Virtual cards explained: which kind you need for paying abroad
Two very different products go by the name «virtual card». The first is a card from your own Russian bank issued without plastic: it takes a minute in the app, costs nothing and works fine for online shopping inside the country. The second is a prepaid card from a foreign issuer, sold by an intermediary service: it costs money, expires, and exists for exactly one purpose — paying for things that will not accept a Russian card.
The difference is not a matter of shading. A virtual Sberbank or Tinkoff card fails abroad for the same reason the plastic one does: what matters is the country of issue, not the physical form. And the reverse holds too — a foreign prepaid card from the catalogue is useless for utility bills, transfers and Russian shops.
This article is about the second kind. We keep a catalogue of seven such services: legal entity, jurisdiction, fees, exchange rate, restrictions and liability cap for each. Every figure below comes from there.
In short
- A Russian bank's virtual card is a form of issue, not a different card: it does not work abroad.
- A foreign prepaid card is for subscriptions, shops and services that refuse Russian cards.
- The real money is lost on the exchange rate, not on the card price: the markup across the catalogue runs from 6.0 % to 20.7 %.
- A cheap card with a bad rate costs more than an expensive card with a good one — count annual turnover, not the entry fee.
- For all seven, money on the card is not a deposit: the liability cap is spelled out separately and it is small.
Two products, one word
Your own bank's virtual card
A digital duplicate of an ordinary card: same account, same bank, same country of issue. The point is safety and convenience — you can reissue the details quickly if they leak. What it can and cannot do is decided by the bank, not by being «virtual». To a foreign merchant such a card is indistinguishable from the plastic one and is declined for the same reasons.
A foreign prepaid card from an intermediary
A card issued by a foreign issuer and sold to you by a middleman. You pay in roubles, the money is converted at the service's own rate and sits on the card balance. No real foreign bank account is opened: most have no IBAN, no PIN and no way to send money to anyone else. It is a payment instrument for purchases, not a banking product.
Of the seven services in the catalogue, none supports cash withdrawal, none provides an IBAN, and person-to-person transfers exist only at Flowbit Finance.
Where the money actually goes
Storefronts compare themselves on the issue price: 1 299 ₽ against 2 990 ₽ against 14 990 ₽. That is the least informative number of the lot. The bulk is taken by the rate at which your roubles become dollars on the card balance.
The Central Bank rate on the measurement date was 79.86 ₽ per dollar. Here is what the services offered, where the rate is published:
| Service and plan | Rate, ₽/$ | Markup over CBR |
|---|---|---|
| Plati po miru — Premium | 84.64 | +6.0 % |
| Flowbit Finance — with Plus subscription | 89.76 | +12.4 % |
| Plati po miru — Travel | 90.23 | +13.0 % |
| Aifory Pro | 90.53 | +13.4 % |
| Plati v puti | 91.20 | +14.2 % |
| Flowbit Finance — base | 91.49 | +14.6 % |
| Wanttopay | 93.95 | +17.6 % |
| Plati po miru — Subscriptions | 95.82 | +20.0 % |
| Zarub | 96.38 | +20.7 % |
| Wayment | rate not published | |
Almost 15 percentage points separate the extremes. On 1 000 $ of annual turnover that is roughly 11 700 ₽ — comparable to the priciest cards in the catalogue and more than any of the cheaper ones cost outright.
Wayment stands apart: it is the only one that does not name a rate at all. In that case the catalogue does not substitute a market average — the row becomes a «from–to» interval and sinks in the sorting. Not knowing must never look like an advantage.
What a 100 $ payment costs
One transaction of a hundred dollars: top-up, conversion and transaction fee. The card price and any subscription are excluded — those have to be spread over a year.
| Service — best plan | Paid on top of 100 $ at the CBR rate |
|---|---|
| Plati po miru — Premium | 520 ₽ |
| Flowbit Finance — Pay Plus / NFC Plus | 1 010 ₽ |
| Plati po miru — Travel | 1 079 ₽ |
| Plati v puti — senior subscription card | 1 134 ₽ |
| Plati po miru — Subscriptions | 1 638 ₽ |
| Zarub — VISA virtual card | 1 680 ₽ |
| Aifory Pro | 1 915–1 955 ₽ (per-transaction fixed fee undisclosed) |
| Wanttopay — Smart | 2 067 ₽ |
| Wayment — Subscriptions | 0–639 ₽ (rate undisclosed, hence the interval) |
Note Plati po miru: the cheapest payment and the most expensive card are the same service. Premium costs 14 990 ₽, which is 12 000 ₽ more than the subscription card, but it wins 11.18 ₽ on every dollar. The break-even sits around 1 073 $ of turnover. Below a thousand dollars a year, take the junior card; above it, the senior one.
Which card for which job
One or two subscriptions, 10–20 $ a month
Here the entry price and the fixed per-transaction fee decide, not the rate — turnover is too small to matter. Look for cards with a zero or near-zero transaction fee, and check the validity period: a card valid for twelve months will need reissuing within a year.
Paying for AI services
A case with its own rules: some cards are not accepted by AI services. Plati po miru explicitly forbids ChatGPT and OpenAI on its Travel plan and recommends the subscription card instead — the one with the worst rate in its line-up. At Wayment, the documentation says ChatGPT and Claude work only on the «Subscriptions» card; travel and premium do not. Details in paying for AI services from Russia.
Shopping abroad, hotels, car rental
You need contactless, terminal support and a high limit. And you need a PIN — which Plati po miru does not provide at all, while in Turkey terminals often ask for one when you pay in a currency other than lira. Wayment separately warns about unattended petrol stations as a trap when renting a car.
App Store, iCloud, Google Play
Here it is not the rate that decides but whether your account region matches the card's country of issue. That is a topic of its own: how to pay App Store and iCloud from Russia.
What to check before paying
- Legal entity and jurisdiction. All seven disclose them, but the quality varies: at Wanttopay the website names one company while the agreement is concluded with another, and the country under whose law it was incorporated is missing from the text entirely.
- Liability cap. This is the maximum you can recover if the service errs, and it is not the balance on the card. At Aifory Pro it is 50 $ in aggregate; at Zarub, the fees for 30 days but no more than 10 000 ₽, and only for intentional acts.
- What happens to the remaining balance. At Wayment the balance is returned when the card expires — the only one in the catalogue. At Wanttopay and Plati po miru it is forfeited; Wanttopay's Prepaid card is deleted along with the money 60 days after issue.
- Auto-block threshold. The spread is enormous: Plati po miru blocks after 1–3 failed attempts, Wanttopay after three, Aifory Pro after twenty.
- Prohibited categories. Wayment lists twelve; Plati v puti publishes no list at all, only a general reference to the terms of an unnamed issuer.
How to compare it yourself
In the cards table you enter the payment amount and the calculator works out the full cost per service: top-up fee, rate markup and transaction fee together. Undisclosed parameters are not replaced by zero — the row honestly turns into an interval.
Catalogue data was collected on 30 July – 1 August 2026 from the services' own statements and public documents. Terms change; check the storefront before paying.