QR code with tracking

What people mean by "a QR code with tracking"

A plain QR code is a picture that encodes a URL. Anyone with a camera scans it, the URL opens, the end. The picture itself does not know how many times it was scanned, which platform the scan came from, or whether the visit ended in a purchase. That information does not live inside the QR; it lives on whatever server the URL points to.

A trackable QR code is the same picture pointing at a URL you control (a short link, not the raw destination) so every scan lands on your redirect first, gets logged, and only then bounces to the destination. The QR itself is still just a picture, but the URL inside it is a tracked short link.

Static QR versus dynamic QR (and why the naming is confusing)

Product pages use two terms creators typically mistake for each other:

• Static QR. The URL encoded in the picture points directly at the final destination. Once printed, you cannot change where it goes. If the destination URL breaks later, the QR is dead.
• Dynamic QR. The URL encoded in the picture points at a short link you control. You can change the destination of the short link any time; the printed QR stays the same. This is also the shape that lets you track scans, because every scan hits your redirect first.

The word "dynamic" is doing two jobs at once: editability (you can change the destination) and trackability (every scan is logged). They come together because the mechanism is the same: routing the URL through a short link you own.

What the tool above does

The static panel is a real, working QR generator. Paste any URL into the input and it renders a downloadable PNG that points straight at the destination. Free, no sign-up, no server-side record. Useful when the QR is going on a business card, a sticker, or anywhere the destination is genuinely fixed and you do not care about scan counts.

The trackable panel shows the same QR routed through a linksync short link (linksync.me/l/whatever). To actually mint that short link you sign up (it takes a minute), paste your destination URL once, and linksync auto-generates a QR next to every tracked link inside /app/links. From that point on, every scan is logged with the platform it came from and every session is followed through to a purchase if you have connected Stripe.

What linksync's tracking actually shows on a scan

Every scan of a tracked QR (or a tap on the same short link, pasted anywhere) goes through the linksync redirect. Each visit gets:

• A platform label.The redirect classifies the click at the moment it happens using the HTTP referrer, the in-app browser fingerprint, and any UTM overrides you set. Scans from an Instagram in-app browser get labeled Instagram without you touching a UTM. Scans that give no signal (a direct camera scan of a printed QR is usually the browser the phone opens) get labeled "direct" so they are still tracked, just honestly labeled.
• A session. The visitor is tied to a session that carries onto the destination via a small query parameter, so what happens after the redirect can still be attributed back to the QR that started the journey.
• Country and device.Same as any tracked link. Mobile versus desktop, and a country code from Vercel's geo headers.
• Revenue, when you connect it. Add the small /s.js script to your destination site or connect Stripe Connect from /app/integrations. Every purchase attributed to the session shows up in the per-platform revenue dashboard alongside the scan that started it.

When a static QR is the right tool

Not every QR needs tracking. A static QR is fine when:

• The destination URL will never change (a permanent business website, a public menu, a wifi credential).
• You do not care about scan counts. A one-off event flyer or a personal thank-you card is not a data problem.
• You are printing the QR on physical merchandise and you explicitly want the URL to be inspectable by anyone who decodes the picture, without a redirect in the middle.

When a trackable QR is worth the setup

Trackable QRs earn their keep when the destination might change or when the scan is worth attributing:

• Marketing campaigns. Print the same QR on three different flyers, change the destination per week, and see which flyer pulled scans without reprinting.
• Physical products. A QR on a sticker or packaging that points at a specific product page. Now the scans compound with your platform-level analytics: how many people scanned versus how many clicked the same link on Instagram.
• Anywhere you would put a bit.ly. A trackable QR is a short link with a picture on top. If the URL is worth shortening, the QR is worth tracking.

What this tool does not do (and why)

The tool on this page is a QR generator, not a full linksync dashboard. It cannot mint a trackable short link because minting requires a linksync account (a real record has to live somewhere so scans can be logged and shown back to you). What you can do here without signing up: generate any number of static QRs, download the PNGs, use them wherever a static QR makes sense. The trackable panel exists to make the difference concrete before you sign up.