Collection

Buying an AI account from Iran

None of the major vendors takes a direct payment from Iran, so the right question is not which one works but what each substitute route takes from you. Five real routes exist and all five cost something beyond their price.

  • five sourced routes
  • no account sales
  • no referral links

Last checked: This is a reference page. It is re-checked against the vendor sources and updated when a new version ships. What changed

First separate two things: a subscription or an API

Most people searching for an AI account actually want one of two very different things. One is the monthly app subscription, Claude at twenty dollars or a ChatGPT plan, which brings the mobile app, conversation memory and projects with it. The other is API access, billed on what you use, carrying none of those.

If your work is writing code or wiring a model into your own tool, the second route is both cheaper and less risky, because the account is yours from day one with no seller behind it. Someone who only wants to chat in a browser gets nothing from an API.

The order we suggest

For development work, API credit first. Then a virtual card, because the account stays yours. Then a gift card, if the subscription is sold inside the app. A reseller market last, and only knowing the account is not yours.

A verification number is not a separate route, it is a component: some signups simply insist on a non-Iranian number. Do not put one on your main working account, because a rented number eventually goes unrenewed and account recovery goes with it.

What we do not do

We do not sell accounts, we take no commission from any of these services, and there is no referral link in the table above. The names are here because readers go looking for them anyway, and it is better to read the risks somewhere that is not selling anything. The hidden-cost column is our judgement rather than the service's claim; anything with a source has the link beside it.

One thing no route fixes

An account opened outside the supported-countries list is exposed to suspension, and none of these five changes that. So do not build anything on one of them whose disappearance would stop your work. If your business depends on one model, spread the dependency across two.

Filter

6 tools

Where to actually buy it

The routes that really exist, each with its hidden cost.

Route What it is and how you pay What it costs you that is not the price
OpenRouter API credit One API in front of models from several vendors, sold as prepaid credit rather than a monthly subscription. Tops up with major cards, AliPay and USDC, at a 5.5 percent card fee with a $0.80 minimum or 5 percent on crypto. It passes provider pricing through without a markup. It is not a subscription, so nothing that lives in the vendor app reaches you: no mobile app, no conversation memory, no projects. For someone who only wants to chat in a browser this is the wrong route; it pays off for people writing code or wiring up their own tool. On small top-ups the percentage fee bites.
Bitrefill virtual Visa and Mastercard prepaid card Bitrefill sells virtual prepaid cards for crypto: a Digital Prepaid Visa from $20 to $1000 and a Virtual Prepaid Mastercard from $20 to $500. It takes Bitcoin, Lightning, Ethereum, USDC, USDT, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Solana and several more. Unlike a marketplace account, whatever you sign up for with this card is yours from day one. A prepaid card is not a full substitute for a credit card. Some services refuse prepaid BIN ranges and the payment just fails without a clear message, and next month's automatic renewal fails too if the card balance has run down, cutting the subscription off mid-use. Leftover balance is usually not withdrawable.
Apple and Google Play gift cards gift card Buy the subscription inside the mobile app and the money comes off your App Store or Google Play balance rather than a card. Bitrefill sells both gift cards for crypto, Apple from $2 to $400 and Google Play from $5 to $200, which opens that route to someone with no card at all. Gift cards are tied to a country: a US card only loads into a US store account, and if your account region is anything else the code simply will not redeem and there is no refund. Buying inside an app is usually more expensive than buying direct from the vendor's site, and some services do not sell an in-app subscription at all. Bitrefill's catalogue also carries no OpenAI, Anthropic or Midjourney card, so this route only reaches subscriptions that are actually sold through the App Store or Google Play.
Plati.market reseller market A Russian digital-goods marketplace of independent sellers. It does sell AI subscriptions, and its front page lists ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Cursor and Grok, most tagged for automatic delivery. Prices show in rubles, dollars, euros and hryvnia. You are buying from an anonymous seller, not from the vendor. What arrives is usually access to an account that is not yours, and nearly every one of these services forbids account transfer in its terms, so the account can be reclaimed or closed at any moment with nobody to appeal to. The seller keeps the password and the recovery email, so treat anything you type into that account as readable by someone else.
BitCall virtual numbers verification number When a signup insists on a non-Iranian mobile number, BitCall sells virtual numbers in more than 195 countries and says of its OTP numbers that they are real, non-VoIP numbers meant to pass 2FA verification. It also sells data eSIMs. Payment goes through Bitcoin, USDT on TRC-20 and ERC-20, and Ethereum, and it also takes cards, PayPal and Stripe. There is no setup fee and no monthly subscription. A rented number is not yours. Let it lapse and you lose it, and every account whose recovery hangs off that number goes with it, which on its own is reason enough never to put a rented number on your main working account. Some services also recognise virtual-provider number blocks and simply never send the code, and the money you spent on that number does not come back.

We do not sell accounts, we take no commission on any of these routes, and there is no referral link in this table. The hidden-cost column is our own judgement, not the service's claim; anything with a source has the link beside it.

Where it falls short

  • No prices appear here, because the reseller market moves daily and a stale number is worse than none.
  • We have not tested any of these routes ourselves from an Iranian connection; what is written was read from the services' own pages.
  • An account opened outside the supported-countries list can be suspended and the money does not come back. No route removes that risk.
  • The hidden-cost column is our judgement, not a sourced fact. Like any judgement it may not hold in your case.

Our take

If you are a developer, take API credit and skip the rest of this page: it is cheaper, the account stays yours, and there is no seller in the middle. A reseller market only makes sense when you need something sold exclusively inside an app, and then only on the assumption that the account can vanish any day.

Questions people actually ask

Is buying a ChatGPT account from Iran safe

An account a seller hands you is not yours: they keep the password and the recovery email, and nearly all of these services forbid account transfer in their terms. It can be reclaimed and it can be closed. If you have no alternative, put nothing confidential in that account.

What is the cheapest way to reach good models

API credit, if an API does the job. A subscription is a fixed price, while an API charges only for what you consume, which for someone using it a few times a day usually comes out far lower. Count the top-up fee too: 5.5 percent on card, 5 percent on crypto.

Do I always need a foreign number to sign up

It depends on the service and not all of them ask. Where one is required a virtual number is a route, but do not attach a rented number to your main account: the day it lapses, that account's recovery goes with it.

Do you sell accounts

No. We do not sell accounts, we are not a reseller, and we take no commission on these routes. This page only documents what exists and what it costs.

Sources

  1. OpenRouter FAQvendor sourceopenrouter.airead on 12 August 2026
  2. Bitrefill gift card cataloguevendor sourcewww.bitrefill.comread on 12 August 2026
  3. BitCallvendor sourcebitcall.ioread on 12 August 2026
  4. Plati.marketthird partyplati.marketread on 12 August 2026