance sits in the company’s Wallet. Whoever holds the keys can move the funds, and so can you not.

Fees: what it really costs

The cost story has two halves: a subscription you choose, and a percentage that comes off every payment. The subscription is the part that is clear. The percentage is the part that varies by tier and, in two places, by which page you read.

Before you use those numbers, two conflicts. The Terms of Service says Ultra costs $299 a month with 100 free cards and 3% cashback capped at $299 per billing cycle, while the home page says $209, 79 free cards and 2%. It also says the decline fee is 0.5% / 0.5% / 0.3% / free where the home page says 2% / 1.5% / 1% / 1%; the deposit fee 0.5% on Pro where the home page says free; and that withdrawal is free on all plans where the home page says 3% / 3% / 2% / 1%. I have put the home page figures in the table because that is the page a buyer sees first, but I would not build a business case on either one. Ask support which applies, in writing, before you commit $179 a month.

Now the part most people actually care about: what happens when you pay for something.

A $30 subscription on Lite. Two percent of $30 is $0.60, but the minimum is $2, so the minimum wins and you pay $2. On a small purchase the floor, not the percentage, is what you are charged. That is why Lite is a bad plan for anything but very large spend.

A $300 grocery run on Plus. 1.5% of $300 is $4.50, above the $1 floor, so you pay $4.50. If you paid the $59 monthly fee for Plus on the strength of that rate, you need to be spending well over $3,900 a month before the fee is worth it against Lite’s 2%.

A $1,000 invoice for ad spend on Pro. 1% with no floor, so $10, against a $179 monthly subscription. If that is your monthly pattern, Pro is the only tier whose arithmetic works.

Two costs that are not on the table because the card does not say them: no FX fee is stated and no other card currency is offered yet, so today there is little FX exposure, but that changes the moment a non-USD card ships. And no ATM fee is listed, because there is no ATM.

A note on the free-card counts, because they are the actual product. Lite gives you zero free cards a month, and the per-card issue price on Lite is not stated — so on the free plan I cannot tell you what a card costs. Plus gives 5, Pro 15, Ultra 79 on the home page or 100 in the terms. For a non-Russian advertiser who needs many virtual cards, that ladder is the reason to look at this product at all.

Top up: how the money gets in

Crypto only. The site advertises deposit options for 7+ digital currencies and does not name a single one of them on that page. Fiat and on-ramp are described as planned, which I would read as not available. Third-party sources name BTC and USDT and mention the TRC20 and BTC networks, and none of that is confirmed by the card itself.

That single fact changes what kind of problem this card solves. You are not moving money from a bank account; you are moving money you already hold in a digital asset across a blockchain. Which means:

• The network is your responsibility. Send on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, and the transfer is irreversible. It may be recoverable through support, with no guarantee. If you have sent USDC over TRC20 before, note that Circle stopped supporting USDC on Tron in February 2024, so that pairing is not a native option.
• Confirmation times vary by chain. 20 confirmations for TRC20, from 4 for BTC. That is a waiting period where the money is neither yours nor theirs.
• The activation minimum is set in your dashboard, “usually around $15”, shown before issuance. Below the minimum, issuance simply fails. This is one of the few things the card tells you in advance rather than after the fact, and I would suggest reading the exact number in your own dashboard rather than trusting “around”.
• The deposit fee follows the tier — 1%, 0.75%, 0.5%, free — and the home page calls Pro and Ultra free while the terms say 0.5% on Pro.
• Who pays the network fee is not stated. On-chain gas for a deposit is charged by the blockchain, not by the card company, but the card does not say whether it passes that on.

Withdrawing is the part with real risk attached. The terms say you request a withdrawal from the Wallet and it is processed during 10 working days — that is a long window in which your money is in someone else’s system. The same terms say withdrawal is free on all plans, which contradicts the home page. Cashback cannot be withdrawn to a bank. If you close the account, remaining funds go to the payment details you specified, minus fees. Records are kept for five years. You cannot withdraw from the platform directly to a LinkPay card, but you can send an internal transfer to another user by email.

Paying with it every day

Here is where the score drops to 2, and it is worth being blunt: this is not a card for daily life. It is a card for a specific payment.

• Virtual only. No physical card is offered.
• No ATM. Virtual cards do not work in cash machines, and a third-party source confirms none is available.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay are not yet live. The site says they are “in final integration, will be available soon”, and they are excluded at Basic verification anyway. Third-party sources contradict each other here — one page says selected virtual cards can be added, the FAQ says coming soon — so treat both as unreliable and check in the app.
• USD is the only card currency, and even that is described as “planned to release soon”. No other currency is stated. No FX fee is stated.
• Cashback is 0% on Lite and Plus, 1% on Pro, 2% on Ultra, while the headline says “2% cashback for all payments”. The payout currency is not stated. Read the headline as marketing and the table as the terms.
• Apps are on the App Store and Google Play, plus a direct APK. Ratings are not shown on the site.

