Your contact details, saved in one scan
This makes a vCard: the format every phone already understands for a contact. Someone points a camera at it and gets a "Add to contacts" prompt with your name, number and email already filled in — no typing, no app, and no exchange of anything through us. Fill in as much or as little as you like; a name and one way to reach you is a perfectly good card.
A printed contact code is a snapshot, not a profile
The details are inside the image, so the card in someone’s wallet keeps your old number after you change it and keeps your old employer after you move. That is fine for a conference badge that is thrown away on Sunday and is a genuine problem for a business card you had five hundred of printed. If your details move, point a dynamic code at a page you control instead — then the card in the wallet stays right and you edit the page.
Fewer fields scan more reliably
Every field you add makes the pattern denser, and a dense code needs to be printed bigger or lit better to read. A name, a mobile number and an email make a code that scans off a lanyard at arm’s length; add a full address, two phone numbers and a long job title and you have one that wants good light and a steady hand. Watch the preview: the readability check here says when the code has become too dense for its intended size rather than letting you find out at the event.
Where to put it so it actually gets scanned
The back of a business card, big and alone, works far better than a small one crowded into a corner beside your logo. On a conference badge, put it below the name where a phone can get close without anyone leaning into your personal space. In an email signature it needs to be an image with a text link beside it, because a code is useless to somebody reading that email on the phone they would have to scan it with.
What goes in it
- First name
- Last name
- Organisation
- Job title
- Phone
- Website
Questions
Does scanning it add me to their contacts automatically?
No — the phone shows the details and the person taps to save. Nothing is added without them agreeing, and nothing passes through us: the whole card is in the image.
Can I include a photo in the contact card?
Not in the code itself. A photo makes the payload far too large to scan reliably at any printable size. Point a dynamic code at a page with your photo on it if you need one.
Will it work on an iPhone as well as Android?
Yes. vCard is the format both use for contacts, and both camera apps recognise it without an extra app.