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A contact QR code that does not need your digital-card subscription
The code is a vCard. A phone that scans it offers to save the contact. If our site disappeared tonight, the card in someone's pocket would still scan.
Encoded content
How to make one
- Step 1. Type the details you want saved. Name, organization, title, phone, email, a website, and a short note. Leave blank anything you do not want in a stranger's address book.
- Step 2. Read the vCard under the preview. That block is the exact text in the code, including the BEGIN:VCARD line. If a field looks wrong, fix it before you download.
- Step 3. Keep the print simple. Dark squares, light background, a quiet margin. Add a logo only if the sample still scans.
- Step 4. Download and place it. PNG for a card you print yourself. SVG if the contact card is being laid out in design software.
- Step 5. Scan with a second phone. Save the contact and check the fields. A missing plus-sign on a phone number is easier to see now than after the cards are cut.
A vCard is a contact, not a profile page
The format is older than the QR fashion around it. A vCard is a small text file: a name split into family and given parts, a formatted display name, an organization, a title, a telephone, an email, a URL, and a note. HonestQR writes version 3.0 of that file and encodes the characters directly. When a camera app sees BEGIN:VCARD it does not open a browser. It offers to add a contact, the same way it would if someone AirDropped a card or attached one to an email. The person can decline. Nothing is installed.
You can see the file before it becomes squares. The preview panel prints the exact payload, line breaks included. That matters because the thing a phone saves is that text, not the form you filled in. If you need a particular field order or a second phone number, this generator keeps to one phone, one email, and one URL so the code stays short and reliable. A very long biography belongs on the website linked from the card, not inside the card.
Digital business cards that are really someone else's URL
Many 'free digital business card' products do not encode a vCard. They encode a link to a profile they host. The profile looks nicer: a photo, social buttons, a click counter. It also dies when the trial ends, when you stop paying, or when the company changes its URLs. The card stock you already handed out cannot be recalled. People who scan it next year get a parked domain or a login wall, and they do not get your phone number. A vCard QR has the phone number in the ink. The trade is that a new number means a new card. For most people that is the right trade, because phone numbers change less often than SaaS pricing pages.
If you truly need a page you can edit after printing — a new title every quarter, a headshot, a booking link that moves — put your own URL in a QR code, on a domain you control, and change the page. That is still a static code. It points at you, not at a QR vendor. The restaurant menu guide on this site walks through that pattern. What you should not do is let a vendor put their short domain in the code and call it a contact card. Use the check-up if you already printed something and you are no longer sure what it contains.
What to include, and what to leave off
At a market or a conference, the useful fields are the ones a person would otherwise mistype: name, organization, mobile number, email. A title helps six months later when they cannot remember why they have the card. A website is worth including if it will still be yours. A note is for something the contact list should remember, such as 'met at the Saturday market' or 'weekday bread is out by 10,' not for a sales pitch. Leave the personal mobile off if the card will sit on a counter for anyone. A role address like hello@ your domain is often the better public target, with the direct number reserved for cards you hand to a person.
We do not encode a photo. Photos make the payload large, the code dense, and the scan less reliable on a small card, and they are awkward to update. Phones will attach a photo later if the person wants one. We also do not encode a postal address in this version. If you need a street address on the card, put it in the note or on the website. Special characters in names are kept. Commas and semicolons are escaped the way the vCard rules require, so a company name with a comma does not split into a second field.
How phones behave, briefly
On a current iPhone, the camera shows a contact banner and opens the contact sheet with the fields filled in. The person taps to add it. On a current Android phone, the camera or the default QR scanner does the same with the contacts app. Older phones and some in-app scanners only show the raw text. That raw text is still the vCard, and it can be copied into a contact, which is why we show it to you as well. We do not promise every scanner app on earth. We promise the payload is the standard record, not an invented format and not a link that only works inside one vendor's app.
International numbers should include the country code. The generator does not rewrite the phone field, so type it the way you want it saved, spaces included. Email is checked for a basic shape so you do not encode a typo like a missing dot. The website is stored as you type it; if you want a full link, include https://. The phone will treat that URL as the contact's website, which is a different thing from the QR code itself being a link.
Printing a card that scans in a crowded room
Contact cards are small, and small codes fail when they are decorative. Give the code a quiet corner of the card rather than floating it on a photograph. Dark ink on uncoated stock is easier than gold foil, gloss, or a code reversed out of a dark photo. The contrast warning exists for this. If you are close to the line, believe the warning and reprint the proof in plain black. A logo on top of a tiny code is the most common way to make a handsome card that nobody can scan under event lighting. Skip the logo on anything smaller than a postcard unless the proof scan is boringly reliable.
Export PNG at the size the generator produces — at least 1024 pixels — and let the printer scale it down. Scaling a tiny image up is what makes the edges fuzzy. SVG is the better handoff to a designer because it has no pixels to resample. The colors in the file are the colors you picked, not a later filter. After the cards arrive, scan one from the batch, not the proof, because a heavy ink laydown can swell the squares. If the batch fails, the fix is a reprint, not a settings change on a server you do not have.
When the details change
A new phone number, a new name, or a new job is a new card. Collecting old cards is impossible, and that is fine: the old card still contains the old truth, which is often still a working email. If the change is only on the website, and the website URL on the card is still correct, you do not reprint. That split is the whole design. Facts that must be true on the day of the scan belong in the code. Facts that move belong on a page at a stable address you control.
Nothing on this page creates an account, a CRM entry, or a scan count. We cannot tell you how many people saved the contact, because the scan never touches us. If that missing number is the feature you actually want, it comes with a server in the middle and the expiry problem this site is built to avoid. The waitlist is for that conversation. Making the card above does not put you on the list.
Questions
Will the phone open a browser?
Not for a code made here. The payload is a vCard, so the phone offers to save a contact. A code that opens a profile website is a URL code, which you can also make, but it is a different thing.
Can I include a headshot?
Not in this generator. Photos bloat the code and go stale. Link a website if you want a page with a photo, and keep the QR as the contact record.
Which phones can save it?
Current iPhone and Android camera apps understand vCard 3.0. Some third-party scanners only show the text. The text is the full card, so it can be copied into contacts by hand.
Does HonestQR store the contact details?
No. The form never leaves the browser. Downloading the PNG or SVG is a local file save.
What if my name has an accent or a comma?
Accents are kept as you type them. Commas, semicolons, and backslashes are escaped so they do not break the vCard fields.
Can I update the card after printing?
No. Print a new card when the phone number or name changes. If you need a page you can edit, encode your own website URL instead of a vendor's short link.