What QR Studio is
QR Studio is a web-based QR code generator. You choose a content type, fill in the details, watch the code render live, and download it as a PNG or a vector SVG. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is printed — the code is drawn in your browser and handed straight to you as a file.
It handles twelve kinds of content:
- Website links — the everyday case, a URL someone can scan.
- Plain text — notes, serial numbers, short instructions.
- Email — opens a message to a chosen address.
- Phone — dials a number.
- SMS — opens a text message, optionally pre-filled.
- WhatsApp — opens a chat with a number, optionally with the message already written.
- Location — drops a pin at coordinates you enter, in whichever maps app the phone uses.
- App store links — one store link with the platform named on the code, so a printed code says which store it opens. Sending iOS and Android to different stores needs a dynamic link with device rules.
- Payment details — a UPI request, a PayPal.me link, a crypto address with its chain, or bank transfer details. QR Studio never processes or holds a payment; the code only carries the instructions.
- Wi-Fi — joins a network without anyone typing a password.
- Contact cards — a vCard that saves straight to a phone's address book.
- Calendar events — an event that adds itself to a calendar.
Beyond a single code
Generating one code is the easy part. Most of the work in a real project is keeping track of a hundred of them, or making the same design over and over, so there is more here than a form and a download button.
| Feature | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Saved history | Every code you generate while signed in is kept, with its payload and design, so you can find and re-download it without starting again. |
| Folders | Group saved codes — by client, campaign or site — and move them between folders in bulk, so a long history stays navigable. |
| Templates | Save a set of design options once and apply it to later codes, which is what keeps a run of codes looking like they belong together. |
| CSV export |
Export your history as a spreadsheet, for inventory, an asset register
or a handover. Spreadsheet formula injection is neutralised on the way
out, so a payload beginning = cannot execute in Excel.
|
| Bulk generation | Upload a spreadsheet and get back an archive of codes with a manifest, plus a file listing any rows that could not be used and why. The spreadsheet is parsed to make the codes and is not kept afterwards. |
| Dynamic links | Turn a code into a redirect you can edit after printing, count, pause or expire — see how they work and what they cost. |
The scanner and size calculator need no account at all, and neither does generating your first few codes.
Who runs QR Studio
QR Studio is built, maintained and paid for by a small independent team. There is no parent company, no investor and no content agency behind it: the same people who write the guides run the servers and answer the messages that come in through the contact form. If you want to know who you are trusting with something like a Wi-Fi password before you encode it, that is a fair question, and the honest answer is a small independent site rather than an anonymous content farm.
How we keep the guidance accurate
The sizing rules, error-correction advice and print guidance here come from the published QR code specification (ISO/IEC 18004) and from what the generator actually produces, rather than from what other sites repeat. Where a widely copied figure is wrong — and the most common sizing rule is wrong by a factor of ten — we say so explicitly instead of passing it on. The size calculator takes its module counts from the same encoder that draws the codes, so the guidance and the tool cannot drift apart.
Content pages show the date they were last reviewed. If you find something that contradicts your own testing, please tell us — we would rather correct a page than defend it.
Why it exists
Most free QR generators are free in a way that costs you something later. The code points at a redirect on the vendor's domain, so the code stops working the moment you stop paying, and the vendor keeps a record of every scan. We thought that was a bad trade for something as simple as a QR code.
So the default here is a static code: your content is encoded directly into the pattern. There is no redirect and no expiry, and the PNG or SVG you download keeps working for as long as the thing it points at exists, whether or not this website is still online.
Editable links are the exception, not the default. Sometimes you genuinely do need to change a destination after printing, or to know how many people scanned. For that we offer an opt-in dynamic QR code, which encodes a short link we host and can therefore count. It is a different bargain — you get editability and scan counts, and in exchange the code depends on us staying online — so you choose it deliberately rather than getting it by default.
No watermark
Downloaded codes are clean. Nothing is overlaid and no logo is inserted.
Static by default
A normal code carries its own payload, so it never depends on our servers staying up.
No tracking unless you ask
A static code routes through nobody, so its scans cannot be counted by anyone — including us. Scan counts exist only on dynamic codes you create on purpose.
PNG and SVG
A raster file for quick use, and a vector file for print at any size.
How it is funded
Running a website costs money, so QR Studio shows advertising through Google AdSense. That is the whole business model — there is no paid tier, no subscription and no upsell.
Because advertising brings obligations, we have tried to be deliberate about it. Ads are always labelled and always separated from the tool. We do not put ads on the sign-in, sign-up, account, verification or error pages, because those screens have no editorial content and ads there would be noise at best. Advertising cookies are only set after you agree to them, and if you decline, the site still works fully. The details are in our Privacy Policy.
How it is built
QR Studio runs on Node and Express with a SQLite database, and the front end is plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no build step and no framework. That keeps the pages fast and the code small enough to audit.
Some concrete choices that follow from that:
- Passwords are hashed with
scryptand never stored in readable form. - The signed-out free trial is counted against a salted, one-way hash of an IP address — not the address itself.
- The live preview stores nothing. Codes are only saved when you ask.
- Verification and password-reset tokens are single-use, hashed and time-limited.
What we ask of you
Use the generator for things you have the right to encode. Do not use it to build phishing pages, distribute malware or impersonate someone. The Terms of Service set this out properly, and they are short.
Get in touch
Bug reports, feature requests and questions are all welcome — see the contact page. If you are not sure how to get a good result from a QR code, the QR code guide covers sizing, contrast, error correction and the mistakes that make codes fail to scan.