Mobile top-up: choose a destination, send credit in seconds
Top up a prepaid phone from a browser — your own SIM while you travel, a family number overseas, a colleague's work handset. Pick the country, enter the number, pay by card or wallet. The credit lands on the phone itself.
What actually lands on the phone
A mobile top-up buys credit from the recipient's own operator and applies it to their number. Three kinds of credit exist, and which of them you see depends on the network the number belongs to.
Airtime balance
General credit the recipient spends however they want — calls, texts or pay-as-you-go data. The safe pick when you do not know what they are short of. What that balance then pays for is set out on the pay as you go page.
Data bundle
A fixed data allowance on the operator's own tariff. Right for a phone that mostly runs messaging apps, maps and video calls — and the only sensible option for a data-only prepaid SIM.
Calling plan
An operator package of minutes, texts and data for a set period. Useful for a number that gets topped up on a routine rather than in an emergency.
The exact catalogue is the operator's, not ours — some networks sell all three, some only airtime. You see the live list for that specific number once it is entered. Prepaid vs contract lines are compared in our guide to prepaid and postpaid SIM cards. Not sure how many gigabytes to buy? The mobile data bundles sizes one before you pick one.
Three things this is not
"Top up" means different things in different apps. Worth a ten-second check before you pay, because the three below are handled somewhere else entirely.
Topping up a game account — Delta Force Mobile, Lords Mobile, COD Mobile and the rest — buys in-game currency through the game or its store. A mobile top-up credits the SIM, not a game wallet. Our walkthrough for COD Mobile points explains how that side works.
Loading a wallet such as GoPay from a banking app moves money between payment accounts. This service pays a mobile operator for airtime, so the balance can only be spent on that network.
What arrives is operator credit on the recipient's number — not cash in a bank account and not a remittance to collect at a payout point.
Three moves from here to credit on the phone
No app to install and nothing to collect at the other end — the online and app side covers what your device needs and what to do when a payment stalls.
- 1
Pick the destination
Choosing the country loads the operators connected in that market. Anything temporarily unavailable is greyed out rather than sold to you.
- 2
Enter the mobile number
Type it with the country code. The network is detected from the number, so you do not need to know which operator the recipient uses.
- 3
Choose an amount and pay
Pick from the operator's own values, check the total, then pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Delivery starts the moment payment clears.
Where you can send a top-up
These are the markets we point people to most often. The full catalogue runs to 47+ countries and 230+ networks.
Somewhere else in mind? Coverage is updated continuously — ask us to add an operator, or read how a top-up behaves in a specific market in our Indonesia recharge guide.
What a top-up costs
Every order has two parts: the credit the recipient receives, and a service fee for delivering it.
The fee is not a flat number. It depends on the destination country, the operator and the amount you send, and the exact figure appears before you confirm. We do not add a spread on top of the exchange rate; if your card is issued in another currency, your own bank applies its conversion as usual. There is no coupon field and no voucher code anywhere in the flow — how vouchers and coupons compare sets out why, and what to do with a voucher you already hold.
Billing, refunds and chargebacks| Top-up amount | The credit that reaches the phone, priced in the destination's local currency. |
|---|---|
| Service fee | Our charge for delivering it. Varies by country, operator and amount — shown, not estimated. |
| Total to pay | The single figure your card or wallet is actually charged. |
| Delivery estimate | Displayed when the destination operator has a maintenance window queued. |
Paying, and what happens next
The part of the journey people worry about: who touches the card, and how you know the credit arrived.
Payment
- Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
- Checkout runs through a PCI-DSS Level 1 provider.
- Card details never touch our servers and nothing is stored on our side — you enter them at each checkout.
- Receipts are emailed and kept in your account history.
Delivery
- Most top-ups are credited 5 to 60 seconds after payment clears.
- Every completed order returns an operator reference code, shown on the success page and emailed to you.
- Nothing credited within 30 minutes is re-queued automatically. If the retry fails too, the full amount — service fee included — goes back to the card you paid with, without you asking.
- Full rules live in the delivery policy.
Check these before you pay
Almost every problem support sees starts in the two fields at the top of the form.
The country code
A number typed without its code, or with the wrong one, points at a different network in a different market. Read it back once against the phone you are topping up.
That the line is prepaid and active
Some SIMs cannot take credit: deactivated, expired, converted to postpaid, roaming-only or blocked by the operator. If the operator rejects the top-up we refund in full and email the reason it returned.
A greyed-out operator
That network is temporarily unavailable and no order can be placed against it. We never accept payment for a route we cannot deliver — come back a little later.
If you already paid the wrong number
Contact support within 24 hours. Once the payment has reached the operator, recovery is best-effort and depends on that operator's reversal policy — so speed matters more than anything else here.
Who tops up this way
The same flow, three quite different reasons for using it.
Travellers
Keeping a local SIM alive abroad without hunting for a kiosk that takes a foreign card. Same flow whether the number is yours or someone else's.
Families apart
Sending credit home on a schedule. The recipient needs nothing but their phone — no account, no app, no trip to collect anything. Topping up a phone that is not yours goes through what they see at their end, and the guide to sending airtime abroad covers what changes once a border is involved.
Small teams
Keeping field handsets and work SIMs topped up from one place, with every order on a single receipt trail — invoices and limits are on the top-up for business.
A free account makes repeats quick
Registering costs nothing and needs no card. It adds a saved contact book, your full transaction history and one-tap repeats of a top-up you have sent before.
Top-up questions people actually ask
Payment, refunds and account questions are answered in the help centre.
Open the help centreCan I top up a phone in another country?
Yes — that is the main way the service is used. Choose the destination country, enter the number with its international code and pay from wherever you are. The recipient does not need an account or an app.
Do I need to know which operator the number is on?
No. The network is detected from the number itself and the catalogue loaded is the one for that network. You only choose the country, the number and the amount.
Is there a phone top-up shop near me?
You do not need one. Everything runs in a browser, at any hour — which is the point: a card issued in one country can top up a number in another, with no shop or voucher in between.
Can I top up game credit, like Delta Force Mobile or Lords Mobile?
No. Game currency is bought inside the game or its own store. This service delivers operator credit to a prepaid mobile number, which is a different product entirely.
What if the number is on a contract rather than prepaid?
Top-ups are delivered to prepaid mobile lines. A SIM that has been converted to postpaid is rejected by the operator, and we refund in full and pass on the reason the operator gave.
How do I know the credit arrived?
Each completed order returns the operator's own reference code, shown on the success page and emailed to you. Where the destination network sends its own SMS receipt, the recipient sees that on the phone.
Keep reading
Operator-specific walkthroughs on one side, the service rules on the other.
Topping up a specific network
How the service works
New to the idea altogether? Mobile recharge explained covers the vocabulary, and local and international recharge options compares sending from home with sending from abroad. Weighing this up against a shop, a voucher or your operator's own app? The recharge routes compared puts all five routes side by side, and prepaid SIM and eSIM covers the line itself — what prepaid changes and how long a number stays yours.
Ready to top up a phone?
Pick the country, enter the number, choose an amount. The credit is usually on the phone before you have closed the tab.