How to Pay for Jimeng (即梦) Without WeChat Pay or a Chinese Bank Card
You found your way into Jimeng (即梦, jimeng.jianying.com), ByteDance’s China-side app that runs Seedance 2.0 for video and Seedream 4.0 for images. The free credits ran out, you clicked 购买 (Buy), and the payment popup offered exactly two options: 微信支付 (WeChat Pay) and 支付宝 (Alipay). No Visa, no Mastercard, no PayPal.
This guide covers what a Jimeng plan actually costs in dollars, why foreign cards do not work here, and the four realistic ways to pay from outside China, including the one we run ourselves. Prices below are ByteDance’s official prices as shown on the Jimeng subscription page in September 2026; they changed several times this year, so check the page before you commit.
Why your card doesn’t work on Jimeng
Jimeng is a mainland-China product. Its checkout is wired to the two domestic wallets and nothing else. Three things stack up against an international user:
- Payment. The checkout accepts WeChat Pay and Alipay only. Since 2023 you can link a foreign Visa or Mastercard to WeChat Pay, but that is aimed at in-person QR payments while travelling; many app and web merchants are excluded from foreign-card wallets, and Jimeng is one of the ones people report failing. It is worth a try if you already have WeChat Pay with a card bound, but do not build a workflow on it.
- Account. Registration wants a mainland +86 phone number or a Douyin account. Virtual and VoIP numbers are usually blocked at signup.
- Location. The web app is happiest with a China or Hong Kong IP; from Europe or the US you may see slow loads or login loops.
The account and location parts have workarounds you have probably already found. Payment is the wall most people hit last, and it is the one this article is about.
What Jimeng costs (September 2026, official prices)
Jimeng sells four tiers across four billing modes. The mode matters more than the tier when someone else is paying for you, so read the rows carefully.
Single month (单月购买) — one-time payment, no auto-renew
| Tier | RMB / month | Approx. USD | Credits / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic (基础会员) | ¥79 | ~$11 | 725 |
| Standard (标准会员) | ¥239 | ~$34 | 2,210 |
| Premium (高级会员) | ¥649 | ~$92 | 6,160 |
This is the mode a payment proxy can safely pay for you: one QR code, one payment, done.
Auto-renew monthly (连续包月) — first month discounted, renews at full price
| Tier | First month | Renews at | Credits / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | ¥33 | ¥69 | 725 |
| Standard | ¥96 | ¥199 | 2,210 |
| Premium | ¥519 | ¥998 | 12,320 |
| Super (超级会员) | ¥2,235 | ¥4,299 | 54,600 |
The first-month price looks tempting, and Premium even doubles the credits in this mode. The catch: the QR code for an auto-renew plan is a payment agreement, not a payment. Whoever scans it has their wallet bound to your subscription and gets charged next month. That is why no proxy service will scan these for you, and why you should not ask a friend to.
Quarterly (连续包季) and yearly (连续包年)
Quarterly runs ¥188 / ¥568 / ¥1,959 / ¥8,189 for the first quarter; yearly runs ¥393 / ¥1,099 / ¥7,278 / ¥30,576 for the first year, all auto-renewing at higher prices. Same agreement problem as above.
Credit packs (购买积分)
If you only need a few more videos this week, the 购买积分 button next to the plan tabs sells one-time credit packs at a worse per-credit rate than a membership but with no commitment. These are one-time payments and can be paid by proxy.
Four ways to pay from outside China
1. Use Dreamina instead
Dreamina (dreamina.capcut.com) is ByteDance’s international version of the same product. It runs the same Seedance and Seedream models, takes normal cards, and needs no VPN or Chinese number. The honest trade-off: new model versions and features reach Jimeng first and Dreamina weeks later, Dreamina’s credit pricing is higher, and some Jimeng-only tools never ship internationally. If you are not chasing the newest model the week it drops, Dreamina is the boring correct answer.
2. Bind a foreign card to WeChat Pay and try
Install WeChat, go to Me → Services → Wallet → Add a card, and bind a Visa or Mastercard. WeChat will ask for passport verification. Then open the Jimeng checkout on your phone, pick WeChat Pay, and try. If the popup errors out or the button does nothing, you have hit the merchant exclusion and there is no setting to fix it. Cost of trying: fifteen minutes.
3. Ask someone in China to scan the QR code
If you have a friend, colleague or client in mainland China, this works exactly the way the proxy service below works: you open the checkout, choose WeChat Pay — which you can do without having WeChat yourself, it just renders a QR code — screenshot it and send it to them; they scan, pay ¥79 or whatever the amount is, and you settle with them however you like. Two things to tell them: only scan single-month or credit pack QR codes, never the auto-renew ones, and the QR code is only good for a couple of hours.
