# Krane: full text of kraneapp.com > Scan business cards and trade show badges on iPhone and iPad, file them by event, and send them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Reads cards offline. This file holds the text of every page on kraneapp.com, page by page. The map of the site is https://kraneapp.com/llms.txt; facts as JSON are at https://kraneapp.com/agent/index.json. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Stop typing business cards into your CRM. Krane reads them. URL: https://kraneapp.com/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Krane reads business cards and event badges on iPhone and iPad, files them under the event, and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Every card lands in HubSpot, Salesforce or Excel. Filed under the show, read with no signal, no account. ## What Krane is Krane is a business card scanner app for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. It reads business cards and event badges into named fields (name, title, company, phones, emails, website, address), files each contact under the event where you met, and sends it to HubSpot, Salesforce or a webhook, or exports it as a CSV for Excel. It reads cards on the phone with no signal, needs no account, and keeps your cards and CRM tokens on your iPhone. It is free for 10 scans a week. ## From card to CRM Each card takes four steps from the table to your CRM. Badges take the same path. ### The scan Tap Scan and hold your iPhone over the table. Lay a card down and Krane takes the picture as soon as the card is still, then reads it while you put down the next one. A shutter button is there if you want it. When the back of a card carries more, add it and both sides go into one contact. ### The read Krane puts the name, job title, company, street address, each phone number with its label, emails, websites and social profiles into separate fields. It reads cards in almost any language and script. With no connection, it reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. ### The event Start an event when you arrive at the venue. Every card and badge you scan until you end it is filed under that event, with "Met at" filled in and the event's tags added. Add a note and a follow-up date while you still remember what the person asked about. ### The send From the card, call or email the person, add them to Apple Contacts, or share a vCard, the standard contact file. With Krane Pro, send the card to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook, or export the whole event as a CSV that opens in Excel. More on the [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) page. ## What Krane reads Krane reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. When a name is printed in a non-Latin script, Krane adds a Latin spelling and keeps the original next to it. Event badges go through the same camera. Krane reads the printed text and the code on the badge, then merges the two into one contact. | | From a business card | From an event badge | |---|---|---| | Name | Person name, with a Latin spelling for non-Latin scripts | Printed name | | Title | Job title | Printed title | | Company | Company name | Printed company | | Contact details | Phones labelled mobile, work, fax or other; emails; websites; social profiles; street address | Whatever the code holds: vCard, MeCard, email, phone or URL | | Event and role | "Met at", from the event you started | Event name; role such as attendee, exhibitor, speaker, press or sponsor | | Codes | None | QR, PDF417, Aztec and other common barcodes | | Other | Anything else on the card, saved as additional info | Badge number, exported as a Badge ID column | Krane can't decode the encrypted badge codes some shows use, but it still saves the printed name, title, company and event; the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) page has the details. ## Built for the show floor Start the event when you get to the venue, from the app or by asking Siri. Between conversations, scan the card or badge each visitor hands you. It is filed under the event with your tags and where you met. Exhibition halls often have weak cell signal and slow Wi-Fi. Krane reads each scan on the iPhone itself, so you aren't waiting on the network while the next visitor stands in front of you. When the phone is back online, Krane checks each card again and upgrades the fields. You don't rescan anything. Scan the same person twice and Krane flags the duplicate; one tap merges the two records. A badge often has no email or phone. Scan the person's business card as well and it joins the same contact. For the cards left on the table at closing time, switch the camera to "Group of cards" with Krane Pro, spread them out and take one photo. Krane makes a separate contact for every card in the picture and files them all under the event. Set a follow-up reminder on the cards that matter; the reminder opens that card, with your note on it. The event screen lists the show's cards, companies and top tags, and exports them in one go. The [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page walks through a full show. ## Into your CRM CRM sync is part of Krane Pro. **HubSpot.** Krane creates a contact, or updates the contact that already has the same email. It fills first and last name, email, phone, mobile phone, fax, company, job title, website and address. The event, where you met, tags and notes stay in Krane and are not sent to HubSpot. You connect with a HubSpot private app token. **Salesforce.** Sign in with your Salesforce account and choose whether Krane creates Leads or Contacts. A record with the same email is updated. Krane fills name, title, email, phone, mobile, fax and street, plus company and website on a Lead, and sets LeadSource to "Krane". The event name, where you met, tags and notes go into the Description field. **Pipedrive.** Krane creates a person, or updates the person with the same email. When the card has a company, Krane links the organization with that name, or creates it. Emails and phones keep their labels. A note headed "Scanned with Krane" carries the position, event, where you met, tags and notes. You connect with your Pipedrive API token. **Webhook.** For any other system, Krane posts each card as JSON, a plain structured text format, to a URL you choose: a Zapier, Make or n8n workflow, or your own server. Add a shared secret and Krane signs each request, so the receiving end can check where it came from. It can include the card image. You can send one card, a selection or a whole event. Or turn on "Send new scans automatically" for a connection before the show, and each new scan goes out without another tap. Krane never sends empty fields, so a push can't blank out data already in the CRM. After a push the card keeps a link to the record. Your tokens stay on the iPhone, and the app talks to the CRM directly, with no Krane server in between. Without a CRM, you can still use the free plan to add cards to Apple Contacts or share them as vCards. With Krane Pro, export a CSV that opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. ## Who uses Krane **Sales reps** at trade shows and conferences scan each visitor between conversations and add a note while the talk is fresh. With automatic sending turned on in Krane Pro, every new scan reaches HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive without another tap, so the follow-up email can go out the same afternoon. **Event marketers** who run the booth and own the follow-up list get each show as its own list: every card and badge scanned there, with its tags and where you met. From the event screen they export a CSV or send the whole event to the CRM, and the next show starts a new list. **Founders and small teams** come home from meetups and dinners with a handful of cards. Krane reads them into named fields, so nobody types names and numbers into Pipedrive or HubSpot. On the free plan the cards go to Apple Contacts; with Krane Pro they go straight to the CRM. ## Your cards stay on your phone Krane has no account and no sign-up. Your cards and your CRM tokens are stored on the iPhone. You can back everything up to a single file and restore it any time. Cards show up in the iPhone's Spotlight search. Siri and Shortcuts can scan a card or start an event. The app is in eight languages: English, German, Japanese, French, Korean, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. What Krane collects and why is in the [privacy policy](/privacy/). ## Free to start The free plan gives you 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week, with events, tags, notes, reminders, badge scanning, offline reading and Apple Contacts. There is no account to create and no trial to start; the free plan is how you try Krane. Krane Pro is an auto-renewing subscription at $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US), and the yearly plan costs less than twelve months of the monthly one. It adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync and automatic sending. The App Store shows the price for your account and country, and you cancel in your App Store account settings. The [pricing](/pricing/) page lists both plans in full. | | Free | Krane Pro | |---|---|---| | Price | Free | $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year | | Scans | 10 per rolling 7-day week | Unlimited | | Card after card | 3 in a row per session | Yes | | Group of cards from one photo | No | Yes | | Events, tags, notes, reminders | Yes | Yes | | Badges | Yes | Yes | | Offline reading | Yes | Yes | | Apple Contacts and vCard | Yes | Yes | | CSV export | No | Yes | | CRM sync | No | HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, webhook | | Auto-send of new scans | No | Yes | ## What Krane doesn't do Check these five limits before you download Krane. - **No Android.** Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only; there is no Mac, Windows or web app. - **No encrypted badge codes.** Some shows encrypt their badges so only their own app can decode them; Krane still saves the printed name, title, company and event. - **Needs iOS 17.6 or later.** An iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad on an older system can't install it. - **No web dashboard.** Your cards live on your iPhone and leave it as a CSV, a CRM push or a vCard; there is no website to log in to. - **Not unlimited for free.** The free plan is 10 scans per rolling seven-day week; more than that takes Krane Pro. ## Common questions ### What is Krane? Krane is an iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad app that scans business cards and event badges and files each contact under the event where you met. You can add contacts to Apple Contacts on the free plan, or with Krane Pro send them to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook. ### Can't my iPhone already scan business cards? Partly. The iPhone's Live Text lets you copy text from a card, or tap one detected item such as a phone number or an email. It doesn't build a contact with every field filled in. Krane reads the whole card from one shot into a contact with name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. The guide on [how to scan business cards on iPhone](/scan-business-cards-iphone/) compares Live Text, Notes and Krane step by step. ### Where do scanned business cards go on my iPhone? They go into Krane's own list on your iPhone, filed under the event if one is running, and you can find them from Spotlight search. From a card you can add it to Apple Contacts or share it as a vCard, the standard contact file. With Krane Pro you can also send it to your CRM or export a CSV. ### Is Krane free? Krane is free for 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week, with events, tags, notes, reminders, badge scanning, offline reading and Apple Contacts. Krane Pro is a subscription that adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync and automatic sending. The App Store shows the price. ### Does Krane read both sides of a card? Yes. Open the card and add the back. Krane reads it into the same contact, so a card with English on the front and Japanese on the back stays one record. Both images are kept with the card. ### Can I scan a stack of business cards at once? Yes, with Krane Pro. Switch the camera to "Group of cards", spread the cards on a table and take one photo; each card becomes its own contact. You can also lay cards down one at a time and Krane shoots each one when it is still. The free plan allows three in a row per session. ### Does it read Japanese, Chinese or Korean cards? Yes. Krane reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. When a name is printed in a non-Latin script, Krane adds a Latin spelling and keeps the original next to it. ### Does Krane work without internet? Yes. With no connection, Krane reads the card or badge on your iPhone right away and marks it provisional. When you're back online it checks the card again and upgrades the fields. You don't need to scan anything twice. ### Can I scan cards from photos I already took? Yes. Pick a photo of a card from your library, or select several photos at once, and Krane reads each card into its own contact. Library photos go through the same read as a camera scan: on your iPhone right away, then checked again when you're back online. ### Can I start a scan with Siri or Shortcuts? Yes. Krane adds two actions to Siri and the Shortcuts app: scan a card, and start an event. You can ask Siri to start the event as you walk into the venue, or put either action in a shortcut on your Home Screen so the camera is one tap away. ### Can Krane scan trade show badges? Yes. Krane reads the printed name, title, company and event, and decodes QR, PDF417, Aztec and other common barcodes. Contact details in the code are merged with the print into one contact. Encrypted badge codes can't be decoded, but the printed details are still saved. ### What happens if I scan the same person twice? Krane flags the second scan as a duplicate and offers a one-tap merge, so the person stays one contact. A badge and a business card work the same way: if the badge has no email or phone, scan the person's card and it joins the contact from the badge. ### Which CRMs does Krane connect to? With Krane Pro, Krane sends cards to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive. For any other system, a webhook posts each card as JSON to a URL you choose, such as a Zapier, Make or n8n workflow. You can also export a CSV and import it. ### Does Krane update contacts that are already in my CRM? Yes. If HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive already has a record with the same email, Krane updates it instead of creating a second one. Empty fields on the card are never sent, so a push can't blank out data that is already in the record. ### Does Krane create Leads or Contacts in Salesforce? You choose. Krane creates a Lead by default, or a Contact if you change the setting, and updates a record that has the same email. LeadSource is set to "Krane". The event name, where you met, your tags and your notes go into the Description field. You connect by signing in with your Salesforce account. ### How does the webhook work with Zapier, Make or n8n? With Krane Pro, Krane posts each card as JSON, a structured text format, to a URL you choose: a webhook trigger in Zapier, Make or n8n, or your own server. If you set a shared secret, each request carries a signature your workflow can check. You can include the card image. ### Does Krane work with Outlook or Dynamics 365? There is no Outlook or Dynamics 365 connector. If your iPhone has an Exchange account, add the card to Apple Contacts and save it to that account. With Krane Pro you can also import Krane's CSV, or send each card through a Zapier, Make or n8n webhook that creates the record. ### Can I export business cards to Excel? Yes, with Krane Pro. Export one event or all your cards as a CSV that opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. Each field has its own column, phones and emails are numbered, and the headers are in English on every device. ### Do I need an account? Where are my cards stored? You don't need an account, and there is no sign-up. Your cards and CRM tokens are stored in the app on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. You open Krane and start scanning; the only credentials are the ones your CRM gives you when you connect it. ### Do my contacts pass through Krane's servers on the way to my CRM? No. CRM pushes go from the app straight to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or your webhook URL, and your tokens stay on the iPhone. Reading the card is a separate step: Krane checks each scan again when you're back online, so that step does use the internet. ### Can I back up my cards? Yes. Krane backs up everything to one file, which you can keep in iCloud Drive, the Files app or anywhere else you store documents. You can restore it any time, on the same iPhone or on a new one. ### What languages is the app in? The app is in eight languages: English, German, Japanese, French, Korean, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. That is separate from the cards it reads, which can be in almost any language and script. ### Does Krane work on iPhone Duo, iPad or Android? Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad as one universal app, so all three come from the same App Store page. It needs iOS 17.6 or later. There is no Android, Mac, Windows or web version. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # The best business card scanner apps for 2026–2027 URL: https://kraneapp.com/best-business-card-scanner-apps/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Thirteen business card scanner apps, sorted by situation: free, your CRM, teams, badges. Facts read from each app's own pages in November 2026. Here are thirteen ways to get a paper card into your contacts or your CRM, sorted by the situation each one fits. Every fact was read from the app's own pages in November 2026. We make one of them, Krane. ## The short answer The best business card scanner app depends on where your contacts need to end up. If you already use HubSpot or Zoho CRM, their own scanners, HubSpot and Zoho Card Scanner, are free and save each card straight into the CRM. For a team that includes Android phones, look at Covve or CamCard. If you mainly want a digital card of your own to share, HiHello, Popl and Blinq are built around that, and each has a scanner inside. Haystack scans paper cards without a limit on its free plan. For trade shows on iPhone, with badges and no signal, the pick is Krane, the app we make. If a card reaches you now and then, the iPhone's own Live Text lifts the number off it with nothing to install. ## How we chose these apps We make Krane, so read this page knowing that. Most roundups of card scanners are written by a company that sells one and puts its own app first. To keep the list from being ours alone, we read eleven roundups, ten of them published or updated in 2026, and counted which apps they name. CamCard appears in 9 of the 11, Covve in 8, HiHello in 7, Haystack in 6 and HubSpot in 5. Popl, ScanBizCards and ABBYY appear in 4 each, Blinq and Zoho Card Scanner in 3, Contacts+ in 2. We kept the ones a US iPhone user can get today. Krane is in none of those roundups; it is on this list because we make it. Every fact comes from the app's own website, pricing page, help center or App Store listing. Prices are as listed on each app's own pages on November 12, 2026. We didn't run timed tests or accuracy tests, and we don't quote ratings. ## Krane **Best for:** people who work trade shows with an iPhone, because Krane reads badges and cards with no signal, files each one under the event and sends them to a CRM without a team plan. Krane is our own [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/). Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. From a badge it reads the printed details and any QR, PDF417 or Aztec code into one contact. See the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) and [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) pages. What to know: Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. It has no team admin, no digital card and no importer. It can't decode encrypted badge codes; it saves the printed details instead. The free plan allows 10 scans a week with no account. Krane Pro adds unlimited scans, CSV export and sync to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive, for $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). The App Store shows the price for your account and country; see [pricing](/pricing/). ## CamCard **Best for:** people who want a card scanner and a digital business card in one app on both iPhone and Android, with CamCard Business as the team edition. CamCard, from the maker of CamScanner, scans paper cards, makes digital cards and transcribes meetings by voice. Its site says it reads cards in 16 languages. You choose the languages in settings, and CamCard recommends picking one to three. A paid option has a person check and correct the read. What to know: when we read CamCard's pricing page on November 8, 2026, the free plan held 100 cards, allowed 5 high-accuracy scans a week, showed ads, and had no Excel or vCard export and no sync. Its pages mention QR codes and say nothing about event badges or reading with no signal. We couldn't confirm CamCard's website prices on November 12. The App Store lists in-app purchases of $4.49 and $8.49 for a Premium account and $49.99 a year, and doesn't say which plan each one buys. CamCard Business is priced by quote. See [Krane and CamCard compared](/compare/camcard/). ## Covve **Best for:** sales teams that scan cards and badges at events on a mix of iPhone and Android, because Covve gives the team one web portal with every lead in it. Covve reads business cards and QR codes on every plan and detects more than 60 card languages automatically. On the Pro plan, a badge mode reads the printed name, company and job title. It skips the code, so it works on badges locked to the organizer. What to know: Covve has no free plan. Yearly plans start with a 14-day trial; after it, scanning stops until you pay. With no signal, Covve saves the scan and finishes reading it once you reconnect. Sync to Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive and Dynamics 365 is an add-on to Pro, and the add-on's price isn't published. Essential is $12 a seat a month or $119 a seat a year. Pro, which adds badges and the portal, is $20 a seat a month or $199 a year. See [Krane and Covve compared](/compare/covve/). ## HubSpot **Best for:** teams already on HubSpot CRM, because the scanner in the HubSpot mobile app is free and turns each card into a HubSpot contact. This is a feature of the HubSpot app, and there is no separate scanner to install. You open the scanner, drag four corner points to frame the card, confirm the fields it matched, and save. The contact record appears in your HubSpot account, where the rest of the team can see it. A second scanner in the same menu reads QR codes that hold a vCard. What to know: it is useful only if HubSpot is your CRM. It reads one card per scan, and HubSpot's help pages say the scanner isn't supported on iPad. Those pages mention no event badges, no export file from the scanner and no reading without a signal. They don't list card languages either. HubSpot says the scanner is free with "no arbitrary limits", on every HubSpot plan including the free CRM. ## HiHello **Best for:** people who want a digital business card first and scan a few paper cards a month, because HiHello includes its scanner on every plan with a monthly allowance. HiHello is a digital card platform: you share your card by QR code, link, NFC or Apple Wallet. Its scanner takes paper cards, event badges and QR codes, and can work through a stack in one sitting. What to know: the free plan allows 5 card or badge scans a month and Professional allows 20, with a paid add-on for unlimited. Its help center says you can't scan a paper card without a connection. Sync to Salesforce, HubSpot and Dynamics 365 is on the Business plan, which starts at five users. You need an account. On HiHello's website, Professional is $8 a month or $72 a year, and Business is $6 a user a month or $60 a user a year. The App Store lists Professional at $9 a month or $84 a year. See [Krane and HiHello compared](/compare/hihello/). ## Haystack **Best for:** one person who wants unlimited free card scans next to a free digital business card, since Haystack puts no cap on either in its Personal plan. Haystack is a digital business card platform for individuals and companies. Its scanner takes a photo of one card, front or both sides, and reads it into a contact. Its FAQ says it reads more than 25 languages. Once you confirm the email address, you can send your own card back to the person. What to know: the free plan has no CSV export and no CRM connection. Both need a paid plan, and Haystack's pages disagree on whether CRM connections start on Pro or on Business. Its pages describe no badge scanning, no scanning of several cards at once and no reading without a signal. Personal is free. Pro is $7.95 a user a month, or $4.50 a month billed yearly. Business is $4.95 a user a month, or $2.50 billed yearly. The [Krane and Haystack comparison](/compare/haystack/) has the detail. ## Popl **Best for:** event teams that want badge capture, lead routing and CRM sync run from one dashboard, because Popl's team plan is built for exhibitors. Popl sells event lead capture and digital business cards. Its badge scanner reads the whole printed badge, name and company, and not the code, so it works at shows that encrypt their QR codes. With no service, leads are stored on the phone, then enriched and synced when service returns. Popl lists more than 30 connections, among them Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Dynamics and Zoho. What to know: the badge scanner belongs to the team tier. Individual Pro plans get five badge scans, once. Popl publishes no team prices; it quotes them in a meeting. Its pages don't say what the paper card scanner's limits are on the free and Pro plans. You need an account. The App Store lists Popl Pro at $7.99, or $76.99 a year, and Popl Pro Plus at $14.99, or $144.99 a year. See [Krane and Popl compared](/compare/popl/). ## Blinq **Best for:** people who want a digital business card with a scanner on the free plan, because Blinq includes its contact scanner at $0 and states no scan limit. Blinq is a digital card platform for individuals and teams. Its scanner takes business cards, event badges, name tags and QR codes. With no connection it queues each scan on the phone and creates the contact once you're back online. Its pages don't say how cards are read or which card languages work. What to know: CSV export starts on Pro. Sync to Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365, Pipedrive and Zoho CRM is listed under Business, which has a five-card minimum. On Business, Blinq also charges for each lead it enriches, and its pages give two different prices for that. Premium is $9.99 a month or $87.99 a year. Pro is $22.49 a month or $199 a year. Business is $6.99 a card a month, or $4.99 billed yearly. See [Krane and Blinq compared](/compare/blinq/). ## Zoho Card Scanner **Best for:** Zoho CRM users, because Zoho Card Scanner is free, saves each card as a lead or a contact in Zoho CRM and shows whether the person is already there. It is a separate app from Zoho CRM. It reads the card with text recognition, and you fix a wrong field by dragging the suggested text onto it. When you save to Zoho CRM, the app checks the email address for a duplicate and offers to merge. What to know: the listing names 14 card languages. Salesforce sync is a paid add-on. Zoho's pages mention no event badges, no export file and no reading without a signal, and the App Store doesn't list iPad support. The app is free, and Zoho's FAQ says there is no limit on how many cards you store, on every Zoho CRM edition. The Salesforce add-on is $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year on the App Store. Zoho CRM is priced separately. ## ScanBizCards **Best for:** sales teams on Salesforce that want a person to type up the cards a machine reads badly, because ScanBizCards sells human transcription next to its scanner. ScanBizCards reads business cards with text recognition, and you can submit a hard card to its staff to be transcribed by hand. The team plan adds conference badge scanning, export to CRMs, an admin panel and lead assignment by campaign. There is an edition on the Salesforce AppExchange. What to know: its App Store listing names 21 card languages, and no Asian script is among the ones it lists. Badge scanning and CRM export aren't on the free plan. The free plan, called Trail-Blazer, includes card scanning and two human transcriptions, once. Sales Ninja, the team plan, is $100 a user a year. Extra transcriptions come in packs, starting at 100 for $25. The App Store sells the main app for $0.99 and offers a free Lite app. The pages don't explain how those relate to the $100 plan. ## ABBYY Business Card Reader **Best for:** iPhone users who scan cards in many languages and want to pay once, because ABBYY Business Card Reader reads 25 languages and sells a one-time purchase. ABBYY's reader has been on the iPhone for years. It finds the card's edges, reads it with ABBYY's text recognition and marks doubtful characters in blue for you to check. Contacts go into the iPhone's Contacts or the app's own card holder. They stay on the phone, with no account. What to know: ABBYY's own blog says Business Card Reader for Android has been "discontinued since September 2023". The iPhone app is still sold, but its sync feature was removed in a November 2023 release, and the last release from ABBYY itself was on September 18, 2025. The free version reads 10 cards in total. Salesforce export works only with certain Salesforce editions. Premium adds unlimited reading, CSV export and Salesforce export. The App Store lists it at $7.99 a month, $29.99 a year, or $59.99 once. ## Contacts+ **Best for:** people whose contacts are spread over several Google, iCloud and Outlook accounts, because Contacts+ merges them into one address book and syncs scanned cards to all of them. Contacts+ is a cloud address book from FullContact, and card scanning is one of its paid features. You photograph a card, the app transcribes it and shows you the result to correct, then saves it. Its scanner page says photos of conference badges work too. A new scanned contact can start a Zap in Zapier, and you can export contacts as CSV or vCard. What to know: the free plan includes no card scans. On Premium, the pricing page says 100 scans a month, while the App Store description says up to 1,000 a year. There is no direct CRM connection, and you need an account. Free covers 1,000 contacts and one synced account. Premium is $13.99 a month, or $9.99 a month billed yearly. Teams is $17.99 a user a month, or $12.99 billed yearly. ## iPhone Live Text **Best for:** someone who gets a business card now and then and needs only the number or email from it, because iPhone Live Text is already in the Camera and Photos apps. Live Text isn't an app you install. Point the Camera at a card and wait for the yellow frame around the text, then tap the Live Text button. You can copy any text, or tap a phone number or an email address to call or write. Depending on the picture, Apple says, you may also see Add to Contacts. What to know: Live Text hands you one detail at a time. It doesn't build a contact with the name, title, company and address filled in, so a whole card means copying and pasting field by field. It keeps no list of the cards you've scanned and has no export and no CRM connection. It is free and part of iOS. Our guide to [scanning business cards on an iPhone](/scan-business-cards-iphone/) has the steps. ## The whole list in one table The table below sets all thirteen side by side: what each one runs on, what its free plan includes, which CRMs it sends to and on which plan, and what the paid plan costs. Anything an app's own pages didn't state as of November 2026 is marked unknown, not guessed. ## Which one fits you Start with where the contact has to end up, then work down. Do you already pay for a CRM? On HubSpot, start with HubSpot's own scanner. On Zoho CRM, start with Zoho Card Scanner. Both are free. On Salesforce you have more choice: ScanBizCards for a team, Krane for one person on an iPhone. Do you need Android, or a web dashboard for a team? Covve gives a team one portal across iPhone and Android. CamCard Business is the other option, priced by quote. Do you mainly want a digital card to share? HiHello, Popl and Blinq are digital card platforms with a scanner inside. Haystack is one too, with unlimited scans on its free plan. Do you scan badges, or work shows with no signal? On an iPhone, Krane reads the badge's print and its code on the phone, with no connection. For a team that needs a dashboard, look at Popl or Covve Pro. Are your contacts spread over several accounts? Contacts+ merges them. Do your cards come in many languages, and would you rather pay once? ABBYY Business Card Reader, on iPhone only. Do you only need a number now and then? Use Live Text and install nothing. ## Apps older lists still recommend Some apps named in older roundups are gone, or have changed. Microsoft Lens, earlier called Office Lens, was retired. Microsoft's support page says it was removed from the App Store and Google Play on February 9, 2026, and that scanning in the app ended on March 9, 2026. Microsoft points people to the scanner in its OneDrive app. Wantedly People is no longer on the US App Store. Its US listing returned "not found" on November 12, 2026, though the app is still on the Japanese store. ABBYY Business Card Reader for Android has been discontinued since September 2023, by ABBYY's own account. The iPhone app is on this list, with that caveat. Evernote appears in four of the eleven roundups. We couldn't confirm a business card feature on its current App Store listing or pricing page, so it isn't listed here. ## What to check before you pay Run six checks before you subscribe. The app's pricing page or help center answers each one. - The free plan and the trial. Count the scans, and ask whether they reset each week or month or run out for good. See what happens to your contacts when a trial ends. - Signal. Find out whether the app reads the card on the phone, or