A business card has room for a name, a title, and a phone number. A QR code adds everything else: your website, portfolio, booking page, or LinkedIn profile, one scan away.
What should the code link to?
Pick the one place you most want people to go after meeting you:
- A contact page with a "Save contact" button. A page on your website, or a link-in-bio page, that offers a downloadable contact file. This is the easiest way for people to save your details.
- Your LinkedIn profile. Good for networking events and job hunting.
- A booking page. For consultants, salons, trainers, and anyone who sells appointments.
- Your portfolio. For designers, photographers, and trades that sell on past work.
Avoid linking to a generic homepage if you can. Send people to the page that does the job the card is for.
Use a dynamic code
Business cards get printed in batches of hundreds and stay in people's wallets for years. Over that time you might change jobs, switch booking tools, or redesign your site.
A dynamic code points to a short link that you can redirect at any time. When your details change, you update the destination and every card you've already handed out keeps working. You also get a scan count, which tells you whether the cards are being used. Dynamic codes are free on QRforLess and don't expire.
Step by step
- Open the QRforLess generator and choose Dynamic.
- Enter the full URL you want the card to open, starting with
https://, and create the code. - Add your logo and brand colors if you like (see QR codes with a logo).
- Download it as SVG and send that file to your printer or drop it into your card design.
- Print one proof and scan it before ordering the full batch.
Size and placement
- At least 2 cm (0.8 inch) wide. Smaller than that and older phones struggle.
- Put it on the back if the front is crowded. A code on its own with a short label looks cleaner than one squeezed next to your name.
- Add a label such as "Scan to save my contact" or "Book a call", so people know what they'll get.
- Keep the contrast high. Dark dots on a light background, with a clear margin around the code. Avoid printing it on textured or metallic stock.
What about putting the full contact card in the code?
A QR code can hold a whole contact card (a "vCard") instead of a link, and phones will offer to save it directly. The trade-offs are that it can't be changed after printing, and all that text makes the code dense and harder to scan at business-card size. A dynamic link to a contact page gives you the same result with a smaller, more reliable code that stays up to date. The QRforLess generator currently takes links and single-line text, not multi-line vCards.
Dynamic codes, logos, and print-quality SVG export are free on the QRforLess generator, with no watermark and no sign-up.