What the card does handle, it handles reasonably:

• Failed transactions with a pending authorisation return your funds in 5–10 minutes.
• Merchant refunds usually arrive within four weeks.
• Holds, for example on ad platforms, usually clear in 10–14 days. If you run ad accounts, that is a real working capital gap.
• Top-ups on an unverified card are cancelled automatically with refunds in 2–14 business days; top-ups on a verified card are non-refundable. Read that again before you fund the card — verification changes your refund rights.
• Chargebacks and disputed transactions are your responsibility, complaints are reviewed within 30 days, and the FAQ describes no chargeback process at all.

Two category facts explain some of the friction you may hit. A declined payment can leave a hold for up to seven days. And merchants can look up the BIN and see which country issued the card, applying extra scrutiny when it differs from the billing address — which is why a virtual card issued in one country can look foreign to a shop in another. Neither is LinkPay-specific, but both land on you here, where there is no physical card to fall back on.

What can go wrong

The company behind it is LinkPay, registered in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, with an MSB registration M23039048. It is not a bank, and the issuer or BIN sponsor is not stated anywhere I could read. That last point matters more than it sounds: in a normal card, the institution that issued your card is the one you hold the banking relationship with, and here that name is missing.

Custody is the structural risk. Your balance is held in the company’s Wallet, and the Administrator may suspend all wallets without notice on suspicion or on violation, with funds frozen during an investigation. The account locks after three failed login attempts. The site shows GDPR, ISO and PCI DSS badges. Freeze and unfreeze is available only on subscription or custom plans — meaning on the free Lite tier you may not have that lever. No insurance is stated.

User reports are specific and recent. On Trustpilot the score is 2 out of 5 from around 39–40 reviews; another directory cites about 2.3 from 44 reviews on Trustpilot and about 4.7 from ten reviews on G2, some of those invited via the vendor, with support described as slow and repetitive. Users describe cards frozen before a transaction and reportedly unfrozen only after buying a paid plan; withdrawals stuck at “processing” for four weeks or more; and waits of months to receive a card. The company’s replies cite security protocols and insufficient verification.

A competitor’s account of the same pattern. Halocard, a competitor site, describes cards and withdrawals being frozen during a move to a new banking partner, with waits of months. That is a competitor talking about a rival, and I weight it accordingly — but it is consistent with the user reports, and the mechanism it describes — a banking partner change — is precisely the failure mode you cannot control from the customer’s side. I found no Reddit thread worth reporting.

The issuer is unnamed and the network is a third party’s. Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers; they license issuers and can suspend a programme. FTX’s US debit card was wound down after Visa terminated its agreements in November 2022, and WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended in Europe in 2018, closing all its Visa programmes. Closures follow a pattern: notice, then loading and spending stop, then a request to withdraw remaining balances. If you hold a balance here, that is the shape of the risk you are taking.

The paperwork contradicts itself. Ultra at $209 or $299. Withdrawals free or 3%. Decline fees 2% or 0.5%. That is not fraud; it is usually stale copy. But if you are spending real money, you need to know which number governs, and the only way to find out is to ask.

What to take instead

If LinkPay’s shape does not fit, these three came out of the same review process and score between 4.7 and 5.6. None is a clear winner over it; each is a different answer to a different constraint.

Cardex — 5.6 / 10. “One crypto card, 200+ countries”, with no country list and no exclusions stated, which is either more welcoming or less documented. Debit crypto card on VERVE, Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay, virtual and physical, with the App Store listing Naira-focused. Real-time crypto-to-fiat conversion at the moment of payment, and an “AI-Powered Conversion Rate” that scans global exchange rates and picks the best one as you spend. No fee percentage is stated anywhere I could read, which is the single most important number on such a page. Funded from USDT, USDC and BTC wallets, networks not stated. Plan price and rewards not stated.

CardFlow — 4.9 / 10. Aimed squarely at Nigeria — “Nigeria’s smartest fintech card platform” — and at “Nigerians and global users”. A virtual USD Mastercard created in minutes. Creating a virtual card is “completely free” per the site FAQ; monthly fee and transaction fees are not stated. Funded by Bitcoin, USDT, ETH or a Naira bank transfer. Interesting as a contrast: a bank transfer option and a stated card currency, two things LinkPay does not have.

HyperCard — 4.7 / 10. A prepaid card with the balance in USD or EUR, network not stated on the App Store page, and the claim that it works in “more than 176 countries” — which describes where it is accepted, not who can get one. No country list on the official pages, no fees listed on the pages I could read, no rewards stated. You deposit crypto such as USDT, BTC or ETH in the app and it is converted to USD or EUR on the card.

The honest comparison: none of these resolves LinkPay’s biggest weakness, which is unnamed issuers and thin documentation. What they show is that a card which publishes its own numbers — even incomplete ones — is easier to judge than one that publishes none. LinkPay publishes contradictory numbers, which is better than silence and worse than clarity.