only stores the photo until you're back online. - Badges. Some apps read the badge's print, some its code, some both, and some only on a team plan. - Your CRM. Look for the plan that includes sync to your CRM. It is often an add-on or a team plan with a minimum number of seats. - Where contacts live and how they leave. Check whether you need an account, whether contacts stay on the phone or in the company's cloud, and which plan exports CSV, Excel or vCard. - Devices. If anyone on the team uses Android, an iPad or a web browser, confirm the scanner itself works there. ## Questions about business card scanner apps ### What is the best business card scanner app for iPhone? It depends on the job. For trade shows, Krane reads badges and cards with no signal and files them by event. If HubSpot or Zoho is your CRM, their own free scanners save straight into it. For unlimited free scans next to a digital card, look at Haystack. For a team with a web portal, look at Covve. For an occasional card, the iPhone's Live Text is enough. ### What is the best free business card scanner app? HubSpot's scanner and Zoho Card Scanner are free with no stated scan limit, and each saves into its own CRM. Haystack's free plan has unlimited scans, with export on paid plans. Blinq includes its scanner on the free plan. Krane's free plan allows 10 scans a week with no account. HiHello's allows 5 a month. ABBYY's free version reads 10 cards in total. ### Does the iPhone have a built-in business card scanner? Partly. Live Text, in the Camera and Photos apps, reads the text on a card. You can copy it, or tap a phone number or email address to call or write. It doesn't build a whole contact from the card with every field filled in, and it keeps no list of the cards you've scanned. A scanner app does both. ### Which business card scanner works with HubSpot or Salesforce? For HubSpot, the scanner in HubSpot's own mobile app is free. Krane Pro syncs to HubSpot and Salesforce for one person, with no team plan. Covve offers both as an add-on to Pro, and HiHello and Blinq on their Business plans. For Salesforce there are also ScanBizCards on its team plan, ABBYY Business Card Reader on Premium for certain Salesforce editions, and Zoho Card Scanner with a paid add-on. ### Which business card scanner app works offline? Krane reads each card on your iPhone right away with no connection, and checks it again when you're back online. Covve, Popl and Blinq save the scan with no signal and finish the contact once you reconnect. HiHello's help center says you can't scan a paper card without a connection. The other apps' pages don't say. ### Can a business card scanner read trade show badges? Some can. Krane reads the printed details and QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes on a badge, on the free plan. It can't decode a code the show has encrypted and saves the print instead. Covve, on Pro, and Popl, on its team tier, read the print only. HiHello and Blinq scan badges too. ScanBizCards reads conference badges on its team plan. ### Is CamCard still good in 2026? CamCard is still on the US App Store and was updated in October 2026. The listing is now titled "CamCard AI Business Assistant", and the app adds digital business cards and voice transcription of meetings to the card scanner. Nine of the eleven roundups we read name it. The App Store lists in-app purchases of $4.49, $8.49 and $49.99 a year. We couldn't confirm its website prices in November 2026. ### What happened to Microsoft Office Lens? Microsoft retired it. Microsoft Lens, earlier called Office Lens, was removed from the App Store and Google Play on February 9, 2026, and scanning in the app ended on March 9, 2026, according to Microsoft's support page. Microsoft recommends the scanner in the OneDrive app as its replacement. Roundups that still list Lens for business cards were written before the change. ### Is ABBYY Business Card Reader still available? On iPhone, yes. The US App Store still sells it, with a free version that reads 10 cards and a Premium upgrade. ABBYY says the Android app has been discontinued since September 2023. Sync was removed from the iPhone app that year, and ABBYY's last release of its own was in September 2025. ### Which apps scan business cards on Android? Of the apps on this list, CamCard, Covve, HubSpot, HiHello, Haystack, Popl, Blinq, Zoho Card Scanner, ScanBizCards and Contacts+ have Android apps. Krane doesn't; it runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. ABBYY Business Card Reader for Android was discontinued in 2023, and Live Text is part of the iPhone. ### What's the difference between a business card scanner and a digital business card app? A business card scanner takes in other people's paper cards and turns them into contacts. A digital business card app gives out your own details, by QR code, link or NFC. Many digital card apps include a scanner, often with a monthly limit or with export on a paid plan. Krane, Covve, ScanBizCards and ABBYY are scanners first. HiHello, Popl, Blinq and Haystack are digital cards first. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card dimensions in inches, mm and pixels URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-dimensions/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Business card dimensions: 3.5 × 2 in in the US and Canada, 85 × 55 mm in most of Europe. Sizes with bleed, in pixels, and set-up values for each program. A standard business card is 3.5 × 2 in (88.9 × 50.8 mm) in the US and Canada, and 85 × 55 mm (3.35 × 2.17 in) in most of Europe. Files for print add bleed on top. ## Standard business card sizes by country | Region | Millimeters | Inches | Pixels at 300 ppi | |---|---|---|---| | United States and Canada | 88.9 × 50.8 mm | 3.5 × 2 in | 1,050 × 600 px | | Most of Europe (UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and others) | 85 × 55 mm | 3.35 × 2.17 in | 1,004 × 650 px | | Japan | 91 × 55 mm | 3.58 × 2.17 in | 1,075 × 650 px | | Australia and New Zealand | 90 × 55 mm | 3.54 × 2.17 in | 1,063 × 650 px | | China and Hong Kong | 90 × 54 mm | 3.54 × 2.13 in | 1,063 × 638 px | | Credit-card size (ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1) | 85.6 × 53.98 mm | 3.37 × 2.125 in | 1,011 × 638 px | There is no world standard. Each size is a convention, and printers stock paper and cutting set-ups for the one used where they work. Choose the size of the country where the cards will be printed and handed out. A European card is 3.9 mm shorter and 4.2 mm taller than a US one. Its proportions are about 1.55 : 1, against 1.75 : 1 for the US card, so a layout drawn for one size has to be redrawn for the other. ## Size with bleed and the safe area Cards are printed several to a sheet and cut in a stack, and the blade can land a fraction off the line. Bleed is artwork that runs past the cut line, so the background still reaches the edge when that happens. The safe area works the other way: keep text and logos at least 1/8 in (3 mm) inside the cut edge, so the blade can't clip them. US printers ask for 1/8 in (0.125 in) of bleed on each side; European printers ask for 3 mm. | Size | Trim | With bleed | Safe area | |---|---|---|---| | US, inches | 3.5 × 2 in | 3.75 × 2.25 in | 3.25 × 1.75 in | | US, millimeters | 88.9 × 50.8 mm | 95.25 × 57.15 mm | 82.55 × 44.45 mm | | US, pixels at 300 ppi | 1,050 × 600 px | 1,125 × 675 px | 975 × 525 px | | European, millimeters | 85 × 55 mm | 91 × 61 mm | 79 × 49 mm | | European, inches | 3.35 × 2.17 in | 3.58 × 2.40 in | 3.11 × 1.93 in | | European, pixels at 300 ppi | 1,004 × 650 px | 1,075 × 720 px | 933 × 579 px | ## Pixels, and why 300 per inch A pixel has no size until you say how many go in an inch. Print shops ask for 300 pixels per inch (ppi), which makes a US card 1,050 × 600 px at the trim and 1,125 × 675 px with bleed. At screen resolution, 72 ppi, the same card is 252 × 144 px. That is 36,288 pixels against 630,000, about one seventeenth. Stretched to 3.5 in wide, each of those pixels prints about four times as wide as a 300 ppi pixel, so the image prints blurred and letters show stepped edges. Changing the ppi number in the file afterward adds no detail; the image has to start with enough pixels. ## Setting up the file Design programs measure in points, 72 to the inch. A US card is 252 × 144 pt and a European card 240.9 × 155.9 pt; 1/8 in of bleed is 9 pt. To skip the set-up, the [business card maker](/tools/business-card-maker/) builds the file in your browser. Otherwise, these are the values for each program: - **Photoshop.** New document 3.75 × 2.25 in, 300 ppi, CMYK color. Add guides 0.125 in from each edge for the cut line, and a second set 0.25 in from each edge for the safe area. - **Illustrator or InDesign.** Artboard or page 3.5 × 2 in, with 0.125 in of bleed on all four sides set in the new-document settings, CMYK color. - **Figma.** Figma works in pixels and RGB. A 1,050 × 600 px frame is the US card at 300 ppi; add 37.5 px a side for bleed, which makes 1,125 × 675 px. Its PDF export writes one pixel as one point, so a 1,050 px frame becomes a page 14.58 in wide; for a PDF at true size, draw the card at 252 × 144 px, or 270 × 162 px with bleed. Expect the printer to convert the color to CMYK. - **Canva.** Custom size 3.5 × 2 in. Turn on "Show print bleed", then download as "PDF Print" with crop marks and bleed. - **Word.** Use a business card label template, 10 cards to a Letter sheet. Word has no bleed, so keep colored backgrounds and borders away from the edges. ## Other shapes An upright card uses the same sizes turned: 2 × 3.5 in in the US, 55 × 85 mm in Europe. Square cards are usually 2.5 × 2.5 in (63.5 mm a side), and slim cards about 3.5 × 1.5 in (88.9 × 38.1 mm). Square, slim and folded cards cost more to print and may not fit card holders. Thickness is a separate choice, covered in the [business card paper weight](/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-paper-weight/) guide, and the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/) page covers how large to print a QR code on the back. ## Why files get sent back - No bleed. The background stops at the trim line, and a thin white edge shows after cutting. - Text or a logo closer than 1/8 in (3 mm) to the edge. - Images at 72 ppi, which print blurred. - RGB color. The printer converts it to CMYK, and bright screen colors can print duller. - A border drawn right at the edge. After cutting it comes out thicker on one side than the other. ## With Krane's card maker, the size is already set The [business card maker](/tools/business-card-maker/) on kraneapp.com sets these values for you. Pick US 3.5 × 2 in or European 85 × 55 mm, and the print PDF comes in CMYK with 1/8 in (9 pt) bleed, crop marks, and the trim and bleed boxes set. The PNG of each side is 300 dpi, 1,050 × 600 px for the US size. It is free and needs no sign-up. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad handles the cards you get back: it reads the paper cards other people hand you into contacts. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. ## Common questions about card sizes ### What is the standard business card size? In the US and Canada, 3.5 × 2 in (88.9 × 50.8 mm). In the UK and most of Europe, 85 × 55 mm (3.35 × 2.17 in). Japan uses 91 × 55 mm, Australia and New Zealand 90 × 55 mm, and China and Hong Kong 90 × 54 mm. There is no single world standard; use the size of the country where the cards will be printed. ### What size is a business card in pixels? At the 300 ppi print shops ask for, a US card is 1,050 × 600 px, or 1,125 × 675 px with bleed. A European card is 1,004 × 650 px, or 1,075 × 720 px with bleed. At 72 ppi a US card is only 252 × 144 px, too few pixels to print sharply. ### What is the size with bleed? A US card with 1/8 in of bleed on each side is 3.75 × 2.25 in, or 1,125 × 675 px at 300 ppi. A European card with 3 mm on each side is 91 × 61 mm. The printer cuts the bleed off; it is there so the background still reaches the edge after cutting. ### Is a business card the same size as a credit card? Close, but no. A credit card (ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1) is 85.6 × 53.98 mm, or 3.37 × 2.125 in. A European card is 0.6 mm shorter and about 1 mm taller; a US card is 3.3 mm longer and 3.2 mm narrower. Some printers offer the credit-card size, which fits a wallet slot exactly. ### What size are business cards in the UK and Europe? 85 × 55 mm, or 3.35 × 2.17 in, in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and most other European countries. Add 3 mm of bleed on each side for a 91 × 61 mm file, and keep text and logos at least 3 mm inside the cut edge. ### What resolution should a business card be? 300 pixels per inch at the printed size, which is 1,050 × 600 px for a US card. Text and shapes in a vector PDF print sharp at any size, but photos and logos placed in it still need 300 ppi. An image made at 72 ppi prints blurred, and raising the number afterward adds no detail. ### What is the safe area on a business card? The area inside the cut edge where text and logos are kept: at least 1/8 in (3 mm) in from each edge. On a US card that leaves 3.25 × 1.75 in for anything that must not be clipped; on a European card, 79 × 49 mm. Backgrounds can run past it to the edge and into the bleed. ### Can I make a vertical business card? Yes. Turn the size: 2 × 3.5 in in the US, or 55 × 85 mm in Europe. Bleed and safe area stay the same, and the card fits the same holders as a horizontal one. Krane's business card maker has one upright layout among its 10. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Free business card maker URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-maker/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Describe what you do, pick one of three designed directions, download a CMYK PDF with bleed and crop marks or a sheet for home printing. No sign-up. Type your details, describe your work in a line and pick one of three designed directions. Download a print-ready PDF with bleed and crop marks. No sign-up. ## How to make a card 1. Fill in your details. There are ten fields: first and last name, job title, company, an optional tagline, mobile, work phone, email, website and address. Leave empty anything you don't want printed. Or press Start from your old card, and the [business card reader](/tools/business-card-reader/) fills the fields from a photo. 2. Describe yourself or your business in a line, such as "bookkeeper for restaurants, on my own since 2024", and press Design it. You can skip this step. 3. Pick one of the three directions. Each has a name and one sentence on why it suits you. Choosing one puts it on the card. 4. Adjust the layout, type, colors and back by hand. Or ask for a change, such as "warmer" or "less formal", and get three variations of the card on the desk. 5. Read any note under the card. It appears when a line doesn't fit and says what the tool did about it. 6. Download the print PDF and paste the spec line from under the downloads into your order to the print shop. The same details can go at the foot of your emails with the [email signature generator](/tools/email-signature-generator/). ## Three directions instead of thousands of templates Template sites give you a blank canvas or a gallery of thousands of designs, and the choosing is yours. This maker works from a small system instead: 10 layouts (one of them upright), 8 type pairings and 12 color schemes, drawn to work together. Any combination you pick will print. The system makes the small decisions a designer would. Letter pairs are kerned, which means the gap between them is adjusted, as in "To" or "AV". Capitals get a little extra space; lowercase is left alone. A long name is fitted by stepping its size down, never by squeezing the letters narrower. Rules are hairlines, and each card has one accent color. Design it asks an AI model to choose three directions from that system, based on your brief, name, title and company. It answers with the tool's own layouts, type and colors and draws nothing, which is why every result prints. It writes no text for the card unless your brief asks for a tagline. Every choice can also be made by hand. ## What makes the file print-ready Print shops send files back for screen colors, missing bleed and missing fonts. The print PDF avoids each one. | What the PDF has | Why a printer wants it | |---|---| | CMYK color | Presses print with four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Screen colors (RGB) get converted at the shop and can shift. Black type is black ink alone, never a mix of four, so small text stays sharp. | | 1/8 in bleed | Color that runs to the edge is printed past it and trimmed off, because the cutter is never exact. | | Crop marks | Short lines outside the card that show the cutter where the edge is. | | Trim and bleed boxes | The file states both sizes, so nobody at the shop has to measure. | | Text as outlines | The letters are saved as shapes, so the shop needs no fonts and the print matches the preview. | | Minimum type sizes | Details stay at 6.5 pt or larger, 7 pt for white type on a dark card, where thin strokes fill in. | On the ivory, cream and kraft schemes the paper color is the stock itself: the PDF leaves it unprinted and the spec line names the stock. The