You sent the crypto, your wallet says it went through, and the VPN still says there is no active plan. A stuck payment usually has a traceable cause. Invoices have rules, and most stuck payments break one of them: the transfer is still confirming, less than the invoiced amount arrived, it went out on a different network, or it was sent long after the invoice was created. The fix starts with one piece of data, your transaction hash. The general advice here applies to any merchant that uses a hosted crypto invoice such as NOWPayments; the parts specific to Kovra are labelled. For the payment flow from the start, see how to pay for a VPN with crypto.
How a crypto invoice becomes an active plan
- The invoice is priced in US dollars. On Kovra, choosing Pay with crypto opens a NOWPayments invoice for the plan price.
- You choose the coin on the invoice page, and the network where it matters. The page then shows a deposit address and the exact amount to send. The rate is not fixed in advance, and Kovra's invoices are set so that the payer covers the fees, so the coin amount can be slightly higher than a plain dollar conversion.
- The processor watches the blockchain for a payment to that address.
- The plan activates when the payment reaches the final status,
finished. Kovra's dashboard says the plan "activates automatically after network confirmation (5-30 min)".
On the way, the payment passes through statuses. You may see them on the invoice page, and support uses them when looking a payment up:
| Status | What it means, and your move |
|---|---|
waiting | No payment detected yet. Next: if you sent one, look up the hash (step 1). |
confirming | Seen on the blockchain, collecting confirmations. Next: wait, and do not pay again. |
confirmed, sending | Confirmed; the processor is completing it. Next: wait a few more minutes. |
partially_paid | Less than the invoiced amount arrived. Next: contact support with the hash. |
finished | Complete; the plan activates. Next: refresh the subscription in your app. |
expired | No deposit was detected in time; NOWPayments marks a payment expired after 7 days without one. Next: contact support if you paid late. |
failed, refunded | An error, or the funds were returned. Next: contact support with the hash. |
On Kovra, a plan is granted only on finished. Every other status, partially_paid included, leaves your account unchanged, and a payment that never reaches finished needs a person to look at it.
Step 1: find your transaction hash and look it up
The transaction hash, or TxID, is the receipt for a blockchain transfer. You will find it in one of two places:
- A self-custody wallet such as Trust Wallet, Exodus, MetaMask or TronLink: open the transaction in your history. The details show the hash or a link to a block explorer.
- An exchange: open your withdrawal history and the withdrawal's details, and look for TxID or transaction hash. If there is no hash yet and the status says processing, the exchange has not sent the coins, and the question is for the exchange, not the merchant.
Paste the hash into the block explorer for the network you used: Tronscan for TRON, Etherscan for Ethereum, BscScan for BNB Chain, or a Bitcoin explorer such as mempool.space. Check four things:
- Status: pending or confirmed.
- Recipient: exactly the deposit address from the invoice.
- Amount received: what reached the address, not what you typed.
- Network and token: the same network and coin the invoice named.
Whichever of those doesn't match tells you where to go next:
| What the explorer shows | Your case |
|---|---|
| Pending, or still few confirmations | Still confirming |
| Confirmed, but less arrived than the invoice asked | Underpaid |
| Confirmed on another network, or a different coin | Wrong network or coin |
| Sent long after the invoice was created | Late payment |
| Confirmed, right amount, right network | Paid, but the app shows no plan |
Still pending or confirming
Blockchains confirm transactions in blocks, and busy networks queue them. Stablecoins on fast networks usually confirm within minutes; Bitcoin can take much longer when fees are low and the network is congested. Kovra's dashboard says the plan activates automatically after network confirmation and gives 5-30 minutes as a guide.
Don't pay a second time. A second transfer does not speed up the first, and it leaves support with two payments to untangle. Wait until the explorer shows the transfer confirmed, then allow the activation window.
Underpaid because a fee came out of the amount
This is a common way money gets stuck. Many exchanges take their withdrawal fee out of the amount you enter: type the invoice amount, and the invoice receives that amount minus the fee. The processor sees less than it asked for and marks the payment as partially paid.
