Krane vs Blinq

Blinq is a digital business card platform. The card is the product: two cards free, five on Premium or Pro, shared by QR code, NFC, Wallet pass or email signature. Around the card sit a “Universal contact scanner” for business cards, badges and QR codes, an AI notetaker for meetings, and, for Business teams, lead enrichment and CRM sync. It runs on iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision and Android, with a web dashboard. Your contacts live in your Blinq account.

Krane is a scanner for the cards and badges other people hand you. It runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. It reads the card, files it under the event you’re at, and sends it to Apple Contacts, a CSV, or HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. There is no account; everything is stored on the device and backs up to one file. It does not make a digital card for you.

The difference is one of kind: Blinq is a card you share that also scans; Krane is a scanner.

Blinq’s scanner is on the free plan, and neither its pricing page nor its plan articles state a scan limit. Its documentation says Blinq reads the contact details and starts enrichment. It doesn’t say whether the reading happens on the phone or on a server, which languages it reads, or whether it reads several cards in one shot. The App Store lists the app in English only.

Krane reads a card into named fields: person name, job title, company, phone numbers labeled mobile, work, fax or other, email addresses, websites, social profiles, street address, and anything else printed. It reads almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and adds a Latin spelling to a name written in another script. Add the back of a card and both sides are read into one contact.

For a stack, hold the iPhone over the table and lay cards down one at a time. The business card scanner shoots each card once it is still and reads it while you set down the next. Free users scan three in a row per session and 10 cards per rolling seven-day week. With Krane Pro there is no cap, and a Group of cards mode reads a whole spread from one photo. You can also add card photos from the library, several at once.

Both apps read event badges. Blinq’s universal scanner reads event badges, QR codes, LinkedIn QR codes and name tags. Its Business plan adds a Lead Capture Mode and event campaigns: set a date range, location and team, and contacts captured in that window are tagged to the event, with event cost and deal size recorded for attribution. Blinq’s pages don’t list which barcode formats it decodes.

Krane’s badge scanner reads the printed name, title, company, event name, badge role and badge number, plus QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and other common barcodes. Contact data in the code is merged with the print into one contact. Encrypted badge codes can’t be decoded; Krane still saves the printed name, title, company and event. Krane files trade show lead capture by event, on the free plan: start one when you reach the venue and every card and badge you scan lands under it, with “Met at” and the event’s tags filled in.

With no signal, Blinq queues each scan and creates, enriches and syncs the contacts once you’re back online; its support article says availability depends on your plan. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you’re back online.

Blinq lists native integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, GoHighLevel and Outlook Contacts, on its Business and Enterprise plans. Integrations export from the company’s contacts, so a personal contact has to be shared to the company first. Zapier is on its integrations page; the plan it needs isn’t stated clearly. CSV export of contacts and notes is on Pro and above. Blinq’s pages don’t mention a webhook.

Krane Pro connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive from the app, and the tokens stay on the iPhone. HubSpot gets a contact, updated if one with the same email exists; the event, tags and notes stay in Krane. Salesforce gets a Lead or a Contact, your choice, with LeadSource set to “Krane” and the event, where you met, tags and notes in the Description field. Pipedrive gets a person, linked to an organization with the card’s company name, and a note carrying the event, tags and notes. A webhook posts each card as JSON to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server, signed with a shared secret.

Send one card, a selection, a whole event, or every new scan automatically. The CSV covers one event or all cards and opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets.

Blinq’s prices are as listed on November 8, 2026. Premium and Pro have a 7-day trial, Business a 30-day one. Krane Pro has no trial; the free plan is how you try it. Krane has no team plan, so each person subscribes on their own Apple Account (see pricing). The App Store shows the price for your account and country.

Blinq contacts live in your Blinq account, on Blinq’s servers, and team and company contacts are shared across the company. Blinq states SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance. Its pages don’t say where the servers are. A web dashboard shows the same contacts on a computer.

Krane has no account. Cards and CRM tokens are stored on the iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad you scan with. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you’re back online. The whole library backs up to one file, which you restore on a new device. A card you add to Apple Contacts goes wherever your Apple Contacts already sync.