Indeed, it's seems unnessesary but it's how Heroku choose to wall off access to their add-ons. I mentioned this in the installation instructions in the GitHub docs for installation:
Also be advised that you may have to verify your Heroku account to use the add-ons which provide auto bot scheduling and email sending. Verifying can involve a bank card but at time of writing does not require any transaction to be made.
If this is not something you want to do, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, I'll be working on instructions to run this locally, and maybe even a standalone desktop app in the next months. You can probably get it working locally as it is now, but you'll have to figure out a few things and if you're not experienced it might be difficult.
Oh... that's okay for me, I will try it. I do not have credit card . I will try with my debit card. :) I will tell you if I success using my debit card ! :)
Cool! Please do familiarize yourself with their terms and conditions, I'm not connected to them in any way, not an employee, etc., it's just a convenient service. I can't be held responsible for anything that happens 😅