Cards at face value. No markup.
Every Cards402 order settles exactly 1:1 against the card's USD face value. There is no subscription, no signup fee, and no per-transaction surcharge from us. The only fees you'll ever see are the ones the card issuer charges directly — listed in full below.
We take zero markup on the card face value. You pay exactly what the card loads with.
No subscription, no seat licensing, no minimum volume commitment.
Unpaid orders expire after 2 hours. No funds taken, no fee.
Charged by the issuer (Pathward) on transactions in any currency or country other than the card currency.
Issuer fee for mailing a physical replacement. Replacements due to expiration are free.
Applied by the issuer to the remaining balance after the 6th month following activation. Spend the balance within six months and you pay nothing.
The card is a real Visa. Limits match.
Reward cards are bound by the Pathward cardholder agreement. These are the numbers your agent needs to plan against.
Pathward, N.A. · Member FDIC
Every Cards402 card is a Visa Reward Card issued by Pathward, N.A. pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Cards are subject to the standard Pathward cardholder agreement.
- Card network · Visa
- Card type · Non-reloadable reward
- Cash access · None (no ATM, no cashback)
- Recurring charges · Not permitted by issuer
Pricing, in plain English.
How can cards be free?
Cards402 makes money on volume discounts we negotiate with our card suppliers. When an agent buys a $25 card, we settle with the supplier at a rate slightly below $25 and pass the full face value through to the agent. We break even on every individual card and profit on aggregate flow. No surprise markup.
Do I pay Stellar network fees?
Yes. Each card purchase triggers a Soroban contract call from your agent wallet, which costs roughly 0.005–0.02 XLM (a fraction of a cent) in network fees depending on execution cost. Your wallet pays it directly — Cards402 never touches it.
What does "$2.00 + 2%" actually look like?
A €50 purchase in Paris on a $200 USD card settles at ~$54 depending on the Visa network rate, plus $2.00 + $1.08 (2% of $54) = a $3.08 foreign transaction fee added on top.
Why is there a 6-month inactivity fee?
This is a standard Pathward reward-card term. The card itself does not expire — only the fee-free window does. If your agent uses the balance within six months (most do), you never encounter it. If the balance sits for longer, $2.50 is deducted each month until it reaches zero.
Can I get a refund?
If an order fails before the card is issued, the USDC/XLM you paid is automatically refunded to your sender address. Once a card is issued, the funds sit on the card — we can't reverse them, but your agent can spend them.
What are the order size limits?
Cards402 accepts orders between $0.01 and $10,000 per card. The floor exists because the issuer can't represent sub-cent balances; the ceiling is Pathward's per-card balance cap. Inside that range, any amount works — there's no step function or reload fee. If you need an aggregate spend above $10,000 for one agent task, issue multiple cards and split the purchase: it keeps blast radius contained and is usually what an auditor wants to see anyway.
How does Cards402 stay non-custodial if you can refund me?
Refunds go from the Cards402 treasury wallet, not from a hold on your funds. Your payment already settled to the receiver contract at the time of the order — the refund is a separate outbound Stellar payment that we send you after verifying the order failed. We never take custody of your inbound USDC/XLM and we never promise your funds will be returned if our treasury is drained; the architecture is non-custodial because you can always verify where your funds went on-chain, not because we're holding them for you in escrow.