Static or dynamic QR codes: how to choose
Every comparison of these two ends in a feature table, and the table always makes dynamic look like the upgrade. It is a trade, and for a fair number of jobs static is the better tool and costs nothing. The way to choose is by the job in front of you, so that is how this page is arranged.
Choosing4 min read
What a dynamic QR code is
A static code carries the destination in the pattern itself. Scan it and the phone goes straight there; nothing and nobody sits in between. A dynamic code carries a short link belonging to whoever made it, and their server forwards each scan onwards to your real destination.
That indirection is the whole product. Because a server sits in the middle, the destination can be edited after printing, and scans can be counted as they pass through. For the same reason, the code works only while that server keeps answering, which normally means only while an account somewhere stays in good standing. Every row of every comparison table is one of those two facts wearing different clothes.
Where static is the better tool
Anything you will never change, and anything that has to keep working with no company alive behind it.
- A Wi-Fi password on the wall of a café or a holiday let. The network name and password are encoded in the pattern itself, joining needs no internet connection, and the code will still work if every QR company on earth closes. Paying a monthly fee to host a Wi-Fi password is paying someone to stand between your guests and your router.
- A phone number on a van. The code dials directly, with no page in between. The number changes so rarely that on the day it does, you are re-lettering the van anyway.
- A memorial plaque, a bench dedication, a foundation stone. These are expected to outlast any subscription, any provider and quite possibly the web page they point to. Static is the only responsible choice for the code itself, and the page it names should be an address you control.
- Your homepage on business cards, if you control the domain and intend to keep it. Everything behind the address can change whenever you like; the address itself is the one thing that need not move.
The common thread: a static code needs no account and cannot be switched off by anyone, because there is nothing to switch. Its one limit is absolute. The destination is fixed the moment the ink dries, and if it later has to move, your options are limited and mostly involve reprinting.
Where dynamic earns its keep
When the destination might move, and when you want to know whether anybody scanned.
- A menu. The PDF changes with the season; the two thousand printed leaflets and the stickers on the tables do not. Repointing takes seconds and applies to every copy already out in the world.
- A booking or ordering system you might swap. The tools behind a small business change more often than its print does.
- A campaign you want to measure. Scans pass through the server, so they can be counted. Put one code on the poster and a different one on the leaflet drop, and you find out which of them actually produced the scans.
- Artwork due at the printers before the destination exists. Print against the short link now and point it at the finished page later.
The price is a subscription and a dependency, and both are real. The subscription is small: ours is three codes free, then £3.49 a month including VAT, with Pro at £9 and Business at £24. The dependency is the part to take seriously, because it is attached to every physical object you print.
The question to ask before you pay anyone
Put one question to any dynamic provider before entering a card: what happens to my printed codes if I stop paying? Most providers switch dynamic codes off when a plan ends, and some also delete the destination data after a period. Neither fact tends to appear on the pricing page. We collected each major vendor’s own answer, quoted and linked, so you can read them side by side.
Our own answer, since we are a vendor too: cancelling drops the account to the free tier, every code already printed keeps resolving, and a test that runs inside every deployment fails the build if that ever stops being true. Judge that claim the way you would judge anyone’s, by reading the terms rather than the marketing.
We make QR codes you can re-point after they are printed. The pattern on the page never changes, and the codes you have already printed keep working even if you stop paying.
Three codes free, no card. Paid plans start at £3.49 a month including VAT.