Pay for Perplexity with a crypto card

Perplexity Pro gives you the stronger models, file uploads and the API credit that comes with the plan. It is billed through Stripe on perplexity.ai, and Stripe wants a card. If your funds are in USDT, a prepaid Mastercard in US dollars is the shortest path, and the checkout treats it like any card.

Buy the card, top it up, add it to Perplexity, and the subscription renews monthly from the card balance.

What Perplexity costs

Perplexity Pro is $20 a month or $200 a year at the time of writing, and Perplexity Max is $200 a month. Pro includes a monthly API credit for developers. Prices are in US dollars, so the card is charged the plan price plus the $0.10 service fee.

At the Perplexity checkout

Sign in, open Settings, Subscription, choose Pro and enter the card in the Stripe form. Use the cardholder name from your CryptoCardex account. If Stripe asks for a postal code or 3D Secure, the code arrives in your account. Pay on the website rather than in the mobile app, where Apple or Google handle the payment and add their fee.

If the payment is declined

If the payment is declined, check the balance covers the plan plus a small hold, then retry once. Repeated attempts within minutes can be blocked for an hour at the processor. Failed renewals are retried by Perplexity for a few days after you top up.

What the card itself costs

The card costs $49.99 once and nothing per month. A top up is 3% plus the network fee. A purchase in a currency other than US dollars costs 2.5% of the amount, every approved purchase over $1 carries a $0.10 service fee, and the issuing bank's fee on a purchase is passed on at cost. All of it is in one table on the pricing page; if a charge is not there, we do not take it.

How to get the card and pay

1. Open the card. Sign up with an email address and pay $49.99 once for the virtual Mastercard. The card number, expiry date and CVV appear in your account about two minutes later. No passport and no selfie.
2. Top it up with crypto. Send USDT or USDC on TRON, BNB Chain, Polygon or Ethereum to the deposit address shown in the account. The top up costs 3% plus the network fee, and the balance is held in US dollars.
3. Pay at the checkout. Enter the card like any other Mastercard: number, expiry, CVV, the name from your account and the billing address it asks for. The merchant sees an ordinary card payment, not crypto.

Questions people ask

Does Perplexity accept prepaid cards?

Yes. Stripe processes the card as a prepaid Mastercard in US dollars with no special treatment.

Is the annual plan a single charge?

Yes, $200 is taken at once. Top up the full amount before choosing annual billing.

Can I use the Perplexity API credit from Pro?

Yes. The credit is tied to the Pro account, not to the card. Extra API usage beyond the credit is charged to the card on file.