What is a digital business card?
Your contact details on a phone instead of paper: shared by QR code, link or Wallet pass, and saved with one tap.
Free forever · No card details · About a minute
cardr.co/daniel-osei
Example of what happens next: Megan Hollis scans Daniel’s card, saves Daniel to their contacts and chooses to send their own details back. The next morning at 9 a.m., Cardr Pro reminds Daniel to follow up, with the email already drafted.
A digital business card is your contact details on a phone instead of on paper. You share it by link, QR code or wallet pass, and the other person saves you with one tap. Because it is hosted, you can change your number or job later, and every link you have shared opens the new version. Nothing to reprint. It goes by other names too: virtual, electronic or contactless business card, and here is what each one means.
A real one, in three screens.
This is the whole exchange on Cardr, free. Nobody installs anything.
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1
They scan your code
Your QR is on the pass in your Wallet. Their phone camera reads it, no app.
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2
They save you
Your page opens. Save puts you in their contacts, then they can send you their email or number.
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3
You follow up
What they send lands in your list with your note. Pro writes the follow-up for you.
ExampleDaniel Osei’s card is the example in the hero, and Daniel Osei and Megan Hollis are both invented. Every screen is drawn from the product: the pass, the card page and the email Pro sends.
Three ways to hand one over.
All three end in the same place. They differ in how much the other person has to do.
A link
The plainest version, and the most reliable. Your card has an address, such as cardr.co/yourname. Send it in a message, put it in your email signature, read it out loud. It works on every phone and every operating system, and there is nothing to scan or align.
A QR code
The same address, encoded as a square. The other person points their camera at your screen and taps the notification. This is the one that works across a table or a counter, and it needs no contact between the phones. Every modern iPhone and Android camera reads QR codes natively, with no app. Point the code at your card’s address rather than encoding a vCard in it, so the code stays dynamic and never needs reprinting.
- A linkAny phone
- A QR codeAcross a table
- A Wallet passWorks offline
- An NFC tagOptional extra
A wallet pass
The strongest version on iPhone. Your card is issued as a signed .pkpass file, the same format Apple uses for boarding passes, and it lives in the Apple Wallet app rather than in a browser tab. It opens with no signal, it does not get lost in a photo roll, and it can update itself when your details change. The pass stays with you: it is where your QR code lives, and the other person scans it to open your page. This is the part the Apple Wallet page covers in detail.
And the fourth way, NFC
You can also buy a physical card or tag with a chip in it that opens your address when tapped. It is a genuinely nice object. It is also entirely optional, and it is the same digital card underneath. If you already own one, point it at your address and carry on.
A better card does not fix the actual problem.
Nobody loses a deal because their business card was ugly. They lose it because the follow-up never got sent. Every product in this category, including ours, will give you a good looking card in five minutes. Almost none of them help with the Thursday three days later, when you have nine names in your camera roll and no memory of which one said they were re-tendering in March.
- 1They scan your pass
- 2They tap Save
- 3They can send theirs back
- 4Pro drafts your follow-up
ExampleDaniel Osei and Sam Rivera are invented.
What actually matters when you pick.
In rough order of how much it will affect whether you keep using it.
- Does the other person have to install anything? If yes, discount it heavily. This single factor decides more successful handovers than every design feature combined.
- Can they send their details back? A one-way card is a nicer version of paper. With a two-way exchange, the person who saves you can send you their email or number in the same moment, so your contact list fills up instead of your pocket.
- Is the free tier capped where it matters? Several are capped on contacts collected rather than on cosmetics, which is the cap you will actually hit.
- Does it update after you have shared it? This is the reason to go digital at all. Check exactly what updates: the page behind the link, your own pass, or a contact somebody already saved. They are not the same thing.
- Can you get your data out? CSV or vCard export, without asking anybody. If there is no export, the contacts are not really yours.
- How does it look? Last, honestly. It matters, but far less than the five above.
Cardr, checked
- App for them
- None
- Theirs back
- Yes
- Contact cap
- None
- Live updates
- Pass and page
- Export
- CSV and vCard
Check all six on a real one.
No app on either phone, a way for them to send you their details, no cap, live updates and your export. Free forever.
Where to go next.
Five products compared with their own published prices.
Explainer Apple Wallet business cardsWhat a signed pass is and why it updates itself.
Free tool vCard QR code generatorMake a scannable contact QR code. No signup, no email.
Pricing What Cardr costsFree forever for the card, £12 a month for the follow-up.
