Paying for AI services from Russia: ChatGPT, Claude and the rest
A ChatGPT or Claude subscription is 20 $ a month, and a Russian card will not pay it. What follows is less obvious: far from every foreign card gets through at AI services, and two vendors in our catalogue say so explicitly in their own documentation, naming specific plans.
Below is what the vendors state, and what a single 20 $ payment costs at each of the seven. We run no payment tests of our own: everything here is the vendors' own disclosure, collected on 30 July – 1 August 2026.
In short
- At Wayment, only the «Subscriptions» card is documented for ChatGPT and Claude; travel and premium are not.
- At Plati po miru, ChatGPT and OpenAI are explicitly forbidden on the Travel plan.
- For AI, Plati po miru recommends its subscription card — the one with the worst rate in the line-up, a 20 % markup.
- A 20 $ payment costs between 218 ₽ and 703 ₽ on top, depending on service and plan.
- The other five vendors do not mention AI services either way, in permissions or prohibitions.
What each vendor states about AI services
Wayment: the «Subscriptions» card and only that one
The plan description says it plainly: this is the only Wayment card that, per the documentation, pays for ChatGPT and Claude. The «Travel» and «Premium» cards carry the opposite note — not suitable for ChatGPT and Claude.
The difference between them is physical, not marketing. The subscription card is Visa with BIN 493724, issued in Singapore; travel and premium are Mastercard sharing BIN 524013, issued in Armenia. Two different card programmes, and AI services react to them differently.
Wayment's subscription card is priced for small payments: 0.3 $ per transaction below 30 $ and zero above 30 $. A 20 $ subscription lands in the charged half, but 0.3 $ is the lowest fixed fee in the catalogue. Wayment does not publish its exchange rate, so its total is an interval rather than a number.
Plati po miru: forbidden on travel, subscription card recommended
The service's restrictions list ChatGPT and OpenAI as prohibited on the Travel plan, with a note that this is due to OpenAI's own restrictions. For AI services the vendor recommends its «Subscriptions» card.
There is unpleasant arithmetic here. Plati po miru's rate differs by plan: 95.82 ₽ per dollar on subscriptions, 90.23 on travel, 84.64 on premium. The card recommended for AI is the one carrying a 20.0 % markup over the Central Bank rate, the worst in the line-up. The premium card at 6.0 % carries no such restriction but costs 14 990 ₽ against 2 990 ₽.
The other five
Wanttopay, Flowbit Finance, Aifory Pro, Plati v puti and Zarub do not mention AI services by name. Wanttopay's ban list holds fourteen services, including Adobe and Duolingo, but neither ChatGPT nor Claude appears there. Aifory Pro says something different: Facebook Ads go through, while Google Ads frequently blocks virtual cards.
Silence is not permission. It means exactly what it means: the vendor promised nothing.
What a 20 $ payment costs
One transaction of twenty dollars: top-up, conversion and transaction fee at the CBR rate of 79.86 ₽. Card price and subscription excluded.
| Service — plan | Paid on top of 20 $ |
|---|---|
| Plati po miru — Premium | 138 ₽ |
| Flowbit Finance — Pay Plus / NFC Plus | 218 ₽ |
| Plati v puti — senior subscription card | 227 ₽ |
| Plati po miru — Travel | 249 ₽ (but ChatGPT is forbidden) |
| Flowbit Finance — Pay / NFC | 253 ₽ |
| Zarub — VISA virtual card | 358 ₽ |
| Plati po miru — Subscriptions | 361 ₽ |
| Wanttopay — Smart | 413 ₽ |
| Wanttopay — Easy / Pro | 471 / 472 ₽ |
| Aifory Pro | 663–703 ₽ (fixed fee undisclosed) |
| Wayment — Subscriptions | 24–152 ₽ (rate undisclosed) |
Wayment's interval is not a catalogue trick but a consequence: the vendor publishes no rate, and substituting a market average would be invention. The lower bound assumes the rate equals the interbank one, the upper assumes the largest markup seen on this market.
The annual picture, not the single payment
A subscription recurs, so the card price spread over its validity and any monthly fee are added on top.
- Wanttopay requires an active Plus subscription at 6 $ a month on the Easy, Smart and Pro plans — without it the card is frozen. The first month is free. The subscription is multi-card: one covers every reloadable card on the account.
- Flowbit Finance sells Plus at 4.99 $ a month. It improves the rate from 91.49 to 89.76 and cuts the crypto top-up fee, but leaves the transaction fee alone. On 240 $ of annual turnover the rate improvement is worth about 415 ₽ while the subscription costs about 4 800 ₽ — it does not pay for itself at that size.
- Plati po miru and Wayment charge no monthly fee but do charge an annual one from year two, equal to the issue price: 2 990 / 3 990 / 14 990 ₽ at the first and 2 990 / 3 990 / 7 990 ₽ at the second.
- Plati v puti, Aifory Pro and Zarub declare neither monthly nor annual fees in the catalogue.
Over twelve payments of 20 $ a year, the gap between the best and worst row above is about 6 800 ₽. That exceeds the issue price at five of the seven services: choosing the card costs more than the card.
What else breaks AI payments
- Verification charges. Linking a card triggers a test transaction. At Plati po miru each such check costs 0.25 $ and counts as a full transaction; at Wayment they are free.
- Block thresholds. Plati po miru blocks after 1–3 failed attempts, Wanttopay after three. A run of declines while hunting for the right card costs more than it looks.
- Cross-border surcharge. At Wanttopay the zero transaction fee applies only in dollars and only at US merchants; everything else attracts 2.5 % with a 0.50 $ minimum. A European subscription billed in dollars still falls under it.
- Card validity. From 12 months (Wanttopay Easy) to 60 (Wayment «Subscriptions», Plati po miru travel). An annual card means reissuing and re-linking.
Choosing for your case
If you only pay for AI subscriptions and turnover is small, look at the fixed transaction fee and at whether the card is declared to work for the service you need. Above a thousand dollars a year the rate decides, and then it is worth calculating the payback on an expensive card with a good rate.
The catalogue calculator does the sums: enter your amount and it adds up the top-up, rate and fee per service, honestly showing an interval where a vendor withheld something.