Free QR code generator
Create a QR code in seconds
Pick a type, fill in the details and download a crisp PNG or SVG. Your first 3 codes are free — then create an account to keep generating and save every code to your history.
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How the generator works
Three steps, and the first three codes need no account at all. The preview updates as you type, so you can see exactly what you are about to download before you commit to it.
1. Choose a type
Link, text, email, phone, SMS, Wi-Fi, contact card or calendar event.
2. Fill in the details
Type your content and watch the live preview render alongside the form.
3. Download it
Take a PNG for screens or an SVG for print. No watermark either way.
What you can put in a QR code
A QR code is just a container for data. What makes it useful is that a phone knows what to do with the data once it reads it, which is why the content type matters more than the code itself.
| Type | What happens when someone scans it |
|---|---|
| Website link | The browser opens the URL. The everyday case for posters, packaging and business cards. |
| App store link | Opens the app's listing in one store. A static code carries a single address, so it cannot send iOS and Android visitors to different stores. |
| Location | Opens a map at the coordinates, either as a Google Maps link that works on any platform or as a geo: URI. |
| Plain text | The text is displayed. Useful for serial numbers, asset tags and short instructions. |
| A new message opens, addressed to the address you chose. | |
| Phone | The dialler opens with the number ready to call. |
| SMS | A new text message opens, with the number and message pre-filled. |
Opens a chat with the number and your message pre-filled. Encoded as a wa.me link so it also resolves from a desktop browser, where the app may not be installed. |
|
| Wi-Fi | The phone joins the network without anyone typing the password. |
| Contact card | The phone offers to save a vCard straight into the address book. |
| Calendar event | The phone offers to add the event, with its date and time, to a calendar. |
| Payment | Opens a payment app with the payee and amount filled in. This is a request to pay: nothing is processed, held or settled by us, and no card details are ever involved. |
Design options
Beyond the content, you can set the foreground and background colours from six presets or a custom pair, choose the error correction level, adjust the quiet-zone margin, and pick a download size from 128 to 1024 pixels. If you are printing, take the SVG: it stays sharp at any size, whereas a PNG has a fixed number of pixels.
Not sure which settings to use? The QR code guide explains what error correction costs you, how large a code needs to be for a given scanning distance, and the mistakes that make printed codes fail.
What people actually use QR codes for
Generic advice is not much help when you are staring at an empty form. These are the uses that come up most often, with the detail that decides whether the code works in that setting.
Restaurants, cafés and bars
A code on each table pointing at the menu, so it can be updated without reprinting anything. Static codes are fine here and cost nothing to keep: put the code on a table tent or a laminated card about 10 cm square, and expect the phone to be roughly 25–30 cm away when it scans. Test it in the actual lighting — a code that scans in daylight can fail under a dim pendant light, and a glossy laminate will reflect the flash. If the menu changes often, a dynamic code lets you repoint it without touching the printed cards.
Events, tickets and conferences
Codes for joining the Wi-Fi, downloading a schedule, or checking in at the door. The Wi-Fi type is the one guests thank you for; it removes the whole “what's the password” exchange. For anything scanned in a queue or at arm's length, size up: a metre of distance means 10 mm modules, which makes a typical code about 33 cm across. Put the code at chest height rather than on a low table, and give it a light background if the venue is dark.
Retail, packaging and labels
Product information, care instructions, reorder links or a warranty registration form. Print space is usually tight, so favour a short URL — a long tracking link with query parameters can double the number of modules and therefore the printed width. Use error correction level Q or H if the code will be on a curved or scuffed surface such as a bottle, and avoid printing over a fold.
Business cards and email signatures
A contact card (vCard) code lets someone save your details without typing. On a business card the code is typically scanned from 10–15 cm, so 1.5–2 mm modules are plenty and the code fits comfortably in a corner about 20 mm square. Keep it away from the card edge — the blank margin around the code is part of how it works, and a code crowded against a printed border is a common failure.
Posters, flyers and signage
This is the category where codes are most often printed too small. A poster read from two metres needs 20 mm modules, making a 33-module code about 66 cm wide — larger than most poster designs allow. Either commit the space, shorten the content so the code needs fewer modules, or accept that the code belongs in a corner people stand close to. Our size calculator gives you the number for your own distance and content.
Invoices, receipts and documents
Add a code that points at a payment page or a copy of the document. These are usually scanned from very close, so they can be small — but they are often printed on cheap paper with a domestic printer, so keep the contrast high and avoid greys. Pure black on white prints most reliably.
Getting the size and the file right
Almost every “my QR code won't scan” report comes down to one of three things: the code was printed too small, the surrounding margin was trimmed away, or the file was scaled up until the edges blurred. All three are avoidable before you send anything to a printer.
| Scanning distance | Minimum module | Typical code (33 modules) | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 cm | 1 mm | 33 mm | Business cards, receipts, labels read close up |
| 30 cm | 3 mm | 99 mm | Table tents, menus, product packaging |
| 1 m | 10 mm | 330 mm | Posters, signs read at arm's length |
| 3 m | 30 mm | 990 mm | Shop windows, exhibition stands |
Based on the specification's reference decode distance of 100 mm per 1 mm of module. Add margin for curved, glossy or poorly lit surfaces.
Choose the file, not just the size
Take the SVG for anything printed. It has no fixed pixel count, so it stays sharp whether the printer renders it at 30 mm or 3 m, and it cannot be accidentally upscaled into blur. Take the PNG for screens — a website, a chat message, an email signature — where a fixed pixel size is what you want. If you do print a PNG, check the arithmetic: a 320 px PNG printed 99 mm wide works out at about 82 DPI, and modules that soft will fail. 300 DPI is the usual target, which needs roughly 1,170 px for that same 99 mm.
