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Captcha keys and Firm credits

Why we recommend Firm credits, and how own keys work where a site accepts them.

Ticketing sites put a check in front of the pages worth watching. Passing one costs a fraction of a penny, but it has to be paid for somehow. On Ticketmaster UK the check is a captcha; on a football club's eticketing.co.uk site it is the check each sign-in passes when it logs in, and the Firm service passes both.

Our recommendation: use Firm credits. The Firm solver is what we recommend and what we test against. In our testing CapSolver tokens are almost always refused, so we don't recommend it at the moment. We have not been able to test KagedCap yet, so we can't recommend it either.

Option 1: Firm credits (nothing to set up)

Leave the solver set to Firm and we handle it. Credits are prepaid: 1,000 solves for £3, bought from the same card as your subscription. Every solve is recorded against the monitor that asked for it, so the credits page shows exactly where they went.

  • A Ticketmaster UK monitor uses about 6 solves an hour at the default interval: about 84 credits, or 25p, for a 14-hour day. A football club monitor uses about 6 an hour for two sign-ins on most clubs and about 18 on the clubs with a second check; the new-monitor page quotes the figure for the club you paste.
  • If a solve fails, the credit is returned automatically. You pay for answers, not attempts.
  • At zero credits the affected monitors pause rather than fail silently, and the slot is kept. Top up and they resume.
  • Optional auto top-up buys another pack when you drop below a threshold you choose.

Option 2: your own provider key (not recommended today)

Adding your own key is possible, for platforms that accept one. A monitor set to your key uses it directly, never touches Firm credits, and is billed by the provider as usual; we never see your balance. We don't recommend it at the moment, for the reasons above — and today neither platform we watch accepts one.

Not used on Ticketmaster UK or the eticketing.co.uk clubs. Ticketmaster UK accepts only the Firm solver at the moment — own keys are not used here, because in our testing vendor tokens are almost always refused there. A football club's check is passed by the Firm service as part of signing in, so there is nothing for a vendor key to do there either. So the new-monitor page does not offer the choice on either platform. A key you add here is used on every platform that does accept one, and we will turn the choice back on for Ticketmaster UK if vendor tokens start being accepted.

CapSolver

Not recommended at the moment. In our testing CapSolver tokens are almost always refused, so we don't recommend it at the moment. The steps are here for platforms that accept a key.

  1. Sign up at capsolver.com and add funds (a few dollars is plenty to start).
  2. Open the dashboard; the API key is on the front page, starting CAP-.
  3. Paste it into Settings → Captcha keys and press Verify key. We call their balance endpoint, which proves the key works and spends nothing.

KagedCap

Not recommended at the moment. We have not been able to test KagedCap yet, so we can't recommend it either.

  1. Buy access through their Discord, which is where keys are issued.
  2. Copy the key from the dashboard they give you.
  3. Paste it into Settings → Captcha keys and save.

What the Verify button actually does

It calls the provider's balance endpoint. That proves the key exists, that it is spelled right, and that the account has funds — and it spends nothing, because no solve is requested.

Only CapSolver has a balance check here. For the others the key is stored and used as it is, and the row says "stored, not verified" rather than claiming a green tick on no evidence. The first real proof for those is a monitor that clears the site; if the key is wrong the monitor stops with your captcha key or proxy settings were rejected rather than failing quietly.

Where a screenshot would go: the Captcha keys page with one row - Provider "CapSolver", Key shown as four bullets and the last four characters, State reading "verified 13 Sep", and Verify / Delete buttons.

Keys are encrypted at rest with a key that lives only on the server, never rendered back into a page after you save them, and redacted from logs. If you rotate a key at the provider, paste the new one here and the old one is overwritten, not archived.

Which should I choose?

Firm credits. The Firm solver is what we recommend and what we test against, it is one less account to manage, and the per-monitor accounting is clearer. Own keys are not recommended today: in our testing CapSolver tokens are almost always refused, and we have not been able to test KagedCap yet. Neither Ticketmaster UK nor the eticketing.co.uk clubs use them at all at the moment (above), so those monitors are on Firm credits whatever keys you hold.

Common problems

"Key rejected" when I verify

Nine times out of ten it is a stray space at the start or end of the pasted value. Copy it again and re-paste.

The monitor says "paused: no credits"

Your Firm balance hit zero. Top up on the credits page and it starts again by itself. The slot was never released, so nothing needs rebuilding.

Solves work but the monitor still sees nothing

That is not a captcha problem. Check the proxies first: a blocked exit and a failed solve look similar from the outside, and the monitor's status card tells you which one it was.

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