What are QR Codes?
Learn what QR codes are, how they work, and why they're useful for your business.
You've seen them everywhere—on restaurant tables, product packaging, event posters, business cards. Those square, pixelated patterns are QR codes, and they're one of the simplest ways to connect something physical to something digital.
QR stands for "Quick Response," and that's exactly what they do. Point your phone's camera at one, and within a second you're on a website, saving a contact, or joining a WiFi network. No typing required.
How They Actually Work
The technical version: QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes. While the barcodes on grocery products only store data horizontally (that's why they're just lines), QR codes store data both horizontally and vertically. This lets them hold a lot more information—up to 4,296 characters of text or 7,089 numbers. For the full technical breakdown, see how QR codes work.
The practical version: Your phone's camera spots the three square markers in the corners, uses them to figure out the code's orientation, then reads the black and white pattern as data. The whole process takes about a second.
Think of QR codes as hyperlinks for the real world. Anything printed can now link to anything online.
What People Use Them For
The use cases are broader than you might expect:
- Restaurants replaced physical menus with QR codes during the pandemic, and many never went back
- Product packaging links to instruction manuals, warranty registration, or authenticity verification
- Business cards that actually get used—scan once and the contact info saves directly to your phone
- Event check-ins that move faster than any ticket scanner
- WiFi sharing that doesn't require spelling out a 20-character password
Static vs Dynamic: The Key Difference
Not all QR codes work the same way. There are two types, and which one you need depends on what you're trying to do.
Static codes encode information directly into the pattern. The data lives inside the code itself. Once you print it, that's it—the destination is permanent. Good for personal use, one-time projects, or anything that won't change.
Dynamic codes work differently. They encode a short redirect URL that points to our servers. When someone scans, we redirect them to your actual destination. This means you can change where the code goes anytime, and you get data on every scan—when it happened, where, what device.
| Feature | Static | Dynamic |
|---|---|---|
| Content | Permanent | Changeable anytime |
| Analytics | None | Full scan tracking |
| Best for | Personal, one-off use | Business, campaigns |
| Cost | Free forever | Free tier + paid plans |
For a deeper dive, see Dynamic vs Static QR Codes.
Our free plan includes unlimited static codes and 1 dynamic code. Static codes never expire, even if you never pay us a cent.
Next Steps
Ready to make one? Our guide on creating your first QR code walks through the process step by step.