We set out to write a list: which AI subscriptions take a mada card, which take STC Pay, which bill in riyals. So we read the official payment, billing and help pages of thirteen global services and five Arabic-built ones. The list did not survive the reading. Not one of those pages mentions mada by name, and none lists a payment method specific to any Gulf country. What follows is therefore a map of what is documented and what is not, rather than a promise that your card will go through.
Nobody documents mada
OpenAI, Anthropic, Midjourney, Canva, Notion, Cursor, GitHub, ElevenLabs, Runway, Perplexity and Grammarly all describe "credit and debit cards", usually naming Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Several of them (Midjourney, Notion, Cursor, Runway and Perplexity say so themselves) process payments through Stripe, and Stripe's published list of supported card brands does not include mada.
That is not the same as "mada cards fail". The Saudi Central Bank describes mada as offering global acceptance through the international payment networks, and the payment processor Checkout.com documents that outside the Kingdom a mada card is handled as an ordinary Visa or Mastercard debit card. In practice a foreign checkout charges the international badge printed on your card, not the mada network. We could not find a Saudi bank page that explains what happens to a card without such a badge, so we make no claim about it.
The documented local route is the app store
Apple's payment-methods page, dated 7 August 2026, lists three options for Saudi Arabia: Apple Account balance, mobile phone billing through Mobily, STC and Zain, and "most credit and debit cards". It names neither mada nor the STC Pay wallet, and Apple Pay appears as an account payment method for the UAE but not for Saudi Arabia. Google Play lists Visa, Mastercard and American Express, carrier billing through Mobily, STC, Zain and Virgin, and gift cards. Google Pay itself launched in the Kingdom on 15 September 2025 on the mada network, according to the Central Bank's announcement, but nothing documents that it can pay for a Play subscription.
Two things make this route matter. Carrier billing needs no card at all, and prices are in riyals. On Apple's Saudi storefront in October 2026:
- ChatGPT: Go at SAR 35 and Plus at SAR 89.99 a month.
- Claude: Pro at SAR 89.99 a month or SAR 999.99 a year.
- Perplexity: Pro at SAR 89.99.
- Canva Pro and Notion Plus: SAR 49.99 a month each.
- GitHub Copilot Pro: SAR 39.99. ElevenLabs Creator: SAR 99.99.
- Grammarly: monthly plans from SAR 117.99.
The catch is the gap. Twenty US dollars is SAR 75 at the peg before any tax, while the same plan costs SAR 89.99 in the app. The listings do not say whether that figure includes VAT, so compare both before subscribing.
Who publishes riyal prices on the web
Google is the clearest. Its Saudi page shows Google AI Plus at SAR 18.99 and Google AI Pro at SAR 85.99 a month, with Ultra from SAR 349.99. Microsoft's Saudi store prices Microsoft 365 Personal at SAR 42.99, Family at SAR 55.99 and Premium at SAR 85.99 a month, each with a different level of Copilot. Microsoft does not document which payment methods it accepts in Saudi Arabia specifically, and the Kingdom is absent from its carrier-billing list.
OpenAI lists SAR, AED, KWD, BHD, QAR and OMR among its supported billing currencies, yet it lists no local payment method for any Gulf country, only credit and debit cards. Its help article on the Go plan still says purchases are in US dollars with exceptions, so check the currency on the checkout screen. Perplexity lets you choose local currency or dollars without saying whether the riyal is offered. Canva charges in dollars when your currency is unavailable, and we could not confirm a riyal price on its website.
Dollar-only, card-only
- Claude on the web: credit or debit card only, no PayPal. The billing address must match the card's country of issue and the bank verification step must complete. All six GCC states are on the supported-countries list.
- Midjourney (from $10): Visa, Mastercard and American Express through Stripe, no PayPal. Wallets appear at checkout depending on where you are.
- Cursor ($20) and Runway (from $15): cards through Stripe. Runway adds Apple Pay and Google Pay "where available".
- GitHub Copilot (from $10): bank card or PayPal. Prepaid cards are refused.
- ElevenLabs: card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Prepaid cards are not officially supported.
- Grammarly: the widest net, including prepaid cards and PayPal, provided the card is enabled for recurring online transactions.
- Notion: card or Apple Pay through Stripe, and no payments from the Android app.
The Arabic tools do not bill in riyals either
We expected the regional products to be the easy part. Sahehly prices its premium plan at $8.99. WriteX by Lisan prices Pro at $10 a month on annual billing and says enterprise customers can be invoiced in riyals or dirhams with VAT itemised. Qalam has paid plans and a currency selector, but we could not document its amounts or payment methods. HUMAIN Chat is free with no in-app purchases. Hams sells to organisations through its sales team with no public pricing. None of their pages names a local payment gateway.
STC Pay and VAT
STC Pay has become STC Bank, cleared by the Central Bank to begin operations in January 2025 as reported by FinTech Futures, and the bank's own site describes digital and physical mada and Visa cards. No AI tool accepts "STC Pay" as a named method. What a foreign site accepts is the Visa card the bank issues, like any other. STC the mobile operator is a different matter: it is on both app stores' carrier-billing lists.
On tax, digital services sold by a foreign supplier to a consumer in the Kingdom carry 15 percent VAT, per PwC's 2021 summary of the tax authority's e-commerce guide. Google is the only company here that states outright that it collects 15 percent in Saudi Arabia, on Google Play. Anthropic, Cursor and ElevenLabs say their prices exclude tax, Midjourney adds tax on top according to location, and Canva says its advertised price includes it. The rest do not mention Saudi Arabia.
What to do
- No credit card: subscribe inside the mobile app and pay through your Mobily, STC or Zain bill, or with Apple Account balance.
- You want a riyal price with no conversion: Google AI Pro and Microsoft 365 show one on their own sites, and the app stores show one for most of the others.
- Paying with a mada card on a foreign site: check that it carries a Visa or Mastercard badge, that international online purchases are switched on in your banking app, and that the billing address is in Saudi Arabia.
- Web-only tools such as Midjourney, Cursor and Runway: there is no documented alternative to an international card.
What we could not verify
We found no primary source for what Saudi banks charge on international purchases, no documented Gulf telecom bundle that includes an AI subscription, and no recent, dated reports of Saudi cards being declined. All three are left out. If you have paid for any of these tools from the Gulf, your experience is better evidence than anything we read.