QR Code Generator

Type text or a URL and get a QR code you own outright. The data is encoded directly into the image, so the code keeps working forever with nobody in the middle.

The trap in most free QR generators

Many free QR services do not encode your URL into the code at all. They encode a short link on their own domain, which redirects to your destination. That is called a dynamic QR code, and it is usually presented as a feature — you can change the destination later, and you get scan analytics.

What is less prominent is the consequence. Every scan passes through their servers, so they see who scanned, when and roughly where. And because your printed code points at their domain, they hold the switch: free plans have been converted to paid, redirects have been throttled, and codes have stopped working when a service shut down. If that code is printed on ten thousand flyers or etched onto a product, you have no recourse.

What this generator does instead

Your text or URL is encoded directly into the pattern. There is no intermediary domain, so there is nothing to shut down, nothing to start charging for, and nobody collecting scan data. The code is generated in your browser and works the same in a hundred years as it does today.

The trade-off is honest and worth stating: you cannot change where a static code points after it is printed, and you get no scan analytics. If you genuinely need to redirect later, put your own short URL in the code — then the redirect is on infrastructure you control rather than someone else's.

Choosing an error correction level

QR codes carry redundant data so they still scan when part of the code is dirty, torn or covered. Level L recovers from about 7% damage, M about 15%, Q about 25% and H about 30%. Higher levels mean more modules, so the pattern gets denser for the same content.

M is right for almost everything on a screen or a clean printed page. Choose H if you intend to place a logo in the middle — that is what makes centre logos possible at all — or if the code will be printed on a curved surface, a fabric label, or anything likely to be scuffed. Do not reach for H by default; it makes the code harder to scan at small sizes because the modules shrink.

Size, quiet zone and printing

The quiet zone is the blank margin around the code. It is not decoration — scanners use it to find the code's edges, and codes printed flush against other artwork frequently fail to scan. The specification calls for four modules; that is the default here and you should have a specific reason to reduce it.

For print, download the SVG rather than the PNG. SVG is vector, so it stays perfectly sharp at any size, whereas a PNG scaled up by a printer will have soft edges that hurt scan reliability. As a rule of thumb, a code should be at least two centimetres across for a phone held at normal reading distance, and larger for anything scanned from further away.

Nothing is uploaded

The code is generated in your browser. The URL you encode — which is often an unreleased campaign page, an internal system, or a private document link — is never sent to us.

That matters more than it sounds. Pasting a confidential URL into an online generator hands that URL to a third party before you have even published it. Open DevTools, watch the Network tab, and type — nothing leaves the page.