On Kovra, a partially paid invoice does not activate on its own. Contact support with the hash; they can see what arrived. The outcome depends on the case, so this guide does not promise one.
To avoid it, look for the field an exchange shows as the amount you will receive, and make that equal to the invoice amount. Paying from a self-custody wallet usually avoids the problem, because most wallets charge the network fee on top of the amount you send.
Wrong network or wrong coin
USDT and several other coins exist on more than one blockchain, and an invoice names one of them, for example USDT on TRON or USDT on BNB Chain. Coins sent on a different network do not arrive on the one the processor is watching.
The easiest mix-up is between Ethereum-style networks. Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon and others share the same address format, starting with 0x, so a wallet or exchange will often let you send on the wrong one without a warning. TRON addresses start with T, which makes a TRON and Ethereum mix-up less likely, though not impossible through some exchanges.
Whether such coins can be recovered depends on the networks involved and on the processor, and sometimes they cannot be recovered at all. Contact support with the hash and the network you actually used, and treat any recovery as uncertain until it happens.
The invoice expired, or you paid late
Kovra's invoices use a floating rate, so the coin amount reflects the market when the invoice was created, and coins that arrive much later are valued at the rate on arrival. A late payment can therefore come up short and stay unfinished. NOWPayments also stops tracking a payment that receives nothing for 7 days and marks it expired. Pay soon after creating the invoice. If you sent the coins late, the plan may not activate automatically; contact support with the hash. Next time, create a fresh invoice instead of reusing an old one.
Confirmed, but the app still says "No active plan"
If the explorer shows the payment confirmed and your dashboard shows an active plan, the app is working from an old copy of your subscription. It refreshes about once an hour on its own; to update it now, refresh the subscription in the app and reconnect. The No active plan - kovravpn.com entry should give way to real locations. Why that entry exists is explained in what a subscription link is.
If the dashboard itself shows no plan, check that you paid while signed in to the right account. A Kovra account can use Telegram or email, and the two only share a plan once they are linked in the dashboard's Linked accounts section. A payment made in one account does not appear in the other.
Paid through the Telegram bot? The bot works differently from the website: a payment there tops up a US-dollar balance, and you then buy a plan from that balance. If the top-up arrived but no plan was bought, the money is waiting as balance.
What to send support, and what never to send
Write to @KovraVPN_bot on Telegram or [email protected], and include:
- The transaction hash (TxID).
- The coin and network, for example USDT on TRON.
- The amount sent and the time, with your time zone.
- The Telegram username or email of the account you paid in.
- A screenshot of the invoice page, if you still have it.
Never send your seed phrase, recovery words, private key or wallet password. Support will never ask for them, and the hash already holds everything needed to find the payment on the blockchain.
Refunds, plainly
Crypto transfers are irreversible; there is no chargeback. Under Kovra's Terms (section 5), payments are generally non-refundable once a plan is active. A refund may be considered only where the service was not delivered because of a fault on Kovra's side, confirmed by a support request made within 14 days of payment. Approved refunds go to the same wallet, in the same asset, less network fees.
One practical consequence: if you paid straight from an exchange, the sending address usually belongs to the exchange, not to you. Say so when you contact support.
Avoiding it next time
- Pay from a self-custody wallet, or, from an exchange, make sure the amount received matches the invoice.
- Check the network twice. The invoice's network, your wallet's network and the address format should all agree. The USDT walkthrough compares the common networks.
- Pay soon after creating the invoice, and create a new one rather than reusing an old one.
- Start with one month. Kovra's Terms recommend buying the shortest term first; one month for one device is $5.
- Use Bitcoin for longer terms. Its network fee can be large next to a one-month price; see paying for a VPN with Bitcoin.
- Consider the Telegram bot if its methods suit you better. It takes top-ups through CryptoBot (USDT, TON and BTC) from $5 and through NOWPayments from $8, credited to a US-dollar balance.