Pay for the Claude API without a credit card

You cannot pay Anthropic for the Claude API without a card: its help center says it accepts credit and debit cards for all purchases and does not accept PayPal or Venmo. To use Claude without a credit card, top up a Kunavo balance instead — Link, Pix, WeChat Pay, Alipay, Cash App Pay, Klarna, Bancontact, BLIK, EPS, MB WAY, Apple Pay — from $10, with no subscription. Claude on Kunavo is priced 30% under Anthropic's list, and the same key works with the OpenAI SDK and the native Messages API.

What Anthropic accepts

Anthropic's “Why was my card declined?” article is short on this point: credit and debit cards for all purchases, and no third-party processors such as PayPal or Venmo. The card also has to have a billing location Anthropic supports. API use is paid in advance: the API billing article describes prepaid usage credits bought in the Claude Console, which expire one year after purchase and are not refundable; organizations with an invoicing arrangement are billed monthly instead.

Why your card gets declined

The same article lists the causes, and they explain most failed top-ups on the Console:

• the card's billing location is not on Anthropic's supported list;
• the billing address does not match the one your bank has on file;
• 3D Secure verification was started but not finished;
• the payment method is one Anthropic does not take;
• insufficient funds;
• a temporary technical problem.

If none of those fixes it — or you simply do not have a card that pays abroad — the route below does not depend on one.

Payment methods that work on Kunavo

Top-ups go through Stripe Checkout, which shows the methods available for your country and currency and converts the USD amount to your currency where a local method needs it. The list below is the one verified against the live account; nothing else is offered.

The full list, with how the balance and the ledger work, is in the billing docs.

How to pay, step by step

1. Create an account with an email address or a Google account. No card is asked for at sign-up.
2. Open the billing page and pick an amount — $10 is the smallest top-up.
3. In Stripe Checkout, choose the method you want from the ones shown for your country, and finish the payment in its own app or page.
4. The balance is credited as soon as Stripe confirms the payment, usually within seconds. Create a key under API keys.
5. Make the first call:

# After the top-up lands, this is the first call.
curl https://api.kunavo.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KUNAVO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-5",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "One line: did the payment work?"}]
  }'

What it costs once you are in

Claude on Kunavo runs 30% under Anthropic's list. Claude Sonnet 5 is $1.40 per 1M input tokens and $7.00 per 1M output tokens; Claude Haiku 4.5 is $0.70 and $3.50. The balance never expires, a failed request is not billed, and the per-model rates are in Claude API pricing. For the cheapest way to run Claude at all, see the cheapest Claude API.

Paying from Brazil, Japan, Korea, Taiwan or a Spanish-speaking country

Market-specific versions of this answer, with local card rules and local wallets: pay with Pix (Brazil), Claude の支払い方法 (Japan), 클로드 결제 방법 (Korea), Claude API 付款方式 (Taiwan) and pagar la API de Claude sin tarjeta (Spanish).

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