PDF is not a certified PDF/X file, and screen colors are estimates of the inks, so ask for a proof on a large order. See the [business card dimensions](/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-dimensions/) and [business card paper weight](/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-paper-weight/) guides. A PNG of each side comes at 300 dpi: 3.5 in × 300 = 1,050 pixels across a US card, for printers that take images. ## Printing at home The second download is a sheet for a home printer, on Letter or A4. US cards on Letter come 10 to a sheet, placed where Avery 5371 and 8371 perforated card stock is cut. A4 also takes 10. European cards on Letter fit 8, with light cut guides in the margin. Print at actual size, 100%. "Fit to page" shrinks the sheet a few percent, and the cards drift off the perforations. If the card has a back, the second page holds the backs: print two-sided and flip on the long edge. Most home printers can't print to the edge of a sheet, and perforated stock has no bleed. A card with a solid background can show a thin white edge. For a dark card, a print shop does better. ## The back of the card There are five backs: blank, a QR code, your initials as a monogram, the company name as a wordmark with the tagline, or the accent color to every edge with the company name left unprinted. The QR code holds your contact details as a vCard, the contact format phones read. They are written into the code itself, with no link, so it never expires. A phone camera reads it and offers to save you as a contact. The Monogram layout puts only your initials on the front and every detail on the back. For a code on its own, use the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/). ## What is sent, and what isn't The card and its files are made in your browser. Two buttons send something to Krane. Design it sends your brief, name, job title, company and tagline, and the number of contact lines you filled in. Phone numbers, email and street address are not sent. Krane doesn't store or log the brief or the names; it counts each visitor's requests for the day. Start from your old card sends the photo to be read and uses one of the business card reader's three reads a week. You get 10 design requests a day, free, with no account; they come back at midnight UTC. If the feature's monthly budget runs out, design ideas pause until next month and the rest of the tool keeps working. Krane's [privacy policy](/privacy/) is the general one for the site and the app. ## What it doesn't do The maker takes no logo or other image; the monogram stands in for a logo. There is no free canvas, so you can't drag items around the card. It doesn't print cards or order printing for you, and it doesn't make a digital or NFC card. There is no account either. The card you're making is kept in your browser's storage on this device, and it is there when you come back. ## With Krane, the cards you get back You hand these cards out at a show, and people hand you theirs. Krane is an app for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Its [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) reads each paper card with the camera, on your iPhone first, so it works with no signal, and files it under the event you're at. With Krane Pro it sends cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, or exports a CSV (see [pricing](/pricing/)). Krane is free for 10 scans a week. A card with clear type, strong contrast and a vCard QR code is also an easy one for the next person's scanner. ## Questions about the business card maker ### Is this business card maker really free? Yes. There's no sign-up, no email, no watermark and no charge for the print PDF, the home-printing sheet or the PNGs. The limits apply only to the parts that use Krane's server: 10 design requests a day and three photo reads a week. It is a free tool from Krane, an app for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad that scans business cards; you don't need the app to use it. ### Can I print the cards myself at home? Yes. Download the sheet for home printing, on Letter or A4, and print it on perforated card stock at actual size (100%), never "fit to page". US cards on Letter line up with Avery 5371 and 8371. For a two-sided card, print the second page on the back and flip on the long edge. A solid background may show a thin white edge. ### What file should I send to a print shop? Send the print PDF. It has one card per page, front then back, in CMYK, with 1/8 in bleed, crop marks and the text as outlines. Paste the spec line from under the downloads into your order. It gives the size, the bleed, one or two sides, the inks and a suggested stock. Agree the quantity and finish with the shop. ### What size is the card? You pick US, 3.5 × 2 in, which is also the Canadian size, or European, 85 × 55 mm. The Portrait layout turns either one upright. The PDF page is a little larger than the card, because it holds the bleed and crop marks around it. The [business card dimensions](/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-dimensions/) guide lists other sizes. ### Does it use AI? Yes, for the three suggestions only. When you press Design it, an AI model picks three directions from the tool's own 10 layouts, 8 type pairings, 12 color schemes and five backs, and writes a name and one reason for each. It draws nothing and writes no card text unless your brief asks for a tagline. You can skip it and pick everything by hand. ### What do you do with my details? Krane doesn't keep them. The card is drawn in your browser. Design it sends your brief, name, job title, company and tagline to Krane's server; phone numbers, email and address are not sent, and Krane doesn't store or log what it gets. A photo of an old card is sent to be read and isn't stored. The card you're making stays in your browser. ### Can I add my logo? No. The maker takes no images, so there is no logo upload. The Monogram layout and back set your initials large, and the Wordmark layout and back set the company name as a mark. If the card needs your logo, a designer or a print shop has to rebuild the design with it. The PDF can't be edited, because its text is outlines. ### Can I add a QR code? Yes, on the back. Choose the QR code back, and the code holds your name, job title, company, phones, email, website and address as a vCard, written into the code itself. A phone camera reads it and offers to save the contact. There is no link inside, so it never expires. The code is made in your browser and isn't sent anywhere. ### Why does it say my text doesn't fit? The tool won't set type too small to print: details stay at 6.5 pt or larger, and 7 pt for white type on a dark card. When a line won't fit, the name gets smaller first, and long lines break over two. As a last resort the least important line, starting with the tagline, is left off. Each step is noted under the card. Shorten a line or try another layout. ### Can I edit the PDF afterwards? Not the text. It is saved as outlines, shapes rather than letters, so no program can retype it. Change the card on this page and download again. The card is kept in your browser's storage on this device, so it is still there when you come back, unless you clear the browser's data or used a private window. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card paper weight in points, pounds and gsm URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-paper-weight/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Most business cards are 14 pt or 16 pt, about 300 to 400 gsm. What points, pounds and gsm mean, which stock to order, and what a home printer can feed. Most business cards are printed on 14 pt or 16 pt stock, about 300 to 400 gsm. If you want a card that doesn't bend easily, ask for 16 pt. ## Points, pounds and gsm Card stock is sold in three units, and one listing often gives two. Points (pt) measure thickness in thousandths of an inch, so a 16 pt card is about 0.016 in thick. These are not the points used for type sizes. Grams per square meter (gsm, or g/m²) is the weight of one square meter of the paper. It means the same for every paper, and Europe orders cards in it: about 300–350 gsm is standard there, 400–450 gsm heavy. Pounds (lb) are the weight of 500 sheets at the paper's uncut "basis" size. That size differs between paper types, so 100 lb cover is far heavier than 100 lb text. A pound figure means something only next to its grade. Thickness and weight rise together, but not exactly. A bulky uncoated sheet is thicker than a dense coated one of the same gsm. ## Common weights for business cards | Points | About, in gsm | About, in lb cover | How it feels | Use it for | |---|---|---|---|---| | 12 pt | 250–270 | 90–100 | Thin and flexible | Budget cards | | 14 pt | 300–310 | 110 | Firm | The common standard | | 16 pt | 350–400 | 130–150 | Noticeably stiffer | The usual "premium" choice | | 18 pt | 400–450 | 150–165 | Heavy, hard to bend | Cards meant to be noticed by feel | | 32 pt | 600–800 | Not usually quoted | Two sheets bonded, sometimes with a colored core | "Double thick" cards | Every equivalent here is approximate. Mills and printers rate the same stock differently, and a coated and an uncoated sheet of one weight differ in thickness. For scale, take three things you already handle. Office paper is 20 lb bond, about 75–80 gsm and roughly 4 pt. A postcard is often 14 pt. A credit card is about 30 mil (0.76 mm) thick, a little thinner than a 32 pt card. ## Which weight to choose Choose 16 pt if you have no reason to choose otherwise. It is noticeably stiffer than 14 pt, so the card doesn't bend easily in a pocket or a wallet. 14 pt is the common standard and is fine for most cards. It makes sense when you order large runs for trade shows and the cost per card adds up. Go down to 12 pt only for cards you expect people to throw away. Go up to 18 pt or 32 pt when you want the card to be remembered by its feel. Heavier stock costs more per card and more to post, and it takes room: a box of 500 cards at 16 pt is already about 8 in (20 cm) of cards. ## Coated or uncoated | Finish | Look and feel | Writing on it | |---|---|---| | Uncoated | Matte to the touch; colors a little softer | Takes pen and stamp | | Matte or silk coated | Smooth; sharper color | Harder to write on | | Gloss or UV coated | Shiny; shows fingerprints and glare | Hardest to write on | | Soft-touch lamination | Velvet feel; adds thickness | Test your pen first | Gloss is also the hardest finish for a phone camera to read under a lamp, because the coating throws the light back as glare. Cotton and recycled stocks are uncoated. Colored stocks such as ivory, cream and kraft are bought as the paper itself, not printed, so the print shop has to order that stock. ## Paper for a home printer Most inkjet and laser printers feed card stock up to about 200–250 gsm (roughly 65–90 lb cover) through the main tray. Many take up to about 300 gsm through a rear or manual feed, where the sheet runs a straight path. Your printer's manual gives its maximum. Perforated business card sheets for home printers are usually around 150–250 gsm. That puts them at the thin end of the table above, which is why home-printed cards feel thinner than cards from a print shop. Set the printer to its "card stock" or "heavy paper" setting. The printer then slows down, so the ink or toner has time to set. The [business card maker](/tools/business-card-maker/) makes a 10-up sheet for this, on Letter or A4. ## What to tell the print shop A print shop needs five things: the size, the stock weight, the finish, one or two sides, and the quantity. One line covers it: "3.5 × 2 in, 16 pt uncoated, two-sided, 250" For European cards, give the size as 85 × 55 mm and the weight in gsm. The sizes and the bleed, the extra print past the trim line, are on the [business card dimensions](/tools/business-card-maker/business-card-dimensions/) page. ## With Krane's card maker, the spec is written for you Under the downloads, the [business card maker](/tools/business-card-maker/) writes the spec line for the print shop: size, bleed, number of inks and a suggested stock. On the ivory, cream and kraft colors the paper tint is the stock itself, so the print file leaves the paper bare and the spec line names the stock to ask for. Krane reads the paper cards people hand you, matte or gloss. The app on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad turns each card into a contact, and the [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. ## Questions about business card paper ### What is the standard paper weight for business cards? 14 pt is the common standard, about 300–310 gsm or about 110 lb cover. Many print shops sell 16 pt, about 350–400 gsm, as the premium option. In Europe, where cards are ordered in gsm, about 300–350 gsm is standard and 400–450 gsm counts as heavy. ### Is 14 pt or 16 pt better for business cards? 16 pt is the safer choice. It is noticeably stiffer, so the card doesn't bend easily in a pocket or a wallet. 14 pt is the common standard and costs less per card, which matters when you order large runs for trade shows. Both take a pen if you choose an uncoated finish. ### What is 16 pt card stock in gsm? About 350–400 gsm, or about 130–150 lb cover. Printers' charts list 16 pt stocks across that range because points measure thickness and gsm measures weight. A dense coated sheet carries more weight in the same thickness than a bulky uncoated one, so ask the shop for the gsm of the stock they use. ### What gsm are business cards? Most cards from a print shop are about 300–400 gsm: 14 pt is about 300–310 gsm and 16 pt about 350–400. Thin budget cards are about 250–270 gsm, and heavy cards run 400 gsm and up. Perforated sheets for home printers are lighter, usually around 150–250 gsm. ### Can my home printer print on business card stock? Most inkjet and laser printers take card stock up to about 200–250 gsm, and many go to about 300 gsm through a rear or manual feed with a straight paper path. Check your printer's manual for its maximum, and choose the card stock or heavy paper setting so the printer slows down and the ink or toner sets. ### Should business cards be matte or glossy? Choose uncoated or matte if anyone will write on the card or read it with a phone. Uncoated takes pen and stamp. Gloss is the hardest to write on, shows fingerprints, and glares under a lamp, which also makes it the hardest finish for a phone camera to read. Matte or silk gives sharper color than uncoated. ### What is the thickest business card? The thick cards most print shops sell are 32 pt, called "double thick": usually two sheets bonded together, about 600–800 gsm, sometimes with a colored core between them. A 32 pt card is about 0.032 in thick, a little more than a credit card, which is about 30 mil (0.76 mm). ### Is 100 lb cover the same as 100 lb text? No. Pounds are the weight of 500 sheets at the paper's basis size, and cover and text paper are weighed at different sizes. 100 lb cover is a card stock of about 270 gsm; 100 lb text is a heavy paper of about 150 gsm. Compare papers in gsm, which means the same for every grade. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card QR code size starts at 2 cm URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-qr-code/business-card-qr-code-size/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > A QR code on a business card should be at least 2 cm (0.8 in) wide; a full vCard needs 2.8 cm. Size table, quiet zone, error correction, print rules. Print the QR code on a business card at least 2 cm (0.8 in) wide, margin included. A full vCard with two phone numbers needs about 2.8 cm (1.1 in). Keep each square at 0.4 mm or more. ## How big a QR code should be on a business card Yes, a QR code fits on a business card. What it holds decides its size. A phone's camera reads each square as dark or light, so each has to print large enough to tell from the one beside it. The figures come from the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/), for a sample contact at the default error correction level, margin included. | Content | Characters | Squares per side | Smallest width | Reads from about | |---|---|---|---|---| | Web address, 24 characters | 24 | 25 | 20 mm (0.8 in) | 20 cm (8 in) | | vCard: name, mobile, email | 136 | 49 | 23 mm (0.9 in) | 23 cm (9 in) | | + company, title, website | 196 | 57 | 26 mm (1.0 in) | 26 cm (10 in) | | + second phone (a full card) | 231 | 61 | 28 mm (1.1 in) | 28 cm (11 in) | | + street address | 300 | 69 | 31 mm (1.2 in) | 31 cm (12 in) | | + a 64-character note | 372 | 77 | 34 mm (1.3 in) | 34 cm (13 in) | The last column is a rule of thumb: a phone reads a code from about ten times its width. People scan a card from 15–30 cm (6–12 in), so every row is within reach. On a card the limit is the size of each square, not the distance. Shrink the full card's code to 2 cm (0.8 in) and each square drops below 0.3 mm. ## Why a vCard code needs more room A vCard code holds the contact itself, so it carries far more characters than a web address, and the character count sets the number of squares (the standard calls them modules). A QR code is 21 squares a side at its smallest and grows 4 squares at a time, up to 177. At the same printed width, more squares means smaller squares. As a rule of thumb, a safe floor for print is 0.4 mm a square. Under its preview the generator shows the character count, the squares per side and the smallest print width, which is never below 20 mm (0.8 in). The full sample card is 61 squares plus 4 of margin on each side: 69 squares at 0.4 mm, or 28 mm (1.1 in). You can't put every detail in the code and keep it small. To shrink it, cut characters. Leave out the street address and the note; the generator drops blank fields. Give one phone number, and type the website without `https://`. The smallest option is a static code of a short web address, which still reads at about 1.5 cm (0.6 in). Static codes have no end date; [do QR codes expire](/tools/business-card-qr-code/do-qr-codes-expire/) covers the kind that does. But this code holds only a link: the phone needs a connection, and the page has to stay up. ## The quiet zone The quiet zone is the empty margin around the code, and a phone uses it to find the code's edges. ISO/IEC 18004, the QR standard, asks for 4 squares of plain background on all four sides. Both downloads from the generator include it. Don't crop it. Set text, a border or the card's cut edge against the code and the camera may not find where the code stops. ## Error correction level Error correction is spare data that lets a phone read a code when part of it is scratched or covered. There are four levels. A higher level and a smaller code work against each other, because each level adds squares. For the full sample card: | Level | Squares per side | Smallest width | |---|---|---| | L, 7% | 53 | 25 mm (1.0 in) | | M, 15% (the default) | 61 | 28 mm (1.1 in) | | Q, 25% | 69 | 31 mm (1.2 in) | | H, 30% | 81 | 36 mm (1.4 in) | M suits most cards. Choose H when a logo sits over the middle of the code and covers squares the camera never sees. ## Print and contrast Print dark squares on a light background. Light squares on a dark card fail on some readers. The generator warns you when the code is lighter than its background or the two colors are too close. Use the SVG download for print; it stays sharp at any size. The PNG is 1,024 × 1,024 pixels and stays sharp to about 8.5 cm (3.4 in) at 300 dpi. Keep the code square when you resize it. Ink spreads on uncoated paper and fills small squares, so go above the minimum width there. Gloss, foil and spot varnish over the code cause glare. Before you order a batch, print one card at real size and scan it with two or three phones. ## Where it goes on a 3.5 × 2 in card A US card is 3.5 × 2 in (89 × 51 mm), and much of Europe uses 85 × 55 mm. Printers ask for about 3 mm (1/8 in) of safe margin from the cut edge; ask yours for the exact figure. On a US card a 28 mm (1.1 in) code takes more than half the height. The back is the easier place for a full vCard code, because it has room for more than the minimum. A 20 mm (0.8 in) web-address code fits on the front. ## With Krane: the cards you're handed Your code is on your card. Most cards you are handed have none. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads a printed card into a contact. On a card or badge with a QR code, it merges the code's contact data with the printed details into one contact. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. ## Questions about QR code size on a card ### What is the minimum QR code size for a business card? The common minimum is 2 cm (0.8 in) wide, with the margin. That holds for a code with few squares, such as a short web address. A vCard code has more squares for the camera to tell apart, so it needs more width: about 23 mm (0.9 in) for a name, mobile and email, and about 28 mm (1.1 in) for a full card with two phones. The working rule is 0.4 mm or more for each square. ### Can I put a QR code on a business card? Yes. A US card is 3.5 × 2 in (89 × 51 mm), and a full vCard code needs about 28 mm (1.1 in) of it, so the code fits with room for a safe margin. Print it dark on a light background and keep the empty margin around it. Then test one printed card with two or three phones before you order the batch. ### How big should a QR code be in pixels? For print, the printed width matters more than the pixel count. At 300 dpi a 28 mm (1.1 in) code is about 330 pixels across, so the generator's 1,024-pixel PNG has plenty to spare and stays sharp to about 8.5 cm (3.4 in). The SVG download has no pixels at all. It prints sharp at any size. ### How far away can a phone scan a business card QR code? As a rule of thumb, a phone reads a code from about ten times its width, so a 2 cm (0.8 in) code reads from about 20 cm (8 in). People hold a card 15–30 cm (6–12 in) from the phone, which is inside that range. When a card's code won't scan, the squares are usually too small or the contrast too low. ### Does a higher error correction level make the code bigger? Yes. Each level adds spare data, and spare data takes squares. The full sample card needs 53 squares a side at level L, 61 at M, 69 at Q and 81 at H, which moves the smallest print width from 25 mm (1.0 in) to 36 mm (1.4 in). Stay at M unless a logo covers the middle of the code. ### Can I shrink the white margin to save space? No. A phone uses the margin to find the edges of the code, and the QR standard, ISO/IEC 18004, asks for 4 squares of empty background on every side. A code with a cropped margin can fail to scan. The generator's downloads already include the margin. To save space, cut characters from the contact: the address, the note or a second phone number. ### Front or back of the card? The back, for a full vCard code. It needs about 28 mm (1.1 in), more than half the height of a 3.5 × 2 in card, and the back has the room to print it larger than the minimum. A 20 mm (0.8 in) code of a short web address is small enough for the front, beside your name and details. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card reader, from photo to contact URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-reader/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Drop in a photo of a business card, get a contact you can edit, download a vCard or CSV. 3 free reads a week, no account. The photo is sent to Krane. Drop in a photo of a business card. Krane's server reads the name, company, phones and email into a contact you can correct and download as a vCard or CSV. Three free reads a week. ## From photo to contact You look at a paper business card and type what it says into your phone, one field at a time. This business card reader does the typing from a photo. You check the result. 1. Drop a photo of the card on the page, choose the file or paste it. On a phone, the file picker offers the camera. 2. Press Read the card. The page sends the photo to Krane's server, where it is read. A bot check runs first, and sometimes it asks you to tick a box. 3. Check the fields. A form shows the name, company, job title, department, phones (each marked mobile, work, fax or other), emails, websites, address and social handles, in the script printed on the card. Correct anything that doesn't match. 4. Download the contact as a .vcf or a CSV. Or point your phone's camera at the QR code under the form, and the phone offers to save the contact. What is a .vcf? It's one contact saved as a small file, in a format called vCard. iPhone, Android and Google Contacts all import it. ## Where your photo goes The other tools on this site work inside your browser. This one can't. Your photo is sent to Krane's server to be read. Before it leaves, your browser shrinks the photo to at most 1,600 pixels on its long side and re-saves it as a JPEG. That drops the location and camera details stored in the original file. Krane reads the smaller copy and doesn't store it. The contact comes back to the page, and Krane doesn't store or log that either. It keeps one thing: a count of your reads, for a week. The card holds someone else's details, so send only cards you were given. The [privacy policy](/privacy/) covers the service providers Krane uses. ## Three reads a week Each read costs Krane money, and the tool is free. So there's a limit of three reads a week per visitor. You don't need an account or an email address. What counts as a read? Every photo you send, including one with no card in it. Your reads come back a week after your first one. The reader as a whole also has a monthly budget. If that runs out, the tool pauses until the next month. ## A photo that reads well - Get the whole card in the frame, filling most of the picture. Upright or sideways is fine. - Lay the card flat on a plain, darker surface. - Use even light. A glossy card reflects a lamp or a flash, and the glare hides the print. - Hold the phone still until the text is sharp. - For a two-sided card, photograph the side with the contact details. Type anything from the other side into the form. - Look twice at small gray text on a dark card and at decorative script. They are the hardest to read. Check each field against the card, because the reader can misread a digit. ## What to do with the contact | Where it goes | Use | How | |---|---|---| | iPhone or Mac | .vcf | Open the file and Contacts offers to add it | | Android | .vcf | In the Contacts app, tap Organize or Fix & manage, then Import from file | | Outlook for Windows | CSV | Outlook imports contacts from a CSV, not a .vcf | | Excel or Google Sheets | CSV | One row with plain column names | | The phone in your hand | QR code | Point the camera at the code and the phone offers to add the contact | For a CRM, the [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) turns the .vcf into the columns HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Contacts or Outlook expect. For a QR code with your own details, use the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/). ## With Krane: a stack of cards This page reads one card at a time, three a week, from a photo you already took. After a trade show you have fifty. Krane is an app for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Its [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) reads each card with the camera as you're handed it, with or without a signal, and files it under the event you're at. It reads badges too. With [Krane Pro](/pricing/) it sends cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, or exports a CSV. Krane is free for 10 scans a week. There is no Android, Windows or web version of Krane. This page is the only part that works there. ## Questions about the business card reader ### Is this business card reader free? Yes. You get three reads a week with no account and no email address. Each read costs Krane money, which is why there is a limit. Correcting the fields and downloading the .vcf or CSV happen in your browser and don't use a read. ### Is my photo uploaded? Yes. The photo is sent to Krane's server to be read. Before it leaves, your browser shrinks it to at most 1,600 pixels on its long side and re-saves it as a JPEG, which drops the location and camera details in the original file. Krane doesn't store the photo or the contact it reads. The other tools on this site work in your browser and upload nothing. ### Why only three cards a week? Each read costs Krane money and the tool is free, so each visitor gets three reads a week. A photo with no card in it still uses one. Reads come back a week after your first. For a stack of cards, the Krane app on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad is free for 10 scans a week, and Krane Pro removes the limit. ### Can it read cards in other languages? Yes. The reader keeps the text in the script printed on the card and doesn't translate it. A name that isn't in Latin letters also gets a Latin spelling beside it, so you can still find the contact by typing on an English keyboard. ### Can it read both sides of a card, or several cards in one photo? No. Each photo is one side of one card. Photograph the side with the contact details and type anything from the back into the form. The Krane app adds the back of a card to the same contact on its free plan, and with Krane Pro it reads a group of cards from one photo. ### Does it work on Android and Windows? Yes. The reader works in any current browser: on an Android phone, a Windows laptop, a Mac or an iPhone. The Krane app is a separate thing. It runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only, and has no Android or Windows version. ### How do I save the contact to my phone? Point the phone's camera at the QR code under the form. iPhone and Android cameras read it as a contact and offer to add it. Or download the .vcf and open it on the phone. An iPhone opens it in Contacts, and on Android the Contacts app imports it through Organize, then Import from file. ### The reader got a field wrong. What now? Correct it in the form before you download; every field can be edited. If several fields came back wrong, look at the photo. A sharper, flatter photo with no glare reads better. A new photo uses another of your three reads, so fix a single wrong digit by hand. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Contact list template for Excel and Google Sheets URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/contact-list-template/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Free contact list template as .xlsx or CSV, or copied into Google Sheets. Plain columns or Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot or Salesforce ones. No sign-up Pick the columns, download this free contact list template as .xlsx or CSV, or copy it into Google Sheets. Your browser builds it, with no sign-up. ## What the template holds Start with the default set. It has 18 columns, the ones Krane's app writes when it exports a CSV (a plain-text spreadsheet file). A menu adds a second or third column for Mobile, Work and Email. | Column | What goes in it | |---|---| | Company Name, Person Name, Position | Company, full name in one cell, job title | | Address | On one line | | Mobile 1, Work 1, Fax 1, Phone 1 | One number each; Phone has no label | | Email 1, Website 1 | One address each | | Social 1 | Written as "LinkedIn: handle" | | Tags | Tags, separated by "; " | | Event, Met At | The show or meeting; where you met | | Notes, Follow-up | Your notes; a follow-up date | | Additional Info, Date Scanned | Anything else on the card; the date added | Three made-up contacts show what goes in each column. A checkbox removes them. ## Using the template in Excel 1. Pick a column set in the "Columns for" menu. 2. Click Download .xlsx. 3. Double-click the file. Excel opens one sheet, named "Contacts". 4. Type over the three example rows, or delete them. 5. Add one person per row. The header row stays frozen at the top as your Excel contact list grows, and the phone, fax and postal code columns are set to text, so Excel keeps a leading zero or a "+". ## Using it in Google Sheets This page keeps nothing online, so there is no "make a copy" link to a Google Sheets contact list template. **Import the file.** Open a blank sheet. Choose File > Import > Upload, pick the .xlsx, choose "Replace spreadsheet" and click Import data. **Paste the rows.** Click Copy for Google Sheets. Paste into cell A1 of the blank sheet. Each column lands in its own cell. **Set the phone columns.** After a paste, a number written with spaces usually stays as typed. One without spaces that starts with "+" or "0" can be changed. Set the phone columns to Format > Number > Plain text before you type more. ## Choosing a column set Pick by where the list will end up. No set suits every list, so if you can't say yet, keep the default. | You want to | Column set | Notes | |---|---|---| | Keep a list in a sheet | Contact list (Krane's columns) | The default, 18 columns | | Keep a shorter sheet, with first and last name split | Short list (Excel / Google Sheets) | 15 columns | | Import into Google Contacts | Google Contacts import | Emails and phones are Label and Value pairs | | Import into Outlook | Outlook import | Outlook's headers, in English | | Import into HubSpot | HubSpot contacts import | HubSpot tells contacts apart by email address | | Import leads into Salesforce | Salesforce lead import | Each lead needs a Last Name and a Company | Import screens match columns to fields by header name, so matching names spare you the mapping step. ## While you fill it in - Keep one person per row and one value per cell. A second mobile number goes in Mobile 2, never beside the first. - Type phone numbers with the country code (+1 415 555 0134). The text format keeps the "+". - Put several tags in one cell, separated by "; " (client; Chicago). - Write every date one way (2026-11-12, never 11/12 in one row and "next week" in another). - Save as CSV UTF-8 when an import asks for a CSV (in Excel, File > Save As > CSV UTF-8). ## When the list is ready **Into an address book or a CRM.** Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot and Salesforce each import a CSV. Start from the matching column set, delete the example rows and save the sheet as CSV UTF-8. For Google, go to contacts.google.com and choose Import (up to 3,000 contacts per file). In classic Outlook on Windows, choose File > Open & Export > Import/Export. **Onto a phone.