CardQR vs HiHello: 2026 comparison (pricing, cards, features)

The structural difference between CardQR and HiHello lies in what you get without paying: CardQR includes unlimited cards and custom QR codes in the free plan, with no expiration date, while HiHello limits the free plan to 4 cards and reserves custom QR for paid plans. From there, the two tools diverge in pricing philosophy, privacy control, and what can be measured. This comparison gathers verified data from both and details — with concrete figures — exactly what is included in each CardQR plan, so you make your decision based on information, not marketing.

Comparison table

These are the points where we have verified data from both services:

A note of honesty before we continue: the rows above are what we can verify from both sides (the HiHello data comes from its pricing page, checked on 4 October 2026). For the rest of the article we detail what is inside CardQR with feature precision, and we do not claim absences in HiHello that we have not verified. If a specific feature is decisive for you, check it on each service's website before deciding: plans change.

What you can do without paying

Here is the clearest divergence. The CardQR free plan is not a demo with a countdown: it includes unlimited cards with their own public URL, customizable and downloadable QR code, vCard export, activation of physical NFC tags from the dashboard, Tap to Connect button on the public card, email signature generator, contact wallet with OCR scanning of paper cards (3 per month), AI card generator (3 per month), visit counter, and 2FA with Google login.

HiHello's 4-card limit on the free plan is not arbitrary or outrageous — it is the standard model in the industry: give just enough to hook you and charge for volume. It is worth understanding what that means in practice: if you only need one personal card, that limit does not affect you at all. If you have a personal card, a company card, another for a side project, and a fourth for a specific event, you are already pushing it.

What paying adds in CardQR

Pro — €2.99/month or €29.90/year

• Lead Capture: form on the public card with mandatory name and email and optional phone, company and message, lead panel with filters and CSV export. Each lead also records where it came from: country, city and source link.
• Widgets: link button, bookings, video and downloadable PDF, reorderable and toggleable one by one. The bookings widget connects to Calendly, Cal.com, HubSpot, Google, Microsoft, TidyCal, SavvyCal or your own link.
• Security code: 8-character alphanumeric key that makes the card private: it only opens with the link or QR that carry it. When it's regenerated the URL doesn't change, but you have to hand out the new QR.
• Analytics: unique visitors and how many come back; device, operating system and browser; country and referring website (region, city and the five UTM parameters, in the export); visit duration and scroll percentage; each click measured separately (phone, email, WhatsApp, social networks, web, map, bookings, vCard download, share…), and bot filtering so the figures are not inflated.
• Event Mode, premium templates, custom block-based design, AI 50 generations/month, OCR 50 scans/month and removal of “Card created with CardQR”.

Enterprise — €12.99/month or €129.90/year

• Custom domain with SSL: your cards live at cards.yourcompany.com instead of a third-party domain.
• Team Dashboard with four roles (owner, admin, member, observer) up to 10 seats.
• Webhooks signed with HMAC-SHA256 for lead.created and connection.created, plus HubSpot integration.
• API with your own keys: 100 requests/minute read and 30/minute write.
• Reusable profiles that sync data to all associated cards, and bulk import by CSV.

Differences that don't show up in a pricing table

Privacy and visibility as separate decisions

In CardQR, no card is indexed by Google by default: indexing is opt-in and, in addition to activating it, the card must pass five quality checks (photo, description of at least 40 characters, company or title, a contact method and an external link). At the opposite end, the security code makes the card private and excludes it from search engines by design. These are two deliberate axes: who can see it and whether it appears in searches or not.

Languages and European context

CardQR is available in eight languages (Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Chinese) and is a product developed in Spain with its own GDPR section for data access and deletion requests. HiHello is a US product with significant traction in its market; if your team is international and English-centric, that maturity counts.

The three-year calculation

The prices are in different currencies, so we do not add them together — but the order of magnitude is clear. One person with a paid plan for three years: €89.70 in CardQR Pro versus $216 in HiHello Professional. A small team of ten people, one year: €299 in CardQR Pro (or €129.90 total with an Enterprise whose account creates the cards of all ten people, with a custom domain) versus $600 in HiHello Business ($60 per user per year). It is worth doing this calculation with your actual size before deciding, because that is where the difference stops being theoretical.

Who should choose each one

• Choose CardQR if you want to start with unlimited cards and QR without paying, if you need to capture leads or measure in detail what people do inside your card, if you need a private card with a code, or if per-person budget matters.
• Stay with HiHello if your organization already has it deployed with their Team plan and migrating hundreds of profiles costs more than you save in the short term, or if you depend on a specific integration from their ecosystem that you have verified CardQR does not cover.

Frequently asked questions

Can I try CardQR without a credit card?

Yes. The free plan does not ask for a payment method and does not expire, and already includes unlimited cards and QR codes.

What happens to my cards if I stop paying for Pro?

The account reverts to the free plan: cards remain active and accessible at their URLs, and the paid features (Lead Capture, widgets, security code, advanced analytics, event mode, premium templates) are disabled until you reactivate the subscription. Nothing is deleted.

Can I migrate from HiHello?

There is no automatic import from HiHello. With Enterprise you can upload cards in bulk by CSV; for a single card, recreating it takes a couple of minutes with the AI generator.

Is the data in this comparison up to date?

Pricing and plans for both services change over time. HiHello data comes from its public information and is in dollars; CardQR data comes from the product itself. We review this comparison periodically, but always check each service's pricing page before signing up.