Where links die and analytics go dark.
Three legacy tools share the failure modes this product is built against: printed qrtags that go inactive, analytics that vanish (after 30 days, or mid-contract), and stickers that aren’t the price. Below, the record for each. Where a competitor is honestly priced, we say so.
| Vendor | Your printed qrtags | Your analytics | The contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| qrtags // you | No intentional expiry: a lapse parks them on a branded page; one click restores | Years, not 30 days · unmetered | $150 / yr · monthly ok |
| Bitly | QR capped: 2/mo free, 10 on Growth; free links carried ads (2025) | 30 days of data below Growth | $348 / yr for a domain |
| Rebrandly | Destination-edit caps even on $100+ tiers | No export, history stays behind | documented ~3× sticker |
| Uniqode | Go inactive when the plan lapses | Lifetime analytics cut twice post-rebrand | annual-only, every tier |
scroll to see the full table →
Behavior verified against vendor documentation, pricing pages and public complaint records, May–June 2026. Where a competitor’s exact pricing couldn’t be independently confirmed, we don’t print it.
The same three patterns, named.
30 days of data, then the lights go out.
- Free tier was cut to 5 links a month (2025), and free links carried ads.
- Click data below Growth is retained for 30 days: your campaign history simply ends.
- A custom domain starts at Growth: $29/mo billed annually ($348/yr), or $35 month-to-month.
The sticker is a floor, not a price.
- Auto-charge complaints are easy to find in this category's public reviews. qrtags renews at the price you chose. Upgrades are explicit, never automatic.
- Destination-edit caps are the lock-in: some $100+ tiers still cap how many times you can change where a code points.
- There's no data export: leave, and your click history stays behind.
Stop paying and the qrtags stop scanning.
- Lapse the subscription and your printed QR codes "become inactive": every menu and table tent goes dark.
- Every tier is annual-only. There is no monthly option to escape.
- Lifetime analytics was cut twice post-rebrand while customers were locked into annual contracts.
// being straight with you
This page is about three tools whose documented behavior runs against the buyer, not the whole market. Short.io, Dub, QR Tiger and Flowcode price honestly; some are cheaper than us at the entry point. Differences still exist (Dub meters tracked events where we never do, for instance), but those are published trade-offs, not traps. Against the honest tools we compete on the combination: one engine for links + QR + analytics, qrtags that survive a lapsed plan, years of retention, and privacy with no IP logs or analytics cookies. If a low sticker is genuinely the whole story, they’re fair options.
What changes is the contract.
No intentional expiry
We never intentionally expire an active qrtag. A lapsed plan parks every printed qrtag on a branded reactivation page, and one click restores everything: a restaurant's table tents shouldn't depend on a billing cycle.
Analytics never go dark
Scan history isn't cut off at a fixed window, and events are never metered: fair-use guards against automated abuse, never against a campaign. No 30-day window.
Cookie-free analytics
No IP addresses stored: qrtags sets no analytics cookies. Count, country, device class and referrer host only, enforced in the data model, not a settings toggle.
Destination safety check
Every destination is checked the moment it is set, against an internal blocklist, DNS existence, Google Safe Browsing and the abuse.ch malware feed. A known-bad destination is refused before it is stored, not flagged after it is live.
Routing is not a side door
Every URL inside a routing rule, a split variant or an app deep link passes the same destination check as a plain link, and deep links are HTTPS only. Every path runs the same check.
Domain verification
A custom domain is proven by a DNS TXT record before any link on it goes live. Nobody can point a domain they do not control at a qrtags link, and nobody can re-point yours.