Skip to content
Generate Online

Business QR code generators

Three codes cover most of what a counter, a table or a till actually needs: show people the menu, take their money, and ask for the review afterwards. They sit together because they are used by the same person in the same shift, usually printed on the same table tent, and they fail in the same physical ways — laminated gloss catching the ceiling light, a sticker peeling at the corner, a code sized for a designer's monitor rather than for a customer leaning over a table with a coffee in one hand.

Business

Generators in this group

Why these belong together

What makes this group distinct is that a failed scan has an immediate cost. A broken link on a poster is an annoyance; a payment code that will not scan is a queue, and a review code that leads nowhere is a review you never received. That changes the engineering. Everything here should be printed larger than you think necessary, on matte stock, with error correction set above the default.

What to decide before you generate

  • Print bigger than the guideline says

    Counter codes are scanned by people holding something, standing at an angle, under whatever lighting the room has. The usual distance ratio assumes none of that. Adding thirty percent to the size costs a little table space and removes most of the failures that generate an actual conversation with staff.

  • Choose matte over gloss, always

    Gloss lamination throws a specular highlight across part of the pattern under a downlight, and the decoder reads that region as blank. It is the single most common reason a code that worked in the office fails on the table. Matte lamination protects the print just as well and eliminates the problem outright.

  • Never overlay a sticker on an existing code

    Fraudulent stickers placed over legitimate payment codes are the dominant real-world attack, so customers are learning to distrust anything that looks applied. Print the code into the material, or into a holder that obviously belongs. A code that looks tamper-evident gets scanned more often.

  • Ask for the review at the right moment

    A review code on the bill folder or the receipt reaches people while the experience is fresh and their hands are free. The same code on the entrance door reaches people who have nothing to say yet. Placement changes response rates far more than any wording on the card does.

Common questions

How large should a code on a restaurant table be?

Around four centimetres square is the working minimum for a seated diner at roughly forty centimetres, and five is more comfortable once you account for people at the far side of the table and the fact that many will not lean in. Keep the payload short so the grid stays sparse at that size, and check it under the room's actual lighting rather than in daylight by a window.

Can I put my whole menu inside the code instead of hosting a page?

The format allows a few thousand characters, so a very short menu technically fits, and the result is a pattern dense enough that nobody at a table will manage to scan it. Encode a link to a page you host. That also means updating a price is an edit rather than a reprint of every table tent, which over a year is the larger saving.

Is it acceptable to ask only happy customers to scan the review code?

Filtering who sees the review request based on how satisfied they are is review gating, and it violates Google's policies. Accounts have lost their review histories over it. Beyond the policy risk it is bad practice: a listing with a plausible spread of ratings converts better than a suspiciously perfect one. Put the code where every customer sees it and let the results be what they are.

Should the payment code include the amount?

Include it for a fixed price such as a set menu, a ticket or a standard service, because it removes the most common cause of a wrong payment. Leave it out where the total varies, since a printed amount that does not match the bill causes more confusion than typing does. Whichever you choose, verify the payee identifier by making one small real payment before the code goes on the counter.

What is the best material for a counter code?

Matte laminated card in a weighted holder, or matte vinyl applied directly to a flat surface. Avoid gloss for the reflection reasons above, avoid anything curved, and avoid loose printed paper that curls and gets stained. If the code will live next to a sink or a coffee machine, assume it will get wet and specify accordingly, because a warped code distorts the grid enough to fail.

Read before you print

Other kinds of QR code