** A phone imports a .vcf, the vCard contact file. Drop your CSV on the [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/), set to CSV → VCF. Open the .vcf on the phone, then look at one contact. Are the name, number and email each in the right field? ## With Krane after a show You come back from a show with 40 cards, and typing them into this sheet is the slow part. Krane, on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, reads each card into a contact. With Krane Pro it exports a CSV with the same columns as the default set here, and Event, Met At and Tags come filled in from the event you started. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week; CSV export is Krane Pro. For a booth, see [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/). Krane can't import this template or any other CSV. ## Questions about the contact list template ### Is the contact list template free? Yes. There is no account and no email address to enter. The page builds the file in your browser and downloads it, so no file sits on a server and nothing is uploaded. It comes from Krane, a business card scanner for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. ### Does the contact list template work in Excel? Yes. Download .xlsx gives you an Excel workbook with one sheet named "Contacts". The header row is bold on a yellow fill and stays frozen at the top when you scroll, the column widths are set, and the phone, fax and postal code columns are formatted as text. Excel opens it on a double-click. Apple Numbers opens the .xlsx and the .csv too. ### How do I open the template in Google Sheets? Open a blank sheet, choose File > Import > Upload, pick the .xlsx or the .csv, choose "Replace spreadsheet" and click Import data. For a CSV, uncheck "Convert text to numbers, dates, and formulas" to keep phone numbers as typed. Or click Copy for Google Sheets on this page and paste into cell A1. There is no copy link, because the page keeps no sheet online. ### Why did my phone numbers lose the leading zero or the plus sign? Excel and Google Sheets treat a cell that starts with "+" or "=" as a formula or a number, and they drop leading zeros from numbers. Format the column as text before you type. In Excel that is Home > Number format > Text; in Sheets, Format > Number > Plain text. The .xlsx from this page already has its phone, fax and postal code columns set to text. ### Why does Excel show strange characters instead of accents? When you double-click a UTF-8 CSV that has no byte-order mark, Excel reads it as the old Windows code page, and "é" comes out as "é". The CSV from this page starts with the mark by default, so Excel shows accents and non-Latin names correctly. A checkbox turns the mark off for a program that doesn't want it. Or download the .xlsx instead. ### Can I import the filled list into Google Contacts or Outlook? Yes, if you started from that column set. Delete the example rows and save the sheet as a CSV. For Google, go to contacts.google.com, choose Import and pick the file; one file holds up to 3,000 contacts. In classic Outlook on Windows, choose File > Open & Export > Import/Export, then Import from another program or file, then Comma Separated Values. Outlook expects headers in the language it runs in. ### Can I turn the filled list into contacts on my phone? Yes, in two steps. Save the filled list as a CSV, then open the VCF to CSV converter on this site, switch it to CSV → VCF and drop the file in. It recognizes the header names of all six column sets. The download is a .vcf, the vCard file that phones import. Open it on the phone to add the contacts. ### Can Krane import this template? No. Krane has no importer for this template or for any CSV. It fills its list by scanning paper business cards and event badges with the camera, and with Krane Pro it exports a CSV with the same columns as the default set on this page. Use the template for a list you type by hand. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Convert CSV to VCF for an iPhone URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/csv-to-vcf-iphone/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > The iPhone can't import a CSV. Convert it to one .vcf in your browser, then add every contact by AirDrop, iCloud.com or a Mac. Free, nothing uploaded. You have a spreadsheet of people, and the iPhone won't open the CSV as contacts. Convert it to one .vcf file, send that to the phone, and Contacts adds every person in it. ## Why the iPhone needs a .vcf It is fair to expect Contacts to take a list of people. It doesn't. Contacts on the iPhone has no CSV import, and neither does Contacts on iCloud.com. Both read a plain-text contact file that ends in .vcf, or vCard; the page on [what a VCF file is](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/) shows one line by line. Two places do accept a CSV as it is, Google Contacts and Contacts on a Mac, both covered further down. ## Get the spreadsheet ready The sheet needs one header row of column names, then one person per row. Save it as a CSV. In Excel, choose File > Save As and the file format "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)". In Google Sheets it is File > Download > Comma Separated Values (.csv), and in Numbers, File > Export To > CSV. Before you save, fix four things: - Put first and last names in two columns; the converter keeps them as typed. From a single full-name column it takes the last word as the last name, so "Juan Carlos de la Cruz" is filed under "Cruz". - Format the phone column as Text. Excel treats a phone number as a number: it drops a leading zero or plus sign and may show a long one as 4.47E+11. - Give each kind of number its own column, such as Mobile, Work Phone, Home Phone and Fax. The column name sets the number's type. - Remove merged cells and any title rows above the header. The first row must be the column names. ## Convert the CSV to VCF The [CSV to VCF converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) runs in the browser, on a computer or on the iPhone. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account. 1. At the top of the tool, switch the direction to CSV → VCF. 2. Drop the .csv on the page, choose it, or paste its text. Leave the separator on "Detect (comma or semicolon)" unless the file uses tabs. 3. Read the preview table. "Column in your file" lists your headers, "First value" shows the first person's entry, and "Becomes" is the contact field that column will fill. 4. Correct any "Becomes" menu that is wrong. A column whose name the tool doesn't know is set to "Ignore this column" until you pick a field. 5. Check "First contact as vCard", which shows the first person as vCard text. 6. Select Download .vcf. The file is named contacts.vcf and holds every contact. ## How columns become contact fields | Column in your file | Becomes | Watch for | |---|---|---| | Name or Full Name | First and last name | The last word becomes the last name | | Title | Job title | In a file that also has Job Title, Title is the name prefix, as in an Outlook export | | Mobile, Work Phone, Home Phone, Fax | A number of that type | One kind of number per column | | Phone | A number with no type | Rename it Mobile or Work Phone if the type matters | | Phone 2, Email 2 | A second number or email | Several values in one cell work too, separated by semicolons | | A row with no name, email or phone | Nothing | It is left out, and the status line says how many were | The converter also knows the header rows of Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce and Krane exports. Whether accents survive depends on how the CSV was saved. The converter detects UTF-8 and UTF-16 and reads anything else as the Western European set, or Windows-1252. Excel's plain "CSV (Comma delimited)" uses the computer's local set of letters, or code page, and saves letters outside it as question marks. Those are in the file before a converter reads it, and none can turn them back. "CSV UTF-8" keeps the letters, and Google Sheets always writes UTF-8. ## Put the .vcf on the iPhone **AirDrop, Mail or Files** 1. AirDrop contacts.vcf to the phone, email it to yourself, or save it to Files. 2. Tap the file. The iPhone shows the contacts in it. 3. Tap "Add All N Contacts", where N is the count, then "Create New Contacts". New contacts go to the phone's default account. It is set in Settings > Apps > Contacts > Default Account on iOS 18 and later, and in Settings > Contacts before that. **iCloud.com** 1. Go to icloud.com/contacts and sign in. 2. Select the Add button, then choose Import vCard. 3. Select contacts.vcf. Apple limits iCloud to 50,000 contact cards in total and to vCards of up to 256 KB each. **A Mac with iCloud Contacts** 1. Double-click contacts.vcf. Contacts opens and asks to add the cards. 2. Confirm. With iCloud Contacts turned on, the cards sync to the iPhone. ## Two routes that skip the .vcf With Google Contacts or a Mac you don't need the converter. At contacts.google.com, choose Import, then Select file. The people show on the iPhone once the Google account is added to the phone with Contacts turned on. Google's help says an import of more than 3,000 contacts at a time may have problems, so split a longer file first. Contacts on a Mac imports a CSV too. Choose File > Import, pick the file, change the encoding if necessary and review the field labels. Then select "Ignore first card". Without it, the header row is imported as a person. ## With Krane: paper cards without the spreadsheet If you typed this spreadsheet from a stack of business cards, the next stack can skip the file. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads each printed card with the camera and adds the contact to Apple Contacts, with no CSV or .vcf in between. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. One limit: Krane can't import a CSV or a .vcf. ## Questions about CSV to VCF on an iPhone ### Can an iPhone import a CSV file directly? No. The Contacts app on the iPhone has no CSV import, and iCloud.com imports vCards only. There are two ways around that. Convert the CSV to a .vcf and open that file on the phone, or import the CSV into Google Contacts or into Contacts on a Mac and let that account sync to the iPhone. ### Does the CSV to VCF converter work offline? Yes, once the page has loaded. The conversion runs in your browser and needs no connection: the file is read on your own device, nothing is uploaded and there is no account. Open the page while you are online. After that you can turn the connection off before you drop the CSV in. ### How do I import contacts from Excel to an iPhone? Save the sheet as a CSV, convert it, and open the result on the phone. In Excel, choose File > Save As and the format "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)". Convert that CSV to contacts.vcf, then AirDrop or email the file to the phone. Tap it, tap "Add All N Contacts", then "Create New Contacts". If you use a Google account on the phone, you can import the CSV at contacts.google.com with no conversion. ### Why do names come out with question marks or wrong letters? The two faults have different causes. Wrong letters mean the file is in a code page other than Western European, which the converter reads as Windows-1252. Question marks mean the CSV was saved in a code page that lacks those letters, which is what Excel's plain "CSV (Comma delimited)" does. They are in the file before any converter reads it. Save the sheet again as "CSV UTF-8" and convert that. ### Will importing the file twice create duplicates? Yes, expect a second set. "Create New Contacts" adds a card for every person in the file, including people the phone already has. On iOS 16 and later, Contacts shows "Duplicates Found" above the list when it finds matching cards and can merge them. Import once, and read the count in "Add All N Contacts" before you tap it. ### Which vCard version does the iPhone need? The one the converter already writes: vCard 3.0 in UTF-8. That is the same version the iPhone, iCloud and Google Contacts export, and the phone reads it with no setting to change. The [vCard format](/tools/vcf-to-csv/vcard-format/) page compares versions 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 line by line. ### Can Krane import a CSV or a VCF file? No. Krane has no importer for CSV or .vcf files. It reads paper business cards and event badges with the camera, adds each contact to Apple Contacts and can share it as a vCard. To move a spreadsheet of people onto an iPhone, use the converter and the steps on this page. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Export contacts from iPhone, Outlook and Google URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/export-contacts/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Export contacts from iPhone, iCloud, Outlook and Google step by step, then open the .vcf or CSV in Excel or move it between iPhone and Outlook. An iPhone hands over its contacts as a .vcf file, Outlook as a CSV, and Google Contacts as either. Follow the steps for the one you have, then open the file or move it across. ## Find out which file you'll get Take 300 contacts on an iPhone that have to be in Outlook on a work laptop by Monday. The iPhone will export them, and Outlook will import contacts. But the file the iPhone writes is one that Outlook for Windows doesn't import. Every address book writes one of two files. The first lists each person's details line by line, as text. Contacts apps call it a vCard, and its name ends in .vcf. The second is a plain table with one contact per row, called a CSV, and it is what Excel, Google Sheets and Outlook's import read. So the place your contacts live decides the file, and the file decides the next step. | Source | Route | File you get | What to do next | |---|---|---|---| | iPhone, Contacts app | Lists > touch and hold a list > Export | .vcf | Convert to CSV for Excel or Outlook | | iCloud.com | Select All Contacts > Export vCard | .vcf, every contact in one file | Convert to CSV, or import into Google Contacts as it is | | Contacts on a Mac | File > Export > Export vCard | .vcf | The same as iCloud.com | | New Outlook, Outlook on the web | People > Export contacts | .csv | Open in Excel; convert to .vcf for an iPhone | | Classic Outlook for Windows | File > Open & Export > Import/Export | .csv | Open in Excel; convert to .vcf for an iPhone | | Outlook for Mac | No CSV export; use Outlook on the web | .csv, from the web | Open in Excel; convert to .vcf for an iPhone | | Google Contacts | More actions > Export | Google CSV or .vcf | CSV for a spreadsheet, vCard for an iPhone | The page on [what a VCF file is](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/) shows one opened up. The rest of this page goes source by source, then covers the two things people do with the file: open it as a spreadsheet, or move it to the other side. ## Export contacts from an iPhone The iPhone exports a .vcf. It has no CSV or Excel option, on the phone or on iCloud.com. There are two routes to the file. **Route 1, on the phone itself.** This needs iOS 16 or later and no computer. 1. Open Contacts and tap Lists at the top left. 2. Touch and hold the list you want to export. To export a group of your own choosing, tap Add List first and put the people in it. 3. Tap Export. Select the fields to include, then tap Done. 4. Choose where the file goes: Mail, Messages, AirDrop or Save to Files. You now have one .vcf with everyone on that list. For a single person, open the contact and tap Share Contact. **Route 2, through iCloud.com.** Use this when you are at a computer and the contacts are stored in iCloud. 1. On the iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, and check that Contacts is on. 2. In a browser, go to icloud.com/contacts and sign in. 3. Open the Select menu and choose Select All Contacts. To pick only some, hold Command on a Mac or Control on Windows and click each one. 4. Click the Actions button and choose Export vCard. The browser downloads one .vcf with every contact you selected. A Mac gives the same file without a browser: open Contacts, select the people, and choose File > Export > Export vCard. Under Contacts > Settings > vCard, two checkboxes decide whether notes and photos go into it. The usual mistake is to take Route 2 and assume the file holds everyone. iCloud.com exports only the contacts stored in iCloud. If the iPhone also shows people from a Gmail or Outlook account, they stay with that account. Export them from Google or Outlook, or use Route 1, which exports any list the Contacts app shows. ## Export contacts from Outlook Outlook is the opposite case: it writes a CSV. Which menu holds the export? That depends on which Outlook you have. **New Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web and Outlook.com.** 1. Select People in the side panel. 2. On the ribbon, select Export contacts. On the web it sits under Manage contacts. 3. Pick All contacts, or one folder, from the dropdown. 4. Select Export. The .csv is saved to your Downloads folder. **Classic Outlook for Windows.** 1. Choose File, then Open & Export, then Import/Export. 2. Choose Export to a file, then Comma Separated Values. 3. Select the Contacts folder under your account. 