Why a printed QR code can stop working
There are two kinds of QR codes. A static code bakes the destination URL directly into the pattern. Scan it and the phone goes straight to that URL; nothing in the middle can break. A dynamic code encodes a short link that redirects. That is what makes it useful: the redirect is countable, and you can change the destination of 500 printed posters from a dashboard without reprinting anything.
But the redirect lives on the QR vendor's servers, usually under the vendor's own domain. When a trial ends, or a subscription lapses, or you downgrade below the plan that included those codes, the vendor switches the redirects off. The paper in the field is untouched. The link behind it is simply gone. Anyone who scans gets an error page, or in the worst version of the model, a page advertising the QR tool itself.
The trial-expiry business model
Several well-known QR generators are free or cheap up front for exactly this reason: making the code costs nothing, and the code keeps working only while the account does. It is a common enough complaint that it has its own genre of forum thread, usually written by a small business with 2,000 flyers in a drawer and a dead code on all of them.
For a marketing agency the risk is worse than for a single business. You print codes on client packaging, event booths and shelf talkers, and the campaign is supposed to run for months. If your QR tool's trial ends in week three, the failure lands on your client's brand, not yours.
What to check before you print
- Dynamic or static? You want dynamic (countable, changeable) for anything you print. A static code cannot be measured at all.
- What happens on cancel? Read the downgrade terms before the print run, not after. Ask the question literally: if I stop paying, do the redirects keep resolving?
- Whose domain is the short link on? A code that points at qrtool.co/abc123 depends on that company forever. A code that points at yourbrand.com/abc123 depends on you.
- Scan caps. Some plans cap scans or active codes; a campaign with codes on 40 shelf talkers can blow through a 10-code limit mid-run.
- Scan the proof with two phones and check the scan appears in the campaign report before anything goes to the printer.
The static escape hatch, and its cost
The desperate fallback is a static QR pointing at a URL you control, say a page on the client's own site. That code will genuinely never die. But it cannot be edited and it cannot be counted, so the print half of the campaign vanishes from the client report, and you are back to stitching two dashboards together. The better fix is a dynamic code whose short link sits on a domain you own, run by a tool whose redirects do not depend on an active subscription.
The rule of thumb: anything printed should resolve on a domain you control, and should survive the vendor. If you cannot answer "what happens to this poster if I cancel tomorrow?" in one sentence, do not print yet.
How slsh handles it
slsh is built around the opposite model: a printed QR code is the same short link as the email or social one, on your own branded domain, tagged ?qr=1 in the same dataset as every click. Links keep resolving even if a plan lapses, so nothing on a poster ever goes dark. Campaigns group print and online into one shareable client report, from €8/month (free tier for the first 100 links).
If you want the full setup in one pass, the guide to tracking print and online in one report walks through it step by step, and the overview page shows how the report comes together. slsh itself is operated end to end by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how we can afford to answer the cancel question plainly.
Print without the expiry risk
Create a campaign, print the QR on your own domain, and know the code still works next quarter.
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