Seven steps, about a minute, and nothing to install at either end. Then the step every other guide leaves out, which is the one that decides whether the card was worth making.
To make a digital business card: choose the address it will live at, add your name, role, company, number and email, add only the links you want tapped, pick a design, and add it to Apple Wallet. It takes about a minute on the phone in your hand, and on Cardr it is free with no expiry. The part that matters afterwards is that you can change it: edit it once and every copy you have already handed out corrects itself.
Six of these take a few seconds. The one worth slowing down on is the third, and it is the one everybody rushes.
Your card needs somewhere to be. On Cardr that is cardr.co/yourname, and it is the same string you will put in your email signature and under your QR code. Take the plain version of your name if it is still there, because it is the one people can read out loud over a table.
Name, role, company, one phone number and one email. Resist the urge to list everything. The card is read in about four seconds while somebody is standing up, and every extra row lowers the chance the row you care about is the one they tap.
A booking link, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, a review link, your portfolio. One or two beats six. If a link exists because it felt incomplete without it, take it off.
The design is the least important decision on this page and the one people spend longest on. Cardr ships 16 finishes, 4 of them free. Pick a dark one if you want the QR to read cleanly in a badly lit room, which is where most of these get scanned.
On an iPhone, tap Add to Apple Wallet and Safari hands it straight to the Wallet app. It is now on the device rather than in a browser tab, so it opens with no signal and does not get buried under the next forty photos you take.
Show the QR code, send the link, or tap an NFC tag you already own. On Cardr the same action returns their name, number and email to you, which is the difference between a card that empties your hands and one that fills your contacts.
This is the reason to go digital at all. Edit the card once when your number, title or employer changes, and every copy already saved in somebody else’s Wallet corrects itself on their phone. Nobody has to be told.
Not a mockup. This is the same renderer that draws the artwork on an issued .pkpass, running here on the page.
cardr.co/kai
Every guide to this, including the first half of this one, stops at the moment the card exists. That is the easy hour. The hard part is the Thursday three days later, when you have nine names, no memory of which one mentioned re-tendering in March, and a good intention that quietly expires. A better-looking card does nothing about that, and it is worth knowing that before you spend an afternoon choosing a gradient.
A one-way card is a nicer version of paper. This is the part that changes what the object is for.
A QR on the phone already in your hand. No app, no signal needed for the pass itself.
A signed .pkpass, in the app Apple preinstalled. Nothing for them to download.
The same action returns their name, number and email to you. This is the reversal.
Written from what you talked about, then chased before they go cold.
Every finish rendered by the live product, not a gallery of stock mockups.
Apple Wallet Add it to Apple WalletWhat a signed .pkpass is, and why it works with no signal.
Free The free version, in fullWhat you get for nothing, and where the free tiers elsewhere are capped.
Free tool vCard QR generatorJust want a contact QR code? Make one, no signup.
Pick an address, fill in your name, role, company, number and email, choose a design and add it to Apple Wallet. On Cardr that whole sequence is free with no expiry and no card details taken, and it takes about a minute. Several other products also have a free tier; the thing to check is where it is capped, because the cap is usually on collecting contacts rather than on anything cosmetic.
About a minute if you know your own phone number. The part people spend real time on is choosing a design, which is also the part that matters least. If you are in a hurry, take the default, hand the card out this afternoon and change the look next week; every copy already shared will update itself.
No, and you should not try to be. A digital business card is read in about four seconds by somebody who is standing up and about to walk off. It needs to be legible and it needs the QR code to scan in poor light. Everything past that is for you rather than for them.
Yes. Cardr is built to be made on the phone you are already holding, because the moment you need one is usually the moment you have just met somebody. There is no desktop step and nothing to install.
Name, role, company, one number, one email, and the one or two links you actually want tapped. Leave off the fax number, the second email, the address of an office people will not visit, and any social account you do not check. A shorter card gets used more.
No. A QR code or a link does the same job with nothing to buy and nothing to remember to carry. NFC is a nice object and it is genuinely satisfying to tap, but it is an accessory rather than a requirement. If you already own one, point it at your card’s address and carry on using it.
Free forever, nothing to install for the person you hand it to, and no card details to start.