Take cards for your adult site or app and get paid the day you sell.
Card processors ban adult content, or bill it at 10–15% and pay out on their schedule. Railbed takes your customers’ cards and settles every sale as USDC to a wallet you control, with no chargebacks and nothing for anyone to freeze.
- Live in under a minute
- No setup fee
- No chargebacks
Press the card to run an example sale.
- Settles to
- Your own wallet, as USDC on Polygon
- Chargebacks
- None. A settled payment can’t be pulled back from your wallet
- To start
- An email and a payout wallet. No setup fee, no monthly fee
- Buyer ID checks
- The card provider decides. Smart Routing tries the least likely first
Why card processors turn adult businesses away
Most mainstream processors won’t take adult content at all. The few that will treat it as the highest-risk category on the card networks, so adult apps, sites and creators pay more, wait longer for their money and lose access faster than almost any other business.
- 10.8–15.5%Of each sale at specialist adult billers, by their published pricingThe Payments Edge
- 6 monthsHow long those billers hold reservesThe Payments Edge
- 1.5%Visa’s fraud and dispute threshold before a merchant is flagged, since April 2026Chargeflow
The rules are written down. Stripe’s prohibited and restricted businesses list bans adult services, including pay-per-view and adult live chat, pornography, and AI-generated content made for the same purpose. PayPal’s acceptable use policy prohibits certain sexually oriented materials and requires pre-approval for any mature audience content delivered digitally, including video on demand and webcam. Square’s payment terms list adult entertainment “in any medium” as an unsupported industry. The app stores close the other door: Apple’s App Review Guidelines and Google Play’s sexual content policy ban pornographic apps, so adult apps sell on the web or not at all.
The card networks set the tone. Visa’s Integrity Risk Program puts adult content (merchant category code 5967) in its top tier, next to gambling, so the acquiring bank needs Visa’s approval for the category and must register every adult merchant. Mastercard’s 2021 adult content standards added written agreements with every content provider, verified age and identity for everyone depicted, documented consent, review of content before publication and a complaint process that acts within seven business days.
So adult businesses end up at specialist billers. Their published pricing runs from about 10.8% to 15.5% of each sale, with reserves held for six months and payouts on a fixed cycle.
Even then, access can disappear overnight
- In December 2020, Visa and Mastercard cut off Pornhub, and the performers selling there lost that income.
- In August 2021, OnlyFans announced a ban on explicit content because of pressure from its banks, then reversed it a week later.
- In May 2025, the AI platform Civitai lost card payments because processors label generative AI with mature content as high risk.
- In July 2025, Steam and itch.io pulled adult games under payment processor pressure. One itch.io developer described a $3,700 payout “sitting in limbo”.
Every one of those stories has the same shape. A processor holds the money between the sale and the payout, so the processor decides when, and whether, you get it.
How Railbed fixes it
Railbed is card checkout that never holds your money. Each sale settles as USDC straight to a wallet you control, usually minutes after the customer pays, so there’s no balance for a bank or a biller to freeze.
| What goes wrong today | With Railbed |
|---|---|
| Your processor bans adult content, or drops you after a policy change | If it’s legal where you sell it, we don’t judge it. Money you’ve been paid is already in your wallet |
| Payouts arrive on the biller’s cycle, or sit in limbo during a review | Each sale settles to your own wallet as soon as the payment clears |
| Customers who don’t recognise a charge file chargebacks, and each one costs a fee and counts against your ratio | No chargebacks. A settled payment is final, and disputes stay with the card provider that charged the card |
| Weeks of underwriting before your app can take its first payment | Sign up with an email and a payout wallet. No credit check, no processing history |
| One acquiring bank decides which customers’ cards go through | Smart Routing sends each customer to the card provider most likely to approve them |
Customers pay with the card they already have. An independent, licensed card provider charges the card and buys USDC with it, and the USDC is forwarded to the Polygon wallet you saved in Railbed. Nobody in that chain can recall it afterwards, which is why there are no chargebacks against you: if a customer disputes the charge, the dispute is between their bank and the card provider, and nothing comes out of your wallet.
You can check every settlement yourself. Each one is a public Polygon transaction, and the dashboard links to it.
How a sale works
A customer opens your checkout, pricing table or payment link, or taps “Buy credits” in your app, and enters an email address.
Smart Routing sends them to the card provider most likely to approve their card, based on their country, the amount and the currency.
The customer pays on the provider’s page. The provider decides whether to ask for identity details. Small payments often need little or none, and Smart Routing tries the providers least likely to ask first.
The provider buys USDC with the card payment, and it’s forwarded to your wallet on Polygon. Railbed checks that the right amount reached the right wallet before it marks the payment Paid.
