Claude payment glossary

Every term here is defined the way it matters when you are trying to pay for Claude without a working card — not in the abstract. 15 entries.

Gift subscriptionalso: gift code, redemption code: An official Anthropic product: a prepaid subscription bought by one person and redeemed by another at claude.ai/redeem. It runs for a fixed term, has no card attached, and does not auto-renew. It is the mechanism every crypto reseller in this market ultimately uses, including us. How the gift route works.
BINalso: Bank Identification Number: The first six to eight digits of a card number, which identify the issuer and the card type. Payment processors accept or refuse whole BIN ranges, which is why a funded virtual card can be declined instantly regardless of balance — the refusal is about the range the card belongs to, not about you. Why cards get declined.
3-D Securealso: 3DS, OTP verification: The extra authentication step some issuers require, usually a one-time code sent by SMS or approved in a banking app. When the registered phone number is out of date or the verification window is blocked by a pop-up blocker, the payment fails with a generic decline and no explanation. Fixing a 3DS failure.
AVSalso: Address Verification System: A check that compares the billing address entered at checkout with the address the card issuer holds. A mismatched postcode alone can trigger a decline. Inventing a foreign address to appear domestic fails this check and looks like fraud.
Stablecoinalso: USDT, USDC: A cryptocurrency pegged to a fiat currency, almost always the US dollar. Relevant here because a subscription is priced in dollars: paying with a stablecoin means the amount you send is the amount owed, whereas paying with BTC or SOL exposes you to price movement while the transaction confirms. Paying with USDT.
Networkalso: chain, TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20, SPL: The blockchain a token is sent over. The same token exists on several networks and they are not interchangeable — USDT on TRON cannot be received at an Ethereum address. Sending on the wrong network is the most common way people lose funds when paying for a subscription, and it is usually unrecoverable by anyone. Which network to use.
Network feealso: gas, miner fee: What the blockchain charges to process your transfer, paid by you on top of the amount sent. On a subscription-sized payment this is a meaningful share of the total: fractions of a cent on Solana, around a dollar on TRON, and potentially several dollars on Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Underpayment: An invoice paid for less than the amount due, most often because an exchange deducted its withdrawal fee from the amount sent rather than adding it. The order cannot complete automatically and needs manual reconciliation, which is why sending from a wallet is more reliable than withdrawing an exact figure from an exchange.
KYCalso: Know Your Customer: Identity verification — typically an ID document and a selfie. Virtual card issuers almost always require it, and many refuse residents of exactly the countries whose cards get declined. Buying a gift subscription requires none: an email address is the only detail needed, and only for delivery. Routes that need no KYC.
Virtual card: A card number issued digitally and funded from a balance, often topped up with crypto. It behaves like a normal card and preserves auto-renewal, which a gift code cannot. Its weakness is that its BIN may be refused, and that a card accepted today can stop being accepted later. Virtual card vs gift code.
Payment problem vs availability problem: The distinction that decides whether anything on this site can help you. A payment problem is Anthropic being willing to serve you but unable to take your money — solvable with a different card or a gift code. An availability problem is Anthropic not serving the account at all, which no payment method changes. What an availability problem looks like.
P2Palso: peer-to-peer trading: Buying crypto directly from another individual through an exchange that holds the funds in escrow until both sides confirm. It is the dominant way people acquire stablecoins in countries where bank rails cannot reach an exchange. Use the escrow; transferring directly to a dealer is how people get scammed.
Claude Pro: Anthropic's individual paid tier for claude.ai, billed monthly by card. It raises usage limits over the free tier and includes Claude Code and Projects. It is the plan most people on this site are trying to buy. Plans and prices.
Claude Maxalso: Max 5×, Max 20×: Anthropic's higher individual tiers, sold at multiples of Pro's usage limits. Sold as gift subscriptions on the same basis as Pro, at proportionally higher prices. Max pricing.
Anthropic: The company that builds Claude. Not affiliated with this site in any way. Anthropic bills subscriptions by card only and does not accept cryptocurrency, which is the entire reason services like this one exist.