4. Use a payment proxy (this is what we run)
China AI Pass is the friend-in-China option as a service. You pay us in USD by Zelle or in USDT by Binance Pay, we scan your Jimeng checkout QR with WeChat Pay and pay ByteDance in RMB. The membership lands on your account; we never see your password or login code, only a screenshot of a QR code that can pay one checkout and nothing else.
Prices including our fee, September 2026:
| Plan (single month) | Official | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| Jimeng Basic · 725 credits | ¥79 | $19 |
| Jimeng Standard · 2,210 credits | ¥239 | $49 |
| Jimeng Premium · 6,160 credits | ¥649 | $119 |
| Any other one-time checkout (credit packs etc.) | ¥X | ¥X ÷ 7 + 30% + $3, minimum $12 |
Step by step: paying a Jimeng checkout through China AI Pass
- Place the order. On the China AI Pass page pick the plan (or “other checkout amount” and type the RMB figure from your Jimeng popup), pick Zelle or Binance Pay, leave an email. You get a private order page.
- Pay us. Zelle: send the USD amount shown to the email on the order page, with the order number in the memo. Binance Pay: scan the QR on the order page or open the link in the Binance app, pay the USDT amount, put the order number in the note. Then type the name on your Zelle account (or your Binance nickname) and click “I’ve sent the payment”.
- Open the Jimeng checkout. Log in to jimeng.jianying.com, open 订阅 (subscription), click the 单月购买 tab, click 购买 under the plan you ordered, and choose 微信支付 in the popup. A QR code appears. You do not need a WeChat account for this — picking that option only tells Jimeng to display the code for your order. Do it on a computer if you can: the desktop site draws the QR code on screen, while the mobile site may try to hand off to a WeChat app you do not have.
- Upload a screenshot. Take a screenshot that shows the QR code and the amount, and drop it on your order page. Keep the popup open until the order shows “Activated”.
- Wait for the scan. We confirm your payment, scan your QR code and pay. Your order page flips to “Activated” and you get an email. Refresh Jimeng and the membership is there. Typical time is under an hour between 9:00 and 24:00 Beijing time; overnight orders are done in the morning.
If the QR code expires before we get to it, the order page will ask you for a fresh one. If we cannot complete the payment within 24 hours for any reason, you get a full refund the same way you paid.
Which tier should you buy?
Credits are consumed per generation and the rate depends on model, resolution and clip length, so the honest answer is “check the 积分详情 (credit details) link next to the plan tabs for the current table”. As a rough guide from the plan page itself: Basic is enough to test Seedance 2.0 and make a handful of clips a month; Standard is the one most solo creators end up on; Premium is for people rendering daily who also want the faster generation queue and 4K Seedream output.
Whatever you pick, buy single month the first time. Once you know your monthly burn you can decide whether it is worth registering a payment agreement through a Chinese wallet of your own.
Things that go wrong, and how to avoid them
- You picked an auto-renew tab. The popup will look identical, but the QR code is a subscription agreement. Proxy services and friends will (and should) refuse it. Use 单月购买.
- The QR code expired. Jimeng’s WeChat Pay codes are short-lived. Do not generate the code until you have paid the proxy and are ready to upload.
- Cropped or blurry screenshot. The whole QR code has to be visible and sharp; a phone photo of a monitor usually scans, a cropped corner never does.
- Amount mismatch. If you ordered Standard but the popup shows ¥649, you clicked the wrong plan. Close it and reopen; do not upload.
- Refunds after activation. Once the membership is active, the money is with ByteDance, not with the proxy. Jimeng’s own refund policy applies (the plan page advertises 无忧退款, “worry-free refunds”, for unused memberships; go through Jimeng’s in-app support).
- Account bans. Paying by proxy does not touch your login and does not violate the payment terms, but the account itself must be one you obtained legitimately. Shared or purchased accounts are your own risk.
FAQ
Can China AI Pass also get me a Jimeng account? Not yet. Today we only pay checkouts on accounts you already have. An account-plus-membership bundle for creators with no +86 number is on the waitlist on the order page; if enough people sign up we will build it.
I don’t have WeChat. How can step 3 ask me to choose WeChat Pay? Because that click does not open WeChat — it just makes Jimeng draw a QR code for your order on the page. Anyone’s WeChat can then pay that code, and ours is the one that does. You never install WeChat, never sign in and never link a card.
Do you need my Jimeng password? No. The only thing we ever receive is a screenshot of the WeChat Pay QR code from your checkout popup.
Is this affiliated with ByteDance?
Why not just use Dreamina? If Dreamina has what you need, use it. People come to Jimeng for the newest model versions, lower credit prices and China-only tools; if none of that applies to you, the international app is simpler.
Can I pay by card or PayPal? Not right now. Zelle for US bank accounts, Binance Pay (USDT) for everyone else.
Have a Jimeng checkout open right now? Order on China AI Pass →