Cardr
Free · Pro £12/mo
- Price
- Free · Pro £12/mo, checked 2026-10-29
- Best for
- Sending the follow-up
- Skip it if
- You need CRM, badges or NFC
A Popl alternative built for the follow-up.
A free Wallet card with no app for either side: they scan and save you, can send theirs, and Pro drafts your follow-up.
Free forever · No card details · About a minute
Cardr
UpdatedToday
Regional Sales Director
Corvane Logistics
cardr.co/rachel-lindgren
Scan or tap to savei
Example of what happens next: Marcus Bell scans Rachel’s card, saves Rachel to their contacts and chooses to send their own details back. The next morning at 9 a.m., Cardr Pro reminds Rachel to follow up, with the email already drafted.
The short answer: Popl and Cardr both make a digital business card, and both are good at it. Both put a real pass in Apple Wallet and in Google Wallet. The difference is what happens after the handshake. Popl is strongest at event lead capture for teams. Cardr is built for the follow-up you keep meaning to send.
Last updated 29 October 2026, when every Popl fact on this page was re-read from Popl’s own pages.
Popl
from £5.99/mo
- Price
- from £5.99/mo, checked 2026-10-29
- Best for
- Event teams with a stand
- The gap
- Team price: book a demo
Why people look
Why anyone searches for a Popl alternative.
Almost always one specific thing rather than a general dissatisfaction. If it is not this one, we are probably not your answer either.
Popl sells an individual plan in its app, at a lower price than Cardr Pro. Popl does not publish a team price. To find out what a team plan costs you book a demo or “Request Pricing”, which is the right model for a fifteen-person stand and the wrong one for a person who wants a card this afternoon.
Everything else about Popl is fine, and on the points below they beat us. So the useful question is not “which is better” but whether the thing that sent you looking is a thing we actually fix. On the buying process: Cardr is self-serve on the web, with published prices for one person and for teams, and free to start without speaking to anybody.
What they see
Nothing for them to download.
Tap through what Tom sees when he scans your card.
Example
Rachel LindgrenNo app, no account, no sign-up for the people you meet.
Side by side
Cardr vs Popl, with their prices as they publish them.
| Feature | Cardr | Popl |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, the full card, forever, no card details taken | Yes. The Popl app is free to download, with paid tiers inside it (App Store, UK, read 29 October 2026) |
| Paid price | £12 a month, or £9 a month billed annually (£108 a year) | Individuals: Popl Pro £5.99 a month or £56.99 a year; Pro+ £14.49 a month or £139.99 a year (App Store, UK, in-app purchases, read 29 October 2026). Teams: "we quote pricing over a meeting". |
| Apple Wallet pass | Yes, a signed .pkpass on the free tier | Yes: their QR code (the “PopCode”) can be added to Apple or Google Wallet from the dashboard, without the app, per their help centre |
| Google Wallet | Yes, on the free tier | Yes, the QR code, per Popl’s help centre |
| They can send you their details | Yes, after they save you: two-way exchange on the free tier | See their site |
| Follow-up drafted for you | Yes, on Pro, from the note you kept about the meeting | “Send AI Follow-Up” drafts on Pro, Pro+ and team plans, per their help centre |
| CRM integrations | None | “View all 30+ integrations”, CRMs among them |
| Physical NFC cards | We do not sell any; bring your own tag. Our metal cards, Cardr Metal, use a QR | Not re-read: popl.co refused our requests on 29 October 2026 (HTTP 429) |
Prices checked on 29 October 2026. Every figure in this table was read from https://popl.co/pages/pricing and the pages quoted below that day and is reproduced without editing. Prices are in the currency their page showed us; ours are in GBP. Where a cell says “see their site”, the published page did not state it clearly enough for us to summarise honestly, so we have not guessed. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Pick Cardr if…
- The follow-up keeps slipping
- No app on their side
- Free, no cap on contacts
Pick Popl if…
- You run an event stand
- Your contacts must reach a CRM
Try Cardr before you pay Popl.
The free tier is the whole card, with no expiry and no card details. If it is not better for you, you have lost a minute.
Straight from their page
What Popl publishes, and when we read it.
Reproduced rather than summarised. Our previous site described a competitor's capabilities from memory and got it wrong in our own favour, so this page shows you the source and the date instead of asking you to trust the summary.
"we quote pricing over a meeting"
Free tier: Yes. The Popl app is free to download, with paid tiers inside it (App Store, UK, read 29 October 2026). Apple Wallet: Yes: their QR code (the “PopCode”) can be added to Apple or Google Wallet from the dashboard, without the app, per their help centre. Where a cell elsewhere on this page says “see their site”, their published page did not state it clearly enough for us to summarise honestly, so we have not guessed.
Popl Pro £5.99 · Popl Pro Yearly £56.99 · Popl Pro Plus £14.49
Your QR code can be added without having to download the Popl app!
