Prepaid Card

A prepaid card is loaded with a fixed balance before use and can only spend what's on it — there is no credit line and no linked bank account to overdraw. In media buying it's a spend-control instrument: you top it up with exactly the budget you intend to burn, attach it to an ad account, and the card physically cannot spend past that ceiling.

The hard cap is both the feature and the trap. It protects you from runaway spend on a hijacked or mis-configured campaign, but an ad platform that fails a scheduled billing charge against an empty prepaid card may suspend the account for non-payment. Disciplined teams schedule top-ups ahead of billing thresholds and treat prepaid balances as part of daily budget math.