Digital Business Card Pricing in 2026: Free, Lifetime, Subscription Compared

Most digital business card companies hide their pricing behind a demo call. Of the seven we'll compare in this post, two won't tell you what they charge until you book one. The rest are all over the map: $3 a month, $8 a month, $45 once, hardware bundled or sold separately, free tiers with limits you only discover after you've built your card.

I started Digital QR Card because pricing in this category was confusing and most of it was bad value. So I'm going to do something the other companies won't: lay out every plan, name every limit, and run the five-year math so you can see what you'll actually pay.

This is going to be specific. Real prices and real per-user math, with the limits called out so you know what you're buying.

The three pricing models in this category

Pricing in digital business cards falls into one of three buckets, and which one fits you depends on how long you'll use the product and whether you want hardware.

Subscription. You pay monthly or annually for as long as you want the product. Most companies use this model because it's the most profitable for them. HiHello, Blinq, and Uniqode are subscription-only.

Hardware-plus-subscription. You buy a physical NFC card for somewhere between $20 and $140, and you also pay a monthly fee to keep the software features. Mobilo and Linq sit in this bucket. Hardware is one-time. The subscription is forever.

Lifetime. You pay once. You keep the product. There are very few of these in the category because the math doesn't work for venture-backed companies. Digital QR Card's founding-member offer is the main one I know of at $45.

What each company actually charges

HiHello

• Free tier: 4 digital business cards, basic features, 5 card scans per month.
• Pro: $6/month billed annually ($72/year), or $8 month-to-month. 16 cards, custom colors, analytics.
• Business: $5 per user per month annual. Minimum 5 users, maximum 100. CRM integrations and SSO.
• Enterprise: custom pricing, 101+ users.

HiHello's free tier is one of the better ones in the category. Four cards is generous. The 5-scan-per-month limit on the contact scanner is the main thing they're holding back from free users.

Blinq

• Free tier: 2 cards. Unlimited sharing.
• Premium: $7.33/month billed annually ($88/year), or $9.99 month-to-month. Five cards, AI features, branded QR.
• Business: $4.99 per card per month annual. Minimum 5 cards.
• Enterprise: custom.

Blinq's free tier is more limited than HiHello's (2 cards vs 4). Their AI notetaker and contact enrichment are the main paid differentiators.

Mobilo

• Free tier: basic digital card with QR sharing.
• Pro: $3/month plus a physical card. Cards run $5 to $20 on the current promo (regular $19.99 to $139).
• Teams: $4 per user per month annual. Same hardware costs apply.
• Business: $5 per user per month annual. White-label and SSO.

Mobilo has the cheapest monthly subscription in the category, but the hardware purchase is the actual product. If you don't want a physical NFC card to tap on someone's phone, Mobilo isn't the answer. Their card discounts are aggressive, so verify the price the day you buy.

Uniqode (formerly Beaconstac)

• Free tier: 1 card.
• Team: $6 per user per month, billed annually only.
• Business+: custom pricing.

Uniqode doesn't publish a single-user paid plan. If you want more than one card or any premium features, you're sent straight to the $6 per user per month team plan. Annual billing only, no monthly option. This is the least solo-friendly pricing in the category.

Popl

Popl doesn't publish pricing. Their site asks you to book a demo before they tell you what anything costs. I'm not putting a guess in here, because the whole point of this post is real numbers. If a company won't show you the price before a sales call, that tells you something about who they're built for: not solo professionals.

Linq

Same story as Popl. Linq's pricing page exists, but it loads behind JavaScript and you can't see real numbers without filling out a form first. Effectively, no public pricing.

Digital QR Card

• Free tier: 1 card with unlimited sharing, one-tap add to contacts, social links.
• Premium: $4.99/month (regular $14.99). Three cards, analytics, lead capture, custom URL slug, CSV export.
• Business: $9.49/month (regular $29.99). Seven cards. Same paid features as Premium.
• Founding member: $45 one-time lifetime access to Pro features (lead capture, contacts, analytics, email sequence, CSV export). 500-slot cap.
• Crew packs (lifetime, multi-seat): $99 for 3 seats, $149 for 5 seats, $249 for 10 seats. Each seat gets Pro features.

The founding-member offer is what we're betting on. You pay $45 once, you keep Pro forever, no monthly bill. We're holding this rate while we grow.

Five-year cost for a solo user

Here's what each company's middle paid plan costs over 60 months. Annual billing where available, since that's the rate most solo professionals will pick.

