Show HN: Make a QR code with your domain spelled out in the code pattern | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Make a QR code with your domain spelled out in the code pattern

toecodes.com

19 pointskoch15 comments

Just because you can make it a subscription doesn't mean you should.

Sure. I haven't settled on pricing by any means.

Edit: Speaking of which, if the $3/month price is onerous I have some referral codes I'd be happy to give away

Charging for it is fine, and if your goal is to do an MVP test, a subscription is a very high bar. You're excluding people who may actually pay for such as service if it was better priced (such as a one time payment). If I'm planning to print this and place it somewhere I'm not going to do it knowing that if I stop paying your $3/mo fee the QR code stops working. It may sound good from your perspective to get free money every month, but you have to think from the customer's perspective.

Not to mention that alternatives for your product are a 2 minute google search away. Your pricing has to reflect the market and availability of alternatives.

I made another comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23086939, but essentially this is a link "shortener"/redirect service in addition to the QR code. So there is a recurring cost on my end, it doesn't actually _directly_ point to your URL

That still doesn't change the proposition from the consumer side. I can do this thing with a fixed cost, and there are plenty of free shorteners out there. Just because you've invented a way to have recurring costs on your end doesn't mean your product can justify it in the market.

If the product is analytics then it should be clear that's what people are paying for, instead of the logo bit. People searching on the internet will hit your page expecting the first thing it's marketed towards, and associate the pricing with that.

Honest question: why would anyone pay for this? Several dollars a month for a QR Code? Is this a few bucks a month for one code or for access to the API to make unlimited?

I don't get it, but maybe I'm not able to think of the business applications.

I'll admit I'm not exactly doing a great job of selling it on that page, but this is what other QR sites refer to as a 'dynamic' code that you can change the destination of and see how many people have scanned it, etc. It is essentially a link shortener/redirect service in addition to the QR code itself.

You could, for example, run marketing campaigns and change the destination of the QR code for each subsequent campaign, and see their performance.

I get it then, thanks, you'd pay a few bucks to get the analytics of who scanned the code, makes sense.

My 2 cents: Not the worst idea, but you should really explain what it does on your web site.

Also a subscription per QR code is not very attractive and it's hard to keep track of multiple codes for users. Selling memberships (such as 5 codes for $9/mo, 20 codes for $19/mo etc) could be a better model.

Thanks all for the feedback! I went ahead and made codes with the domain as the message to be free. As a potential scanner of QR codes, I feel like this is more/most helpful - I kind of want to know what I'm scanning before I scan it.

In the preview an x renders like an i. I think the top and bottom pixels in the middle column can be removed to make it look more like an x.

The QR codes point to toecodes.com, not to your domain. I feel disappointed.

Minor bug-report, there is an extra "two" here:

"Note that there are two two bits that.."

Wait, what am I buying?

Oh, the QR code points to toe.codes :(

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