Two more things worth checking before you commit to a print run: keep the contrast strong (dark modules on a light background — inverted, light-on-dark codes fail on a meaningful share of scanners), and leave the quiet zone alone. The blank border is not padding, it is what lets the camera find the code's edges. If your layout trims it, add it back.
For the full checklist, including what error correction actually costs you and the mistakes that make printed codes fail, read the QR code guide.
What happens to your data
A generator asks you to paste in things you would not want published — a Wi-Fi password, a phone number, an unlisted URL. So it is worth being explicit about what this site does and does not do with them.
- The content goes into the code, not into a redirect. A static code has your data encoded in the pattern itself. Scanning it makes no request to us, so there is nothing for us to log and nothing to leak.
- Codes are saved to your history only for your own convenience. If you sign in, your generated codes are listed on your dashboard so you can re-download them. Delete one and it is gone from our database.
- Anonymous codes are tied to a hashed fingerprint. Before you sign up, the free-code allowance is enforced with a salted hash of your IP address — never the address itself — so the quota cannot be reset by refreshing the page.
- Dynamic links are the exception, by design. They must pass through our servers to redirect, so those scans are counted. We store the referrer host, a coarse device family and a hashed fingerprint — not raw IP addresses, and not anything that identifies an individual. This is spelled out in the Privacy Policy.
- No account is needed for the first three codes. You can generate, download and use a code without giving us an email address at all.
If you want to know what we hold about you, or to have it deleted, use the contact form and say so.
Tools and guides on this site
Everything here is free and needs no account. The generator makes codes; the guides explain the decisions that make them work in the real world.
Frequently asked questions
Is QR Studio really free?
Yes, and not in the “free until you need something” sense. Three QR codes need no account at all, and creating a free account and verifying its email address removes the limit entirely. There is no paid tier, no subscription, no trial clock and no feature held back behind an upgrade. The site is funded by advertising, which is why you will see ads on the content pages. If that ever changes, the terms will say so before it does.
Do the codes expire?
No. This is the difference between a static and a dynamic QR code, and it is worth understanding before you print anything. A static code — what this generator produces by default — has your content encoded directly into the pattern. Nothing about it points at our servers, so there is nothing to renew, nothing to cancel and nothing that can lapse if this site ever goes offline. Download the file and it works forever, offline, with no dependency on us.
Is there a watermark?
No. Both the PNG and the SVG download are clean: no logo, no overlay, no branding and no attribution requirement. What you see in the live preview is exactly what you get in the file, at the size and colours you chose. You can put the result on a business card, a product label or a poster without anything added to the design.
PNG or SVG — which should I choose?
PNG for screens: websites, chat, email signatures and anything that will be displayed. It is a raster format with a fixed pixel count, which is fine when the code will not be enlarged. SVG for anything printed or resized, because it is a vector format with no resolution of its own and stays perfectly sharp at any size. If you are printing and unsure, take the SVG — the most common cause of a code that scans on screen but fails on paper is a PNG printed larger than its pixels allow.
Can I use the codes commercially?
Yes. You own what you generate and there are no restrictions on commercial use — no attribution, no licence fee, no requirement to link back to us. You remain responsible for what you encode and for having the right to link to it, which is the same standard as any other publishing tool. The Terms of Service set that out in full.
Do you track who scans my code?
We cannot, and that is a property of how static codes work rather than a promise. The content is inside the pattern, so a scan is read by the phone directly and never touches our servers — there is no request for us to log. That also means there are no scan counts or analytics for static codes. If you need to know how many times a code was scanned, you need a dynamic code, which points at a short link we can count. This site offers those too, and the scan statistics are on the dynamic links page.
How big should I print a QR code?
The working rule is 1 mm of module for every 100 mm of scanning distance — so a code read from 30 cm needs modules of at least 3 mm, which for a typical URL makes the code roughly 10 cm across. Note that this is far smaller than the “one tenth of the distance” figure often repeated online; that rule confuses the distance-to-symbol ratio with the distance-to-module one and overstates the size by a factor of ten. Our size calculator measures your actual content and gives you the exact number, including pixels at 300 DPI.
What are the design options?
You can set the foreground and background colours from six presets or any custom pair, choose one of four error-correction levels, adjust the quiet-zone margin, and pick a download size from 128 to 1024 pixels. The preview updates as you change them. Two constraints are worth knowing: keep strong contrast between the two colours, because a pale foreground on a dark background defeats many scanners, and do not push the margin below four modules, because the blank border is what lets a camera find the code in the first place.
What is the difference between a static and a dynamic QR code?
A static code contains your content directly. It is free forever, works offline and can never be edited — changing the destination means printing a new code. A dynamic code contains a short link that redirects to your destination, so you can change where it points after it has been printed, and every scan can be counted. The trade-offs are that a dynamic code depends on the redirect service staying online, and that the redirect has to be short or the code gets denser and needs to be printed larger. Both are available here.
Can I put a Wi-Fi network in a QR code?
Yes, and it is one of the most useful things a QR code can do — guests join the network without anyone reading out a password. Choose the Wi-Fi type, enter the network name, password and security type, and the phone will offer to join when it scans. The password is encoded in the pattern, so anyone who can see the code can read it: treat it as you would a password written on the wall. Use your guest network rather than your main one, and change the password if the code is somewhere you no longer control.
Do QR codes work if there is no internet connection?
The scan does, the destination may not. Reading the pattern is done entirely by the phone's camera and software, so it works in airplane mode — which is why codes on tickets and boarding passes are reliable. What happens next depends on the content: a plain text code, a Wi-Fi code or a contact card needs no connection at all, while a website link obviously needs one to load. If you are printing for an area with poor signal, use text, Wi-Fi or vCard content rather than a URL.