• HiHello Pro (annual): $72 × 5 = $360
• Blinq Premium (annual): $7.33 × 12 × 5 = $439.80
• Mobilo Pro (annual): $36 × 5 + $20 card = $200. Add another $20 if you lose or replace the card.
• Uniqode Team (annual, single user): $72 × 5 = $360
• Digital QR Card Premium: $4.99 × 12 × 5 = $299.40
• Digital QR Card founding member: $45 once.

Five years of HiHello Pro costs eight times what the founding-member offer does.

If you keep your digital card for two years, the founding-member rate is already cheaper than every paid subscription in the category. If you keep it for five, it isn't a close comparison.

Mobilo is the only subscription that comes close on solo math, but only because they're using hardware as the actual product. The $3 a month buys you software you'd otherwise expect to be free, and the NFC card is what you're paying for.

Five-year cost for a five-person team

Now do the same math with five users. This is where the gap gets brutal.

• HiHello Business (5 users, annual): $5 × 5 × 12 × 5 = $1,500
• Blinq Business (5 cards, annual): $4.99 × 5 × 12 × 5 = $1,497
• Mobilo Teams (5 users, annual): $4 × 5 × 12 × 5 + 5 cards = $1,300
• Uniqode Team (5 users, annual): $6 × 5 × 12 × 5 = $1,800
• Digital QR Card Crew (5 seats, lifetime): $149 once.

A five-person team using Uniqode pays 12 times more over five years than the same team using the Crew pack.

I'll be straight about one caveat: the Crew pack is a current promotional offer. We might not keep it forever. Subscription plans, on the other hand, will exist for as long as those companies do, and you'll keep paying them.

When subscription pricing makes sense

Subscription isn't a bad deal in every case. Here's when it's the right call.

If you're a sales team with high turnover and you need to revoke access when someone leaves, subscription is the cleanest model. You stop paying for the seat the day they walk out. With lifetime, you'd need to manage transfers or absorb the cost of an unused seat.

If you want a feature roadmap with rapid additions, subscription companies have more revenue pressure to keep shipping. Lifetime products have less incentive to keep building once you've paid.

If you need enterprise SSO, SCIM provisioning, or a dedicated success manager, you'll be on the top tier of a subscription product. Lifetime isn't usually offered at the enterprise level.

When lifetime makes sense

You'll use the product for more than two years. The math crosses over at month 24 against most plans, sooner against Uniqode and Blinq.

Your role and contact info is stable enough that you don't need 100 cards. Most professionals need one card. Two if they work two jobs.

You don't want another monthly bill in your life. Reasonable.

You're a solo operator or small team where SSO and enterprise admin tools don't apply.

What could go wrong with a lifetime product

Worth naming the honest risk: if the company shuts down, your card stops working. Subscription companies face the same risk, but at least your loss is capped at the next month's payment.

The way I'm thinking about this for Digital QR Card: the QR codes themselves are URLs. Even if something happened to the company, your exported contact data and your existing print materials with the QR on them still work for the lifetime of those URLs.

I can't promise anything similar about HiHello, Popl, or any subscription company if they pivot or close. The same risk applies to every product in this category, mine included.

My honest pick depending on your situation

If you'll use a digital business card for more than two years, lifetime is the math-driven answer. The founding-member offer at $45 is what I'd point a friend at. Full disclosure: I built this product, so this is biased advice. The numbers above are not.

If you want a free tier with real utility, HiHello and Blinq are the strongest options. HiHello's 4-card limit is more generous than Blinq's 2-card limit. Neither one is going to surprise you with a paywall.

If you want a physical NFC card to tap on someone's phone, Mobilo has the cleanest combination of price and product. Just remember the $3 monthly fee keeps running after the card purchase.

If you're a 25+ person team and you need SSO with audit logs, talk to HiHello Business or Blinq Business. Those plans are built for you, and the per-user pricing is reasonable at scale.

If you can't find out what a company charges until you book a demo, take that as a price signal. They're probably not the right fit for solo professionals or small teams.

What to verify before you buy any of these

• Confirm the price on the company's pricing page the day you sign up. Every number here was verified 2026-05-14, but prices in this category shift quarterly.
• Check whether annual billing is the only option or whether you can go monthly. Some companies (Uniqode) only sell annual.
• If you're buying hardware, check the regular price versus the promo price. Some discounts expire mid-checkout.
• Read the data-export terms. Can you take your contacts and card data with you if you cancel?

If you want the lifetime path, the founding-member rate is $45 right now. If you want to try the free tier first, you can create a card in about three minutes.