No card on file — one-time prepaid OK

rule Sun Jun 21 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) feedbackno-carddistributionmonetisation

User direction 2026-06-21: when asked whether the Play Store $25 one-time fee violates no-card-on-file, user picked "Pay $25 once, prepaid" not "skip the store entirely." Reaffirmed for Chrome Web Store $5 ("ALREADY a precedent").

Why: Distribution reach matters more than fee purity. The rule was "no recurring card billing" not "no money ever." Prepaid PayPal balance preserves the no-recurring-charges spirit.

How to apply:

One-time prepaid fees are OK when distribution channel reach justifies them (Play Store, Chrome Web Store).
Recurring fees stay banned (Apple Developer Program $99/yr, Stripe Atlas $500/yr, AWS account-on-file, etc.).
Free tiers with credit card required for verification: still banned (Vercel, Render, Fly, etc.).
When proposing a paid service in a question, default-recommend the "skip if recurring, prepaid if one-time" stance, not blanket rejection.

Knowledge: no-card-on-file, and the new pwabuilder-as-primary-converter which uses both Play + Microsoft + CWS.