This feature is available for Pro, Pro+, DBC, and ELC
Where they win
What Popl does better than us.
A comparison page that only flatters the people who wrote it is an advert. Here is the honest half.
Popl is built around events at scale: an “AI-native Universal Badge Scanner”, “unlimited events & conferences”, enrichment, CRM integrations and SOC 2 Type 2. It also already drafts follow-up emails with AI, so that is not something only Cardr does. For a company running a conference stand with a team of fifteen, that is the right shape of product. For one person, Popl Pro in its app costs less than Cardr Pro.
Popl’s team product is sold through a sales conversation rather than a signup page. If you run a stand with a team, Popl is the more serious tool. If you are one person and price decides it, Popl Pro costs less than Cardr Pro.
Which one
Pick on what breaks for you.
The choice between Cardr and Popl is not close once you know which of these you are. Read down the left column and stop at the first line that is you.
- You already run a CRM and want cards feeding it Blinq Blinq lists native connections to 20+ CRMs. Cardr has none at all.
- You want the most on a free tier, both wallets included Wave Connect Unlimited contacts, a lead form and both wallets for $0, as published.
- You run events with a team and a stand Popl Built for badge scanning at scale, sold through a sales conversation rather than a signup page.
- You want a physical NFC card in your hand Any NFC vendor Cardr sells no NFC cards. Buy a tag from anyone and point it at your cardr.co address.
- You meet enough people and never send the follow-up Cardr People who save you can send their details, the context is kept against the name, and the message is drafted and then chased.
Where we win
Nobody loses a deal because the card was ugly.
Cardr is self-serve on the web and free to start, with published prices. You will have a working Apple Wallet pass in about a minute without installing an app or speaking to anyone. Where it differs from Popl’s drafter is timing: Cardr keeps the day they told you to come back, reminds you on it, and drafts from the sentence you saved about them.
- 1They scan your pass
- 2They tap Save
- 3They can send theirs back
- 4Pro drafts your follow-up
ExampleRachel Lindgren and Marcus Bell are invented.
Keep reading
The other comparisons.
Cheapest plan, per year
- Cardr Free
- Mobilo alternative $36
- HiHello alternative $72
- Uniqode alternative $72
- PoplThis page $76.99
- Wave Connect alternative $84
- Blinq alternative $87.96
- Dot alternative $144
- Cardr Pro $144
- Linq alternative Not published
- V1CE alternative In pounds
Also on Popl: Blinq vs Popl · Popl vs Dot · HiHello vs Popl · Popl pricing, explained
Popl by trade: compared for lawyers, small business and artists, with dated prices and a verdict.
Free plan: contacts a month
-
CardrNo cap
-
BlinqNo cap
-
HiHello5 scans
-
WaveNo cap
-
V1CE10
More on choosing between cards
Start with Best digital business cards: Ten compared on price, Apple Wallet and follow-up, including where the others beat us.
Free, for good
- Wallet pass
- Apple and Google
- Your page
- cardr.co/you + QR
- Contacts
- No limit
- They send theirs
- Yes
- Pro, £12/mo
- Drafts + day-3 reminder
Questions
Cardr and Popl, answered.
Checked against Popl’s published pages on 29 October 2026.
Is Cardr cheaper than Popl?
For one person, Popl Pro costs less than Cardr Pro: £5.99 a month against Cardr’s £12 (Popl’s App Store listing, read 29 October 2026). Popl does not publish its team pricing. Cardr’s card is free forever.
Does Popl do Apple Wallet passes?
Yes, and Google Wallet as well, as Cardr does. Popl ships an Apple Wallet pass, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. The pass itself is not the difference between these products.
Can I move from Popl to Cardr?
There is nothing to migrate. Build a Cardr, add it to your Wallet, and start handing that out instead. Anyone who already saved your old card keeps it; it just stops being the one you share. Cardr also exports everything to CSV or vCard, on the free plan as well as Pro, so you are never locked in here either.
Is there a free alternative to Popl?
Cardr’s free plan is the complete digital business card: a signed Apple Wallet pass, your page at cardr.co/yourname, a QR code, unlimited shares, no limit on exchanges or contacts, live updates to your pass and your page, and the two-way exchange, where the people who save you can send you their details. No expiry, no card details taken and no limit on exchanges or contacts. Popl also publishes a free tier, so compare where each one is capped rather than whether a free plan exists.
Should I pick Popl instead?
Popl’s team product is sold through a sales conversation rather than a signup page. If you run a stand with a team, Popl is the more serious tool. If you are one person and price decides it, Popl Pro costs less than Cardr Pro.
Get started
Try the free one before you pay anybody.
The Cardr free tier is the whole card and it does not expire. If it is not better for you than what you are on, you have lost a minute.