If you top up Nodetonet credit more than a couple of times you should save a card. Once a card is on file the platform can either offer you a one-click top-up (you confirm, no card details re-entered) or fully automatic top-up — it charges silently when the balance dips below a floor you set. Either way beats retyping a sixteen-digit number every time a long scraping run drains your balance unexpectedly.
TL;DR: Nodetonet uses Stripe's SetupIntent to collect your card. We store only an opaque token — never the PAN or CVC — and can charge it later, off-session, to keep your prepaid credit topped up without interrupting running mobile proxies, rotating proxy pools or HTTP tunnels.
How card saving works — the SetupIntent flow
On /balance the right-hand panel has a Saved cards section with a + Add card button. Clicking it opens a Stripe-hosted card form. The form is collecting a card and authorising it for future use — it does not charge you right now.
Behind the scenes our backend creates a Stripe SetupIntent before opening the form. When you submit, Stripe:
- Validates the card number, expiry and CVV directly in its hosted fields (the raw digits never leave Stripe's servers).
- Runs any Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) or 3-D Secure challenge your bank requires for "save this card for future off-session use".
- Returns an opaque
payment_method_idtoken to our backend on success.
We store that token. Never the PAN, never the CVC. Everything sensitive lives in Stripe's PCI-DSS certified vault. From our perspective (and yours) it is just an ID string like pm_1AAAAbcd….
The default card — how auto top-up knows which card to use
Multiple cards can live on file at the same time. Exactly one is marked as default. The default is the card the platform reaches for when it needs to charge you without you being present — for auto top-up, or for any future automated billing we add.
To change the default, click the radio dot next to a card. The change is instant; the next auto top-up cycle picks up the new default automatically. The previous default stays on file as a fallback you can switch back to in one click.
If you only ever want manual one-click top-ups with no off-session charging, leave auto top-up disabled. The default flag still matters — it is the card the one-click button pre-selects — but nothing charges without your explicit tap.
Configuring auto top-up
Below the saved-cards list there is an Auto top-up card with three fields:
| Field | What it does | Suggested value |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger threshold | When your balance drops below this amount, a charge fires | $5 – $20 (enough headroom so no proxy or tunnel is interrupted) |
| Charge amount | How much credit to add per trigger | Match an available package to keep bonus tiers — e.g. the $100 package gives $103 credit |
| Enabled | Toggle to arm / disarm | On if you run unattended fleets; Off if you prefer full manual control |
Save and you are done. The next daily settlement that brings the balance under the threshold triggers an off-session charge against the default card. A ten-minute cooldown prevents repeated charges if credit somehow keeps falling below the threshold — for example a misconfigured fleet bleeding bandwidth faster than expected on a large rotating proxy pool.
What "off-session" means — and what can fail
Off-session means we charge without you being present to tap through a 3-D Secure challenge. Most card networks allow this for previously-authorised cards, but two things can still go wrong:
- SCA was scoped too narrowly when you saved the card. Some EU and UK banks set up a saved card for one-shot authorised charges only. The first automatic top-up then bounces with an
authentication_requirederror. Fix: delete the card, re-add it, and approve the SCA prompt carefully when it says "save for future off-session use". - The card expired or was replaced. Stripe's card account updater silently refreshes card numbers for major networks like Visa and Mastercard, but smaller issuers or prepaid cards are not always updated. When this happens you receive an email immediately.
When an off-session charge fails, the platform emails you straight away, leaves all running connections — mobile proxy sessions, HTTP tunnels, VPN — alive through a grace period until the next 03:00 UTC settlement, and then falls back to "credit exhausted" if you have not topped up manually by then. Nothing silently dies mid-session.
Deleting a card
Each card row has a trash icon. One click, one confirmation, and the card is removed — both from our database and via the Stripe API. Stripe deletes the underlying PaymentMethod object, so the token can never be charged again.
Deleting a card never affects historical receipts. Past charges remain in the transaction history with their original references; only future off-session charges are prevented.
If the deleted card was the default and other cards remain on file, the most recently added card is promoted automatically. If it was the only card and auto top-up was enabled, auto top-up is disarmed and you are notified by email.
Why prepaid + auto top-up beats a subscription
Nodetonet billing is pay-as-you-go, not a monthly subscription. Idle proxies cost nothing. If a phone goes offline, a tunnel is paused or a token group is not receiving traffic for a week, the credit meter simply stops. With auto top-up you get the convenience of "it just keeps working" without being locked into a recurring charge for capacity you are not using.
For a breakdown of what each daily settlement actually charges, read how daily billing works. To understand bonus tiers on top-up packages, see the Stripe checkout walkthrough.
Security and compliance summary
- Card data enters only Stripe's PCI-DSS Level 1 certified infrastructure — never our servers.
- We store a
payment_method_idtoken scoped to our Stripe account; it is useless to anyone who exfiltrates our database without also compromising our Stripe secret key. - SCA (3-D Secure) is triggered at card-save time so off-session charges succeed without additional friction in most jurisdictions.
- All billing events (charges, failures, refunds) are logged and surfaced in your transaction history with Stripe receipt links.
Questions? Reach us at support@nodetonet.com or on Discord.
What's next
- How daily billing works — the meter that auto top-up is feeding.
- One-off Stripe checkout — manual top-up without a saved card.
- Refund policy — what is refundable, what is not.
- Pay-as-you-go pricing explained — why idle proxies cost nothing.