Who I would recommend it to

To the person who cannot get a normal card, already holds crypto, and spends most of it online. Get to full verification before you need the card, because the difference between $500 a month and no limit is the difference between a payment tool and a rounding error. Buy Pro or Ultra if your spending is real and steady, since the subscription only makes sense above a few thousand a month, and remember that on Lite the $2 minimum fee means small payments cost you more than the percentage suggests.

Keep the balance small. This is a payment rail, not a savings account, and the custodian can freeze it without notice.

To the person who wants a card for the physical world: look elsewhere, and look at a card that ships metal. To the person who wants to hold crypto long-term, this is the wrong category — self-custody is a different design, with its own risks that you own. And to anyone whose decision depends on the withdrawal fee, the Ultra price, or whether your money comes back: get the answer in writing before you commit, because the pages do not agree with each other.

Frequently asked questions

What is LinkPay?

LinkPay is a virtual crypto payment card, sold in four subscription tiers from a free Lite plan up to Ultra. You load crypto into a wallet the company holds, and the card spends a converted balance online. There is no physical card, no ATM, and the cards are reported by third parties to run on Visa or Mastercard, though LinkPay itself states no network. It is aimed partly at advertisers who need many virtual cards.

How does a LinkPay card actually work?

You deposit crypto, the provider converts it, and the card draws on that stored balance like a prepaid card. Spending only what you have loaded means the card cannot overdraw. Three verification levels decide your ceiling: $500 a month unverified for advertising cards only, $2,000 a month at Basic, and no spend or card-type limit at full verification with a valid ID photo and a live check.

Is LinkPay a bank, and who owns it?

No, it is not a bank. It is LinkPay, registered in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, with an MSB registration M23039048. The issuer or BIN sponsor is not stated anywhere in the public pages I read, which is a genuine gap — in a normal card the issuing institution is named. There is no deposit guarantee scheme stated and no insurance stated.

Does LinkPay require KYC, and what do I upload?

Yes, and the level depends on what you need. Basic needs full name, address and ID details; full verification needs a photo of a valid ID plus a live check. The card’s own page does not spell out the document checklist — it links to an Anti Money Laundering page whose content I did not see — so read that page yourself. Verification usually completes within 24 hours, can take longer, and rejected documents can go to manual review.

How much does a LinkPay card cost?

The free Lite plan charges 2% per transaction with a $2 minimum. Plus is $59 a month at 1.5% (min $1), Pro is $179 at 1%, Ultra is $209 at 1% with no floor. Pro and Ultra include free cards each month — 15 and 79 on the home page, though the Terms say 100 for Ultra at $299 with 3% cashback. Per-card issue price on Lite is not stated. Deposit fees are 1% / 0.75% / free / free.

Can I use LinkPay in my country, and will they give one to me?

Officially, the card is closed in 27 listed countries including the Russian Federation and Belarus, plus Hong Kong, the United States, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, Syria and North Korea, and the list is described as not exhaustive. Residents *and citizens* of those countries are barred, and US citizens, permanent residents and US entities cannot open accounts. Unofficial directories say 168 countries are available with 28 restricted — not confirmed by the card.

How do I top up the card, and how long does it take?

Crypto only, with fiat and on-ramp described as planned; 7+ currencies are advertised but none named by the card, though third parties name BTC and USDT and mention the TRC20 and BTC networks. The activation minimum appears in your dashboard, “usually around $15”, and below it issuance fails. Confirmations are 20 for TRC20 and from 4 for BTC. Send on a network the provider does not support and the transfer is irreversible.

How do I withdraw money from LinkPay, and how long does it take?

You request a withdrawal from the Wallet and the terms say it is processed during 10 working days. The terms call the withdrawal fee free on all plans; the home page says 3% with a $5 minimum on Lite and Plus, falling to 1% with a $1 minimum on Ultra. Cashback cannot be withdrawn to a bank. On closure, remaining funds go to the payment details you specified, minus fees. User reports describe withdrawals stuck in “processing” for four weeks or more.

Can I add LinkPay to Apple Pay or Google Pay?

Not yet, as far as the published pages show. The site says Apple Pay and Google Pay are “in final integration, will be available soon”, and they are excluded at Basic verification regardless. Third-party sources contradict each other — one page says selected virtual cards can be added, the FAQ says coming soon — so neither is reliable. Check the app itself. The same uncertainty covers blocked merchant categories, which the card never mentions.

Is LinkPay safe, and is it worth it?

Worth it depends entirely on your use, and safe is a question about custody. The balance sits in the company’s Wallet, and the Administrator may suspend all wallets without notice on suspicion, with funds frozen during an investigation; freeze and unfreeze is available only on subscription plans. Trustpilot shows 2 out of 5 from around 39–40 reviews, with reports of frozen cards and long withdrawal waits. Treat it as a payment rail, keep the balance small, and treat nothing here as insured.

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