Your app or site unlocks the purchase from the signed webhook, the customer’s checkout tab shows the result, and you see the sale in your dashboard and, if you like, on Telegram.
You can run the whole flow in Test mode first, with no card charged and no money moving.
Fees and getting paid
Railbed shows every fee before anyone pays. Fees come out of the USDC that arrives: the card provider’s own fee and exchange spread, which the customer sees on the provider’s page, a 1% network fee, and the Railbed fee shown in your dashboard. The fee is locked when the customer starts paying, so a later change never touches a payment in progress.
Set prices in USD, EUR, GBP, CAD or AUD. Settlement is always USDC on Polygon. To move money to your bank, send USDC from your wallet to any exchange or off-ramp you use and withdraw it there. Many adult businesses keep part of their revenue in USDC instead.
Refunds are your call. Railbed can’t reverse a settled payment, so if you want to refund a customer, send USDC back or agree another arrangement with them.
What we ask of you
If it’s legal where you sell it, we don’t judge it. Our acceptable use policy welcomes adult apps, sites and creator platforms where everyone involved is a consenting adult, with the age checks your markets expect. The one thing we never support is content that sexualises a real person without their consent.
Railbed compared with an adult merchant account
| Adult or high-risk merchant account | Railbed | |
|---|---|---|
| Approval | Days to weeks of underwriting | Under a minute |
| To apply | Statements, owner IDs, content agreements, a moderation policy | An email and a payout wallet |
| Pricing | About 10.8–15.5% at specialist adult billers, plus card-network registration fees | The card provider’s fee, a 1% network fee and the Railbed fee, all shown before payment |
| Payouts | On the biller’s cycle | Each sale, to your own wallet, as soon as it settles |
| Chargebacks | A fee for each, and a Visa monitoring threshold of 1.5% of transactions since April 2026 | None. A settled payment is final |
| If you’re dropped | Balance held, and a possible five-year MATCH listing | Settled funds are already yours |
| Card approvals | One acquiring bank decides | Smart Routing across several card providers |
Questions
Stripe or PayPal closed my account for adult content. Can I use Railbed?
Yes. A past closure or a MATCH listing doesn’t rule you out, and there’s no processing history to send. If what you sell is legal where you and your customers are, you can be live today.
Do my customers need crypto or a crypto wallet?
No. Customers pay with the card they already have, on a normal checkout. The conversion to USDC happens after they pay, and only you need a wallet.
Will customers be asked for ID?
Sometimes, and the card provider decides. Smart Routing sends each customer to the provider least likely to ask for ID at their amount and location, so small purchases often go through with little or no check. Large or unusual payments may still need one.
What happens if a customer disputes a charge?
No chargeback comes back to you. The card provider that charged the customer’s card handles the dispute under its own rules, and a settled payment can’t be pulled back out of your wallet. A provider may decline future payments from a customer who disputes.
Can Railbed freeze my money?
No. Every paid sale settles straight to a wallet you control, so there’s no balance with us to hold. If an account breaks our acceptable use policy we can stop new payments, but we can never touch USDC that has already reached your wallet.
Can my app sell credits and memberships?
Yes. Sell credit packs and passes of any length through the API or a pricing table. Railbed doesn’t charge cards automatically, so a new month is a new payment the customer chooses to make. Customers who renew on purpose don’t dispute charges they forgot about.
What will customers see on their card statement?
The card provider they paid through, because that provider charges the card. Say so in your app or in your welcome email, so customers recognise the charge.
How do I get the money into my bank?
Send USDC from your wallet to any exchange or off-ramp you use, then withdraw to your bank account. You choose when and how much.
Sources
- Stripe: Prohibited and restricted businesses, last updated 22 September 2026, checked 5 October 2026
- PayPal: Acceptable use policy, checked 5 October 2026
- Square: Payment terms, unsupported industries, last updated 30 July 2026, checked 5 October 2026
- Apple: App Review Guidelines, last updated 8 June 2026, and Google Play: Sexual content and profanity, checked 5 October 2026
- Visa: Visa Integrity Risk Program guide, April 2023
- CommerceGate: Mastercard’s rules for adult content merchants, May 2021
- The Payments Edge: adult processor pricing compared, compiled June 2026
- Visa: Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program, and Chargeflow on the 1.5% threshold from April 2026, updated 3 September 2026
- NBC News: Pornhub crackdown by credit card companies, 15 December 2020
- The Washington Post: OnlyFans reverses its ban, 25 August 2021
- Civitai: Credit card payments pausing, 20 May 2025
- Rascal: itch.io creators’ payout delays, 24 September 2025
Last updated .
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