Dynamic or static QR: which to pick, and why it is decided before you print

A QR code is nothing but text, encoded as squares. When that text is your web address, it is a static QR: the address is in the drawing, the way ink is in paper. When that text is a redirect address that then points to yours, it is a dynamic QR.

That difference has no consequence at all as long as nothing changes. It has exactly one, and it is total, the day something does.

What static cannot do

You printed a thousand flyers. The landing page address changes, or the page goes away, or you got one letter wrong. The QR still points to the same place, because the place is the drawing. There is nothing to edit: you reprint.

The same holds for a business card, a building plaque, a hotel-room notice, a sticker on a shop window. Anything stuck, engraved or handed out is out of reach.

What dynamic changes

A dynamic QR encodes a short address that belongs to you. It never changes. What it points at, however, is edited from a dashboard, as often as needed, without touching the printed thing.

Three practical consequences:

• you fix a mistake without binning the printed stock
• you count the scans — how many, when, from which country, on what kind of device
• you change the destination mid-campaign, or mid-season

So why ever pick static?

Because it is simpler, and sometimes that is what you want. A static QR needs no service to work: it will still work in ten years even if you stop paying for anything, and even if the company that made it disappears. No dependency, no subscription.

For a WiFi password you will not change, a stable site address, a phone number — static is the right call.

The rule, in one sentence

If the medium outlives the information it carries, go dynamic. A flyer handed out next week can be static. A plaque screwed to the entrance cannot.

At iziqrcode, the free plan gives three simple QR codes, no card required. Dynamic QR codes start on the Pro plan, at €9 excl. VAT per month, with 50 dynamic codes and scan tracking. You can try Pro for fourteen days without giving a card, which is enough time to find out whether the tracking is actually useful to you.