Google review QR code: the free one and its limits

Search for this and you get a page of free generators. Almost none of them mention that Google hands you one already, which is understandable, because a generator is what they sell.

Where yours is

Sign in to your Business Profile on a computer. Open Read Reviews, then Get more reviews. Right click the code and save the image.

Two things to know before you go looking. Google says this only works in a computer browser, not on a phone. A tablet or a handset leaves you hunting for a button that isn’t there. And the same screen gives you the plain review link, which is worth copying at the same time. You’ll want it for emails and receipts, where a square of printed dots is no use to anybody.

What it costs to get one elsewhere

Nothing, mostly. The generators on that search result will make you a code for free too, and the code itself will work.

What you’re agreeing to is less obvious. Some of those codes point at the generator’s own short link rather than straight at Google. A company you’ve never dealt with then sits between your customer and your review page. If that company changes its plan, or decides free codes expire after a trial, the sticker on your counter stops working. You find out from a customer.

A code that points straight at Google has none of that risk. Google’s own code is one of those, and so is any plain code you build from the review link yourself.

The two things the free one cannot do

The link inside it is fixed. A plain code has the address baked into the pattern, so changing where it goes means a new pattern and a new print run. The difference between a fixed code and a changeable one is a five minute read, and worth it before you order anything in quantity.

Nothing counts the scans. You will never know whether the card by the register is doing anything. You’ll see your review count move. You won’t know whether the scans came from the counter card, the receipt, or the door sticker.

For most businesses neither of those matters. One location, one review page, a code on the counter, and the address will never change. Google’s free code is the right answer and you can stop reading.

When it is worth paying

Three situations, and they are narrower than a generator’s sales page suggests.

You print in quantity and the destination might move. Five hundred appointment cards, a window decal, a mailer. If the thing behind the code ever changes, a fixed code means reprinting all of it.

You need to know which placement works. If you are deciding between a receipt line, a counter card and a door sticker, you need the scan counts per code. A code that counts nothing cannot give you them. What a scan count will and will not tell you is worth reading first, because it answers less than people expect.

You want the printed link to be your own name. A review link is a long Google address. Printed underneath a code, your own short link reads better and tells a guest where they’re going.

None of those apply to a single counter card at one address. If that’s you, use Google’s.

One thing worth more than the code

A code only helps if somebody is standing there wanting to leave a review. The code is the last ten seconds of that, not the reason it happens.

Asking matters more than scanning. So does picking the moment: at the counter after something went well, not in an email three days later. And Google is strict here. Its policy says offering a discount or anything free in return for a review is strictly prohibited. A sign promising ten percent off for five stars risks the profile you are trying to build.

If reviews are the reason you’re here, the way your business shows up in local search is the larger half of it. Reviews are one input among several.

Where ours fits

QRFLOW makes codes you can repoint after printing, and counts every scan. Static codes are free with no account, and a code becomes changeable on the paid plan.

It is the wrong tool for one counter card at one address. Google already solved that, at no charge, and we would rather say so than sell you something you do not need.