Are Dynamic QR Codes Free? What the Small Print Usually Says

Yes, with limits, and the limits are the whole story. "Free" is not the interesting question — what happens to a code you have already printed is.

The answer here first, so nothing is buried: five dynamic codes, 1,000 scans a month, and free codes do not expire. No card, no trial clock.

The trick that costs real money

The common arrangement in this market is a free trial of 14 days. You make a code, you print 5,000 flyers, and on day 15 the code stops redirecting. What you paid for was not software; it was a hostage.

This is worse than it sounds because printing is the expensive half. A subscription you decline costs nothing. A reprint of 5,000 flyers costs more than a year of any plan on this page.

So the first question for any provider is not the price. It is: after the trial ends, does the code I printed still work? If the answer is no, the price is irrelevant.

Five things to check in the small print

• Do free codes expire? The one that matters. A code with an expiry date is a code you cannot print.
• Is "free" actually static? Many free generators only produce static codes — the destination is baked into the pattern and can never be changed. That is a perfectly good product for a Wi-Fi card and useless for anything printed in volume. If a service does not say the word "dynamic", assume static.
• Does editing the destination cost money? Some services let you create a dynamic code free and charge to change where it points, which is the only thing a dynamic code is for. Check before printing, not after.
• What happens at the scan cap? There is a difference between "we stop counting" and "we stop redirecting". Ask which.
• Whose domain and whose branding? A free tier usually redirects through the provider's short domain, and some show an ad page on the way. Both are visible to your customers.

Our own small print, in the same detail

It would be dishonest to write the list above and then be vague. So:

• Five dynamic codes on the free plan, and they do not expire. Print them.
• 1,000 scans a month. Over the cap, the code shows a paused notice instead of redirecting, until the month rolls over and the counter resets. It is not deleted and it is not broken — but for that month it stops working, and you should know that before putting a free code on something with real traffic.
• Design is included. Colours, gradients and a centre logo are on the free plan, not held back for a paid one. PNG and SVG export too.
• The short link runs on our domain and the analytics footer shows we generated it. Removing that is on the paid plans.
• Analytics are included — scans over time, device, OS, browser, referrer, unique visitors. Note that there is no geolocation at any price; we do not collect it.
• Not on free: redirect rules, bulk generation from CSV, the API, per-code passwords and expiry dates, CSV export.

What the paid plans are actually for

Not for making the free plan usable. For volume and for control:

• Pro, $9 a month or $90 a year: 100 codes, unlimited scans, redirect rules by device, language and time, CSV export, frames, and no Enqre branding.
• Business, $29 a month or $290 a year: unlimited codes, bulk generation from a spreadsheet, REST API and webhooks, team access, white-label on your own domain.

The annual price is ten months for twelve. And the honest guidance: if you have one code on one poster, the free plan is the correct answer and stays the correct answer. The reason to pay is a campaign whose scans will pass a thousand a month, or thirty codes you cannot manage one at a time.

Where free stops being the right choice

Three signals, in the order they usually appear:

• You are printing at volume. One code on 10,000 leaflets can pass 1,000 scans in a week. A paused code on a live print run is the worst possible time to discover a cap.
• You need more than five codes. Per-property, per-table, per-placement codes add up fast, and separate codes are what makes the numbers mean anything.
• The code is on something a customer judges you by. A menu, packaging, a shop window. That is where your own domain stops being cosmetic.

Quick answers

• Are dynamic QR codes free? Here: five of them, 1,000 scans a month, no expiry, no card.
• Will my free code stop working? Not from age. It pauses for the rest of the month if you pass 1,000 scans, then resumes.
• Can I change the destination on the free plan? Yes. That is the point of a dynamic code and it is not paywalled.
• Can I use colours and a logo for free? Yes, design is on the free plan.
• What is the catch? Five codes, the monthly cap, our domain and our branding, and no rules, bulk or API.
• How do I check another provider? Ask one question: after the free period, does the code I printed still redirect? Then ask what happens at the scan cap.