Privacy.com
Hacker ApprovedVirtual card service in Privacy & security
People recommend it for single-merchant virtual cards with spending limits. Critics say it requires bank account access and some cards still charge after closing.
People recommend it for single-merchant virtual cards with spending limits. Critics say it requires bank account access and some cards still charge after closing.
37 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 31
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 84%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 31 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Virtual cards per merchant or service
“I give every online service a separate virtual credit card (via privacy dot com, but your bank may issue them directly) with a spend limit set pretty close to the expected usage.”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “A $1k AWS mistake” “lets me make vendor specific digital cards, and I can pause them, set limits, etc.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “New laws to make it easier to cancel subscriptions and get refunds” “Check out privacy.com, you can make your own cards. One per service if you want.”
Comment from 1 May 2026 in “Credit Cards Are Vulnerable to Brute Force Kind Attacks” - Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “HERMES.md: Anthropic bug causes $200 extra charge, refuses refund”
- Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Google is silently linking your phone number across all signed-in accounts”
- Comment from 27 Apr 2026 on Hacker News
Spending limits and easy cancellation
“lets me make vendor specific digital cards, and I can pause them, set limits, etc.”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “New laws to make it easier to cancel subscriptions and get refunds” “services like privacy.com basically which can create virtual cards with limits”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “I wasted years of my life in crypto” “You should put anything like this on a privacy.com card with a monthly limit.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Talorys – A self-hosted personal AI agent on Cloudflare's free tier” - Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw”
- Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Micropayments as a reality check for news sites”
- Comment from 18 May 2026 in “Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions”
Protects against card number leaks
“simply only giving it a single purpose or limited fund credit card number from privacy.com”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Meta’s Muse is an adorable privacy and security dumpster fire” “Great reason to use privacy.com virtual cards wherever possible and online”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Tell HN: Scribd Breached” “limiting the damage a leaked CC number can do”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “App Subscription is now my Weekend Project” - Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Don't Subscribe So Casually”
Reliable service with refunds
“Now been a paying customer for years and they have been mostly great.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps” “the product has been consistent for over 12 years of using it”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “Shutterstock to pay $35M over hard-to-cancel subscriptions” “Privacy.com won that dispute and I got that money back.”
Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “How do I cancel my ChatGPT subscription?” - Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Privacy and data-sharing concerns
“privacy.com even if it was available in some country just means you give transactions of your identity to some other company”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help” “Privacy.com wants to track me because of course it does.”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Credit Cards Are Vulnerable to Brute Force Kind Attacks”
What people said
37 of the 40 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“until privacy.com gets hacked”
“Great reason to use privacy.com virtual cards wherever possible and online”
“Nowadays I use Privacy merchant-locked cards for everything online”
“set a max limit, and just ignored their emails about my card declining”
“You should put anything like this on a privacy.com card with a monthly limit.”
“simply only giving it a single purpose or limited fund credit card number from privacy.com”
“Signing up for privacy.com requires you to surrender access to your bank account.”
“I have had good experiences with Privacy.com and Revolut.”
“privacy.com lets you generate credit card numbers on the fly”
“Or just use Privacy.com and use an address in Delaware.”
“I’ve never had a limited card get rejected.”
“They have no way of charging me”
“Privacy.com gets blocked by merchants”
“this is the main thing I use privacy.com for”
“It's brilliant and I pay them nothing.”
“Privacy.com solved this problem for me.”
“the product has been consistent for over 12 years of using it”
“I can kill the cards anytime.”
“Privacy.com wants to track me because of course it does.”
“Been doing this for a while now for ebay and other stuff.”
“Check out privacy.com, you can make your own cards. One per service if you want.”
“I think https://privacy.com is the best solution we can have with the current system.”
“Cards are locked to a single merchant and it's easy to configure limits.”
“Even better, a privacy.com card for each subscription!”
“Glad I used a privacy.com burner when I bought from them.”
“the virtual cards can still charge right through after you shut them down”
“lets me make vendor specific digital cards, and I can pause them, set limits, etc.”
“that is fine for personal use but does not scale.”
“Privacy.com won that dispute and I got that money back.”
“then you just cancel/destroy the virtual number immediately”
“Now been a paying customer for years and they have been mostly great.”
“I would use https://www.privacy.com virtual card with a spending limit.”
“limiting the damage a leaked CC number can do”
“privacy.com even if it was available in some country just means you give transactions of your identity to some other company”
“services like privacy.com basically which can create virtual cards with limits”
“I give every online service a separate virtual credit card (via privacy dot com, but your bank may issue them directly) with a spend limit set pretty close to the expected usage.”
“It completely flips the script on subscriptions.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.