Privacy.com virtual cards
A US-only service that generates single-use or merchant-locked virtual card numbers funded from a linked bank account, killing the shared card-number trail across merchants.
TL;DR verdict
If you live in the US and pay for anything online, this is the cheapest single change you can make to reduce your surveillance surface — provided you're comfortable linking a checking account.
What we like
- Ends card-number-trail across merchants
- Single-use, merchant-locked, and limit-capped card types
- Cancels a subscription reliably — pause the card and it's dead
- Free personal tier covers most household use
Where it falls short
- US-only bank funding, no support for non-US residents
- Requires linking a checking account, not a credit card
- Won't work for in-person purchases without the physical-card add-on
- Free tier is ACH-funded only, which some merchants reject
TL;DR verdict
Privacy.com is one of those tools that pays for itself the first time a subscription tries to sneak a price hike past you and fails. The bank-account linking is the only real objection. If you can accept that, it changes how you shop online in a way that doesn't cost anything and doesn't ask anything of you day to day.
What it's for
Every time you type your card number into a website, that number joins a database. Sometimes an encrypted one, sometimes not. The number is the same at every merchant, so if one merchant is breached or shares data with a data broker, that string of digits is the join key that ties your purchases together. Privacy.com breaks that join. Instead of your real card, you hand each merchant a fresh virtual card number generated on the fly, funded from your linked bank account. You can lock a card to a single merchant, set a per-transaction or monthly cap, or make it die after a single use.
How it holds up
The service has been running since the mid-2010s and the plumbing feels boring in the good way. The browser extension autofills a new card in a second. The mobile app does the same at checkout on your phone. Funding pulls from your linked bank via ACH, and on the paid tiers you can fund from a debit card instead, which lets you use it at merchants that reject ACH-backed transactions.
The controls are the reason to use it. A merchant-locked card refuses charges from any other merchant, so a leaked card number is worthless. A spend-limited card refuses charges above your cap, so a "free trial" that tries to bill $50 quietly gets declined. A single-use card is dead after the first charge. You get an email each time a card is used, which surfaces subscription behaviour that would otherwise stay invisible.
Setup and life with it
Sign up, link a checking account through Plaid or manual verification, install the browser extension. From there, checkout at a new merchant becomes: click the extension, name the card after the merchant, set a limit, done. After a month you have a ledger of every online subscription you actually have, each on its own card with its own cap. Cancelling anything is a matter of pausing that card. The merchant's "cancel" flow becomes irrelevant.
Who it's for
Anyone in the US with a checking account and an online shopping habit. Journalists paying for research services they don't want tied to their name. Remote workers paying for their own SaaS out of pocket. Parents who want a subscription for a child that can't accidentally get upsold. Not for people outside the US, and not for anyone unwilling to link a bank account to a fintech.
Frequently asked
Is this safer than using my real credit card?
Different kind of safety. Credit cards give you chargeback rights and issuer fraud protection. Privacy cards give you the ability to compartmentalise merchants, cap spending per card, and shut a card off instantly. Use both — Privacy on top of a credit card, not instead of one, on the paid tier.
Will merchants know it's a Privacy card?
The card BIN identifies the issuing bank behind Privacy, and a handful of merchants block that BIN. Most do not notice or care. When one does, you fall back to a real card.
What happens when I cancel a subscription — does the merchant still have my details?
They have the virtual card number, which is now dead and cannot be charged. They do not have your real card, and they never did. That is the whole point.