How Coins Work
Coins are what pay for a 1-on-1 video call on Thundr Mobile. Here is where they come from, what they buy, and the exact moment you start spending them.
What coins are
A coin balance is prepaid credit on your Thundr Mobile account. You buy coins first and spend them on live 1-on-1 video calls. Nothing else on the site costs coins — looking at who is online, reading these pages and opening the app all cost nothing.
The reason the product works this way rather than billing a card at the end of a call is simple: a prepaid balance cannot run up a bill you did not agree to. The most it can ever cost you is what you have already put in.
How to get coins
Open the wallet and pick a top-up amount. Payment is handled by the payment provider — card details are never stored on our side. The coins land on your balance immediately and stay there until you spend them; they do not expire.
What a call costs
There is no single per-minute rate, and any page telling you one number is guessing. Each host sets their own price. That rate travels with the person, so a call with one host can cost more per minute than a call with another, and you see the rate before the call connects rather than after it ends.
Before a call is put through, your balance is checked against that host's rate. If you do not have enough, the call does not start — you are sent to the top-up screen instead. A call is never opened on credit.
When billing starts
Not at the moment you press start. A call has a free window at the beginning, and a system message appears in the chat a few seconds before that window closes, saying that billing is about to begin. That message is the line: everything before it is free, everything after it draws on your balance.
If you end the call when you see that message, you have spent nothing. That is deliberate, and it is the single most useful thing to know on this page.
The free ways
Three things cost nothing and are worth knowing about before you top up at all:
- Browsing. Seeing who is online, their languages and their rates is free and does not need an account.
- New account call time. A new account starts with some free call time.
- The reward centre. It hands out free coins and free matches on a recurring basis — the interval is set on our side, so it is worth checking back rather than waiting for a notification.
We do not publish a number for the last two on purpose. Both amounts are adjusted by anti-abuse systems, so a figure printed here would be wrong for somebody, and a promise we cannot keep for every account is worse than no promise.
How to make sure you are never charged by surprise
Four habits, in order of how much they save you:
- Watch for the billing message. It arrives in the chat before the free window ends, not after.
- Check the rate on the profile before calling. It is shown up front, and it varies by person.
- Top up in small amounts. A prepaid balance is a ceiling. Keep the ceiling where you want it.
- End the call yourself. Hanging up stops the meter immediately; closing the browser tab is a slower way to do the same thing.
Questions
How much does one call cost?
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Is browsing free?
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