Teams Digital business cards for teamsYour company on every card and Wallet pass, and Pro for everyone.
What a free one should include.
Cardr’s free plan, row by row. Everything in the first column stays free, with no expiry and no limit on exchanges or contacts.
| FreeForever, no card details | Pro£12 a month, or £9 a month billed annually (£108 a year) | |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing to install for the person you meet | Included | Included |
| A no-signal code that holds your contact itself | Included | Included |
| Pass designs | One: Oxford | IncludedAll 16 |
| Your follow-ups, written and ready | One draft and reminders about your first three people | IncludedEverything |
| Every lead, sorted | Your list, notes, tags, who replied, the timeline, search and export | IncludedEverything |
| See what your card wins you | Views, scans, swaps and saves, counted | IncludedEverything |
| A page that gets you booked | Booking, WhatsApp and review links on your page | IncludedEverything |
Free card. Pro does the follow-up.
Your card, your page and every contact it brings in are free. Pro writes each follow-up from what you talked about and emails it to you at 09:00, ready to send.
See what Pro doesCardr Free
- Your card
- $0
- Apple Wallet pass
- $0
- Your page
- $0
- Contacts
- No limit
- Exchanges
- No limit
Every year$0
No card details
Digital business card questions.
What is a digital business card?
A digital business card is a shareable version of your contact details that lives on a phone rather than on paper. Instead of handing someone a printed card, you share a link, a QR code or a wallet pass. The person receiving it saves you to their contacts with a tap, and because the card is hosted rather than printed, you can change your details later without reprinting anything.
Are digital business cards actually better than paper?
For keeping details current, yes, clearly: a printed card is wrong the moment you change job, number or company, and a digital one can be corrected once, at the address everyone already has. For the moment of handover, paper still has one advantage, which is that it needs no phone, no signal and no explanation. The best digital cards are the ones that get as close to that as possible, which is why the ones that require the other person to install an app tend to fail.
Do digital business cards need NFC?
No. NFC is one way to trigger a digital business card, but a QR code, a link sent in a message, or an Apple Wallet pass all work without any hardware at all. NFC cards are a nice object to own, and if you already have one you can point it at your card’s address, but nothing about a digital business card requires you to buy anything physical.
Can someone save a digital business card to their contacts?
Yes, and that is the point of one. On Cardr they scan your QR, your page opens, and Save puts you in their phone’s contacts. Then they can send you their name and email or number, or tap Not now. Either way you are saved, with a link back to your page.
Do digital business cards work on every phone?
The page does. Any iPhone or Android camera reads the QR code, and the page opens in the browser the phone already has. The Wallet pass is the holder’s, so only you need a phone that carries it. The person you meet needs nothing but a camera.
Do they work without an app?
The good ones do. If your card is a web page, the other person just opens a link. If it is an Apple Wallet pass, it lives in an app Apple already installed on your phone, and the other person scans its QR code to open your page. Cards that require the recipient to download the vendor’s app lose most people at exactly the moment they were paying attention.
Are digital business cards free?
Often, at least partly. Cardr is free forever for the full card. HiHello has a free Personal plan capped at five scans a month, and Blinq lists a free tier, both as published on 29 October 2026. Popl’s app is free to download, with Popl Pro sold inside it at £5.99 a month (read 29 October 2026). Watch for the cap rather than the headline: several free tiers limit the number of contacts you can collect, which is the part that matters.
What should a digital business card include?
Name, role, company, one phone number and one email, plus whichever links you actually want used, such as a booking link, WhatsApp, LinkedIn or a review link. Resist listing everything. The card is read in about four seconds while someone is standing up, so the fewer decisions it asks for, the more likely the one you care about gets tapped.
- Your Wallet passUpdated
- Your pageUpdated
- The same QRUpdated
- Every link you sentUpdated
- Contacts already savedLinks to your page
More on digital business cards
- Do 88% of business cards get thrown away?Guide
- GDPR and business cards in the UKGuide
- Digital business cards on AndroidGuide
- Are paper business cards dead?Guide
- How to make a digital business card
- Card designs, rendered live
- What the free plan includes
- Digital vs paper, row by row
- Digital business cards in the UK
- Digital business cards in Australia
- Digital business cards in Canada
- Digital name cards in Singapore
- Do you need a business card app?
- Profession by profession
- Glossary: the terms, defined
Make one now and see if it sticks.
Free forever, about a minute to build, and nothing for the other person to install.