4. Choose Browse, name the file and choose OK. 5. Choose Next, then Finish. Either way you end up with one CSV. The file from classic Outlook looks odd when you open it, because Outlook writes a column for every field it knows and most of them are empty. Nothing is wrong with it. Outlook for Mac fits neither list. It has no CSV export, and its legacy version exports only an .olm archive, a file that Outlook for Mac alone reads. If the account is a Microsoft 365, Exchange or Outlook.com account, sign in to Outlook on the web and export the CSV there. The contacts are the same. ## Export Google Contacts Google Contacts is the one source that offers both files. 1. Go to contacts.google.com. 2. Tick the box beside any contact, then choose Selection Actions > All at the top left. Skip this step to export only the ones you tick. 3. At the top right, click More actions, then Export. 4. Choose the format, then click Export. Which format? Go by where the contacts are headed. Google CSV suits a spreadsheet or a backup. The vCard choice, labelled vCard (for iOS Contacts), suits an iPhone, iCloud or a Mac. For Outlook, export either one and convert it to a CSV with Outlook's column names, as described below. ## Open the exported file in Excel or Google Sheets You now have a file. If it is a CSV, from Outlook or Google, this step is already done: it opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets as it is. A .vcf is the harder case. Excel opens it as text and puts each line of the file in a row of its own, so one person fills ten rows. The usual mistake is to start tidying those rows by hand. To get **one row per contact**, run the file through the [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) instead: 1. Drop the .vcf on the page, or several files at once. 2. Pick a column set. Excel / Google Sheets gives plain names: Full Name, Company, Job Title, Email, Mobile and so on. 3. Check the preview. It shows the first 10 contacts, and Show all lists the rest, with a count of contacts and columns under the table. 4. Download the CSV and open it. The converter reads vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0, including the labeled fields that iCloud and Google write. The CSV is UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel shows accents and names in other scripts correctly when you double-click the file. All of it runs in your browser. The file is not uploaded, and there is no account. ## Move contacts between iPhone and Outlook Go back to the 300 contacts on the iPhone. Outlook for Windows imports a CSV and the iPhone imports a .vcf, so the file has to change format once on the way. The converter does that in both directions. **Direction 1, from iPhone to Outlook.** Export the .vcf, open it in the converter and pick the Outlook column set. It writes the header names Outlook's own export uses: First Name, E-mail Address, Business Phone, Mobile Phone. Then import the CSV: - New Outlook: People, then Import contacts on the ribbon (under Manage contacts on the web). Select Browse, choose the file and select Import. - Classic Outlook: File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Import from another program or file > Comma Separated Values. Browse to the file, choose what happens to duplicates, select the Contacts folder and choose Finish. Classic Outlook allows duplicates unless you change that option. If some of these people are already in Outlook, pick "Do not import duplicate items". **Direction 2, from Outlook to iPhone.** Export the CSV, switch the converter to CSV to VCF and drop the file in. It matches Outlook's columns to contact fields by their header names and downloads one .vcf with everyone in it. On icloud.com/contacts, select the Add button and choose Import vCard. Or email the file to yourself and tap the attachment on the iPhone. One case needs no file at all. If you only want to see Outlook contacts on the phone, add the Outlook account on the iPhone and turn on Contacts for it. The contacts appear in the Contacts app and stay with the account. ## Fix an export that looks wrong - **Accents show as "é" in Excel.** The CSV was opened as the old Windows character set. Download it from the converter with the byte-order mark left on, or open it in Excel through Data > From Text/CSV as UTF-8. - **Outlook shows one contact from a .vcf that holds hundreds.** Outlook's window shows only the first contact of a vCard. Convert the file to CSV and import that. - **Photos are gone.** A CSV holds text only, and the converter skips the photos inside a .vcf. - **Outlook in another language rejects the columns.** Outlook expects the CSV headers in its own language. Map the columns by hand in the import, or rename the headers. ## With Krane: contacts that start on paper Every route on this page moves contacts that someone has already typed in. The ones on business cards get into a phone by typing, or by scanning. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads each printed card into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. It saves the contact to Apple Contacts or shares it as a vCard, and with Krane Pro it exports a CSV or sends the cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. Krane can't import a .vcf or CSV file. ## Questions about exporting contacts ### Can I export all my iPhone contacts at once? Yes. In Contacts, tap Lists, touch and hold the list that holds everyone, and tap Export. Or go to icloud.com/contacts on a computer, choose Select All Contacts and then Export vCard. Both give one .vcf file with every contact in it. ### How do I export iPhone contacts to Excel or CSV? It takes two steps, because the iPhone can't write a CSV. Export the contacts as a .vcf from the Contacts app or from iCloud.com. Then open that file in the VCF to CSV converter, pick the Excel / Google Sheets column set and download the CSV. Excel opens it with one contact per row. ### Can I export iPhone contacts without iCloud? Yes. The export in the Contacts app works on the phone itself: tap Lists, touch and hold a list, tap Export, and send the .vcf by Mail, Messages or AirDrop, or save it to Files. Nothing has to be stored in iCloud for this. ### Why are contacts missing from my iCloud export? iCloud.com exports only the contacts stored in iCloud. An iPhone can also show contacts from Gmail, Outlook or Exchange accounts, and those stay with their account. Export them from Google Contacts or Outlook, or export the list on the iPhone, which works for any list the Contacts app shows. ### How do I export Outlook contacts to Excel? Export them as a CSV. In new Outlook or on the web, select People, then Export contacts. In classic Outlook, choose File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Export to a file > Comma Separated Values. Excel opens the CSV directly. The file from classic Outlook has many empty columns, which you can delete. ### How do I import contacts into Outlook? Outlook imports a CSV file. In new Outlook, select People, then Import contacts, browse to the file and select Import. In classic Outlook, choose File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Import from another program or file > Comma Separated Values. If your contacts are in a .vcf, convert it to a CSV with the Outlook column set first. ### How do I move Outlook contacts to an iPhone? There are two ways. Add the Outlook account on the iPhone and turn on Contacts, which shows them with no file. Or copy them: export the CSV from Outlook, turn it into a .vcf with the converter's CSV to VCF direction, and import that on icloud.com/contacts with Add > Import vCard. ### How do I get Google Contacts onto an iPhone or into Outlook? For an iPhone, export from contacts.google.com as vCard (for iOS Contacts) and import the file at icloud.com/contacts, or add the Google account on the iPhone with Contacts turned on. For Outlook, export a vCard or a Google CSV, convert it with the Outlook column set and use Outlook's CSV import. ### Does Outlook for Mac export contacts as a CSV? No. Legacy Outlook for Mac exports only an .olm archive, which holds mail, calendar and contacts together and opens only in Outlook for Mac. For a CSV, sign in to the same account in Outlook on the web and use People > Manage contacts > Export contacts. ### Is it safe to run my contacts through an online converter? It depends on where the converting happens. Many converters upload your address book to a server. The one on this site runs in your browser: the file is read on your own computer or phone, nothing is uploaded or stored, and there is no account or email to give. ### Can Krane import the contacts I exported? No. Krane has no importer for .vcf or CSV files. It works the other way: it reads paper business cards and event badges with the camera, adds them to Apple Contacts or shares them as vCards, and with Krane Pro exports them as a CSV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Convert VCF to CSV on a Mac URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/vcf-to-csv-mac/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Contacts on a Mac exports vCards, not CSV. Two free ways to turn a .vcf into a spreadsheet: convert it in your browser, or drag contacts into Numbers. Open Contacts on a Mac and choose File > Export. You can save a vCard, an archive or a PDF, and there is no CSV. Two free routes get you from the .vcf to a spreadsheet. ## What Contacts on a Mac can export The Export menu has three items: Export vCard, Contacts Archive and Export as PDF. That is the whole list in macOS 27, and earlier versions had no CSV either. The gap is no accident. A vCard is built to move a person from one address book to another, so it keeps one detail per line: a line for the name, a line for each phone number, a line for each email. A spreadsheet wants the opposite, one person per row. The page on [what a VCF file holds](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/) shows those lines. The other two items don't help. Contacts Archive saves a backup, a file ending in .abbu, that only Contacts opens. The PDF is for printing. So the vCard is the way out. ## Get the .vcf out of Contacts or iCloud In the Contacts app: 1. Click All Contacts in the sidebar, or one list. 2. Select the people you want. Command-A selects everyone shown. 3. Choose File > Export > Export vCard. 4. Pick a folder and click Save. You get one .vcf with every selected contact in it. Dragging the selection onto the desktop makes the same file. iCloud does it from any computer: 1. Sign in at icloud.com/contacts. 2. Choose Select All Contacts. 3. Choose Export vCard. But check one setting first. Under Contacts > Settings > vCard there is a box labeled "Export photos in vCards". With it on, every photo goes into the file as a long block of text, and the file grows. A CSV can't hold photos, so you lose nothing by turning it off. ## Convert the .vcf to CSV in your browser The [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) is a web page that runs in Safari, Chrome or Firefox. It reads the file on your Mac and uploads nothing. 1. Drag the .vcf from Finder onto the page. Several files at once are fine. 2. Pick a column set: Excel / Google Sheets for a plain sheet, or Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce (Lead) or Krane. 3. Check the preview. It shows the first 10 contacts in those columns, and Show all lists the rest. 4. Click Download .csv. The CSV has one row per contact. The column sets exist because an import screen matches columns by their header: pick Outlook and the phone column is headed Business Phone, the name Outlook expects. It takes a file from anywhere, including one somebody emailed you, in vCard 2.1, 3.0 or 4.0. Nothing is added to your own address book. But a row has limits. A person with three phone numbers still gets one row, so the Excel / Google Sheets set puts all three in one cell, separated by semicolons. Photos are skipped. ## The Numbers route, with no converter Apple's Contacts guide documents a second route. It needs only Numbers. 1. Select the contacts in Contacts. 2. Open a new spreadsheet in Numbers. 3. Drag the selection onto the table. Numbers fills one row per person. 4. Choose File > Export To > CSV. If the people are already in your Contacts app and all you want is a sheet, this is enough. It has a couple of drawbacks. First, it starts from the Contacts app, not from a file. A .vcf somebody sent you has to be imported into your address book before you can drag anything. Second, Numbers decides the columns, so you can't ask for Outlook's or HubSpot's headers. Apple adds a warning of its own: dragged this way, your own card includes the fields you chose not to share. ## Open the CSV in Numbers or Excel Double-click the CSV, or drag it onto the Numbers icon. Numbers reads the file as UTF-8, the encoding that covers accents and non-Latin scripts. "José" arrives as "José". Excel doesn't assume UTF-8. Given a file with no marker at the start, it can read the bytes as an older character set and show "José". The marker is three bytes called a byte-order mark. The converter writes it unless you switch it off, so a double-click in Excel shows the name correctly. Phone numbers are the other problem. Excel treats a string of digits such as 0412555142 as a number and drops the leading zero. It can drop a plus sign the same way. If that happens, import the file through Excel's Data tab and set the phone columns to text. ## CSV to vCard on a Mac The converter also runs the other way. Switch the direction to CSV → VCF, drop in the CSV, and check that each column found the right contact field. The download is one .vcf in vCard 3.0 that you can AirDrop to an iPhone or send to someone. On your own Mac you may not need it. Contacts reads a CSV directly: choose File > Import, pick the file, and match each column to a field. The .vcf is for getting the same people onto a phone or into someone else's address book. ## With Krane: cards that start on paper Both routes start from contacts that are already typed in. The cards you bring home from a trade show aren't. Krane, on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, reads each printed card into a contact with the camera and can add it to Apple Contacts. With iCloud Contacts on, the contact then appears in Contacts on your Mac. With Krane Pro it exports a CSV of its own. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. Krane has no Mac app and can't import a .vcf. ## Questions about VCF to CSV on a Mac ### Can Contacts on a Mac export a CSV file? No. File > Export in Contacts offers Export vCard, Contacts Archive and Export as PDF. To get a CSV, export a vCard and convert it, or drag the contacts into a Numbers table and choose File > Export To > CSV in Numbers. ### Can Numbers or Excel open a .vcf file on a Mac? Not usefully. Numbers opens Numbers, Excel, CSV, TSV and plain-text files, and vCard isn't among them. Excel opens a .vcf as text and puts each line of the vCard in its own row, so one person fills about ten rows. Convert the file to CSV first and both programs show one contact per row. ### Is there a Terminal command to convert VCF to CSV? macOS has no built-in command for it. A short script handles a simple file. But a real export has long lines folded over two rows, text from old phones in an encoding called quoted-printable, and people with three phone numbers. A script that skips those cases drops data without saying so. The converter handles them and lists any line it couldn't read. ### How do I convert VCF to CSV for Outlook on a Mac? Pick the Outlook column set in the converter. The CSV then uses Outlook's field names, such as Business Phone, Mobile Phone and E-mail Address. Outlook for Mac has no CSV import for contacts. Import the file in Outlook on the web, under People, or in classic Outlook on Windows through File > Open & Export > Import/Export. ### Does the converter upload my contacts? No. The page does the work in your browser, on your Mac. The .vcf is never sent to kraneapp.com, and there is no account or email address to enter. You can check: load the page, turn off Wi-Fi, and it still converts. ### Why do accents look wrong when I open the CSV in Excel on a Mac? Excel read a UTF-8 file as an older character set, so "é" came out as "é". That happens when the file has no byte-order mark. Download the CSV again with the mark left on, or open the file in Numbers, which reads UTF-8 without it. ### Can Krane import my .vcf? No. Krane has no importer for .vcf or CSV files. It goes the other way: it reads paper business cards and event badges with an iPhone or iPad camera, then adds each contact to Apple Contacts or shares it as a vCard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane for AI agents URL: https://kraneapp.com/agents/ Updated: 2026-11-09 > Facts about Krane for AI assistants and agents: JSON files, an MCP server at kraneapp.com/mcp and an A2A agent card. No key, no sign-up. This page is for AI assistants and agents, and for the people who set them up. Krane's prices, features and comparisons are published in forms an agent can read directly, so it doesn't have to guess from a web page. Nothing here needs a key or an account. The answers are fixed facts, the same ones the rest of this site states. No AI model answers on Krane's side, so an agent can't get a feature or a price that Krane doesn't have. ## JSON files | File | What's in it | | --- | --- | | [/agent/index.json](/agent/index.json) | What's available, with links to everything below | | [/agent/pricing.json](/agent/pricing.json) | The free plan and Krane Pro: what each includes, US prices, billing | | [/agent/features.json](/agent/features.json) | What Krane can and can't do. Each entry says yes (free plan), pro (Krane Pro), partial or no, with a short answer and a page | | [/agent/compare/index.json](/agent/compare/index.json) | Krane next to Blinq, CamCard, Covve, Haystack, HiHello and Popl, row by row, with the source of every value about the other app | | [/agent/download.json](/agent/download.json) | The App Store link, the devices Krane runs on and the iOS version it needs | A plain-text summary of the whole site is at [/llms.txt](/llms.txt). ## MCP server `https://kraneapp.com/mcp` is a remote MCP server (Streamable HTTP, no authentication). Its tools: - **get_pricing**: the free plan and Krane Pro. - **check_feature**: whether Krane does something, such as "Salesforce sync", "offline" or "Japanese cards". - **compare**: Krane next to one of the six apps above. - **get_download_link**: the App Store link and requirements. - **contact_request**: sends a question to Krane's founder, who answers by email. An agent may use it only when its user asked to contact Krane and agreed to share the email address and message. It doesn't run without that confirmation, and it is limited to a few messages a day. - **request_scan_access**: issues an access token for reading business card photos. It needs the name of the agent, and the user's name and email address, which an agent may send only if its user agreed. One access per email address, good for 3 reads. - **scan_business_card**: reads one photo of a paper business card (a public https link or base64) into a contact: name, company, job title, phones, emails, websites and address. It needs the access token. The photo is read and not kept, and there is a small daily limit across all agents. The same reader is on the [business card reader](/tools/business-card-reader/) page. To add it yourself: - **Claude** (claude.ai or the desktop app): add a custom connector with the URL `https://kraneapp.com/mcp`. - **Claude Code**: `claude mcp add --transport http krane https://kraneapp.com/mcp` - **Cursor**: in `mcp.json`, add `"krane": { "url": "https://kraneapp.com/mcp" }` under `mcpServers`. - **Other clients**: any client that connects to remote MCP servers over Streamable HTTP can use the same URL. ## A2A Agents that use the A2A protocol can read the agent card at [/.well-known/agent-card.json](/.well-known/agent-card.json) and send messages to `https://kraneapp.com/a2a`. A short question in plain text is routed to the matching answer; a data part `{"skill": "", "arguments": {...}}` calls a tool directly. ## What Krane never asks for Krane's agent endpoints never ask an agent for its user's name, email or anything else. The only way to send contact details is `contact_request`, and only with the user's agreement. For anything else, write to [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # About Krane URL: https://kraneapp.com/about/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > One person, Constantine Malynin in Canada, builds and runs Krane. Who he is, what the app sends to its server, and how to reach him. Krane is an iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad app that reads business cards and event badges and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. One person, Constantine Malynin in Canada, builds and runs it. ## Who makes it My name is Constantine Malynin. I live in Canada, and I make Krane on my own. I design the screens, write the iOS code, run the server that does the online read, build this website and answer the support email. If you check who makes Krane on the App Store, the seller is listed under my name, not a company. ## Why one person matters here When you write to Krane, I read the message, and I am the person who decides what ships next. There is no ticket queue between you and the person who can fix the bug. One builder also keeps the app narrow, on purpose. Krane has no account system: you never sign up, so there is no list of users and passwords to leak. Your cards are stored on your iPhone. When you push a contact to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, the app talks to the CRM directly with the token you entered; there is no Krane server in between, and the token stays on the phone. Empty fields on a card are never sent, so a push can't blank data you already have in the CRM. There are limits that come with this. Krane has no team or volume plans, no web dashboard and no Android version. If one of those is a must for you, Krane isn't the right fit yet. ## What the app sends, and what it doesn't Three things leave your phone for Krane's own server. - The picture of the card or badge, for the online read. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online; that second check needs the image. - Usage events: which screens were opened and which choices were made, with a random ID per install. No names, no card contents, no email addresses. - For installs that came from an Apple Ads ad, Apple's AdServices reports the install. It shows no tracking prompt and reports nothing for anyone else. CRM pushes don't go through that server. The app sends the contact straight from your iPhone to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or your webhook URL, with credentials that stay on the device. There is no ad SDK in the app and no third-party analytics SDK. The App Store's App Privacy label lists Device ID, Product Interaction and Purchase History. Your backup is one file you keep. Export it from the app and restore it any time, on the same phone or a new one. The [privacy policy](/privacy/) spells all of this out. ## How Krane has grown I wrote the first code for Krane in November 2024. Since then it has shipped release after release, up to version 2.1.10 in November 2026. Among the things that shipped in that time: - Offline reading: a card is read on the phone with no signal and checked again online. - Event badges: QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes merged with the printed name, title and company. - CRM sync to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive, plus a webhook for anything else. - Card after card: lay cards down under the camera one at a time and each is read as you place the next. - Group of cards: a spread of cards read from one photo, with Krane Pro. - An interface in eight languages. ## Write to me Write to info@kraneapp.com. I read every message myself. If something went wrong, tell me the iPhone model, the iOS version and what kind of card or badge it was; a photo of the card, if you can share it, lets me reproduce the read. Questions about the free plan and Krane Pro are answered on the [pricing](/pricing/) page. ## Questions about Krane ### Who makes Krane? I do. My name is Constantine Malynin. I build and run Krane alone: the design, the iOS code, the server, the website and support. The App Store lists me as the seller. Krane has shipped since November 2024, most recently version 2.1.10 in November 2026. ### Where is Krane based? Canada. There is no office to visit; Krane is a one-person app. The app is sold through the App Store, which shows the price for your account and country. ### Does Krane sell my data or show ads? No. There are no ads in the app, no ad SDK and no third-party analytics SDK. Your cards stay on your iPhone. What reaches my server is the card image for the online read and usage events with a random per-install ID, never names or card contents. ### How do I contact Krane? Email info@kraneapp.com. I read it myself. If you are reporting a problem, include your iPhone model, the iOS version and the kind of card or badge it happened with. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # When QR codes expire, and when they never do URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-qr-code/do-qr-codes-expire/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > A QR code itself never expires. Dynamic codes that point at a vendor's link can stop working. How to tell which one you have, and what to print on a card. The squares of a QR code can't expire. The codes that stop working are dynamic codes, which point at a link a vendor runs. A static vCard code, like the ones this generator makes, keeps working as long as the print is readable. ## Static and dynamic QR codes | | Static | Dynamic | |---|---|---| | What the squares hold | The data itself: a contact, a phone number, a web address | A short link on the generator's own domain | | Can it expire | No | Yes, when the link stops redirecting | | Edit after printing | No; make a new code | Yes, in the vendor's dashboard | | Scan counts | None | Counted by the vendor's server | | Works with no internet | Yes, for a contact or text | No; the link needs a connection | | Depends on | The print | The vendor's server and your plan | Nothing in the QR standard carries a date. "Expiry" is always about what the code points to. ## Why a dynamic code stops working A dynamic code takes a detour. The phone reads the squares and finds a short web address on the generator's domain. It opens that address, the vendor's server looks up where you told it to send people, and the phone is redirected to your page or a contact file. Each step after the first runs on the vendor's side. That detour is what lets you change the destination after printing and see how many people scanned. It is also the weak point. When a free trial ends or a subscription lapses, the vendor can switch the redirect off or send scans to its own page. The same happens if the vendor closes or changes its terms. The ink on your card hasn't changed, but the address it holds now leads somewhere else. Some generators that call themselves free make a dynamic code by default, and some free plans cap the number of scans or the months a code stays live. Read the plan before you print, and check which kind of code the download is. ## How to tell which kind you have 1. Open the camera on your phone and point it at the code. Don't tap anything yet. 2. Read what the phone offers. A contact preview or "Add to Contacts" means a static vCard code, and so does plain text with your details. 3. If it shows a web address, look at the domain. Your own domain, or a page you control, is a static link. A short link on a domain you don't recognize is almost always a dynamic code. 4. If you made the code with an online generator, check your account there. A dashboard with scan counts and an "edit destination" button means the code is dynamic and depends on that plan. ## What to put on a printed business card Print a static vCard code. It holds your name, company, title, phones, email and website in the squares themselves, so a phone saves the contact without opening any page, and no plan has to stay paid. The trade-off is that a new phone number means a new code and a reprint. A static code of a web address you own is the other safe choice; it keeps working as long as that page does. The [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/) makes the vCard kind, free, with no account. For print, keep the code at least about 2 cm (0.8 in) across, dark on a light background, with an empty margin around it. Keep the vCard short: every extra character adds squares, and dense codes are harder to read when small. Test it with two or three phones before you print a batch. The same rules hold for a code on a badge, a booth sign or a flyer. A vCard is the contact-card format phones read; [what a VCF file is](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/) shows the text inside one. ## With Krane: the cards you're handed The code goes on your card. Most cards you collect at a show have no code at all. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads the whole printed card into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. On a [badge with a QR code](/badge-scanner/), it combines the contact data in the code with the printed details. Each scan is filed under the event you're at, and with Krane Pro it goes to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. ## Questions about QR codes expiring ### Do vCard QR codes expire? A static vCard QR code doesn't. The contact is written into the squares, and a phone reads it straight from the print with no link and no server in between. Only a vCard code made as a dynamic code, a short link that leads to a contact file on a vendor's server, can stop working. ### Is there a QR code generator that never expires? Any generator that makes static codes gives you a code that never expires, because nothing in it points to the generator. The business card QR code generator on this site makes static vCard codes only. For a web address, a static code works as long as the page it names stays up. ### Why did my free QR code stop working? It was most likely a dynamic code. The squares hold a link on the generator's domain, and when the free period or plan ended, that link stopped sending people to your page. Scan it and look at the address the phone shows. To fix it for good, make a static code and reprint. ### Can I change a static QR code after printing? No. The data is part of the printed pattern, so a changed phone number or email needs a new code. If your details change often, put a static code of a web address you own on the card and keep that page up to date. ### Does a QR code work without internet? A vCard code does: the phone reads the contact from the squares and offers to save it with no connection. A code that holds a web address needs a connection to open the page, and a dynamic code needs one to reach the vendor's redirect. ### Is this generator free and unlimited? Yes. There is no account, no email to enter and no limit on how many codes you make. The page draws the code in your browser and uploads nothing. You download it as SVG for print or PNG for screens. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Free email signature generator and templates with a QR code URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/email-signature-generator/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Free email signature generator with four templates, your logo and a vCard QR code, for Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. No sign-up; runs in your browser. Fill in your details, pick one of four templates, add your logo by its web address and copy the signature into Gmail, Outlook or Apple Mail. Free, with no sign-up. ## Four email signature templates All four use the same details; switch between them and the preview redraws. - Classic. Name, title and company stacked, a short rule in your accent color, then phone, email and website. It suits most people. - Divider. Name and title on the left, a vertical colored rule, contact details on the right. A long list of details takes fewer lines, and a logo has room above the name. - One line. Everything on a single line under a colored rule, without the address or the short line. It suits people who send many short replies. - With QR. The Classic lines with a vCard QR code beside them, for people who meet contacts in person, at events or in sales. Paste the https address of a logo already on your website into Logo image URL. It sits above your name (at the start of the line in One line), at most 48 pixels high, linked to your website. ## How to add your signature in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail Press Copy signature on the tool, then paste it where the table says. | App | Where to paste it | Watch for | |---|---|---| | Gmail (computer) | Settings (gear) → See all settings → Signature → paste → Save Changes at the bottom | The pasted QR won't show; add it with Insert image. Limit 10,000 characters, image included. | | Outlook (new and web) | Settings → Accounts → Signatures → Add signature → name it → paste → pick it for new messages and for replies → Save | Not added to a message already open; start a new one. | | Classic Outlook for Windows | File → Options → Mail → Signatures → New → paste under Edit signature → set defaults → OK | Stored on that computer only; set it up on the web too. Embedded QR not shown; insert the PNG. | | Apple Mail on Mac | Mail → Settings → Signatures → pick the account → + → name it → paste into the preview | Untick "Always match my default message font" or Mail swaps your font. | | Gmail app on iPhone | Menu → Settings → Signature settings → turn on Mobile Signature | Only for mail sent from the app; off, it uses your computer signature. | Press Copy signature, not Copy HTML source, before you paste into these boxes. ## On iPhone iPhone Mail's signature box (Settings → Apps → Mail → Signature) offers bold, italic and underline. Paste the signature there and the colors, font, columns and pictures are mostly dropped, leaving plain text. Type a short one instead: name, title, company, phone. The Gmail app has its own: Menu → Settings → Signature settings → Mobile Signature, for mail sent from that app. ## What to put in a signature Name, job title, company, one phone number and one website. Your email address is optional: the reader has it in the From line. Keep the short line under your name only if it says something the title doesn't. Add a logo if your company already has one online. Two or three social links is enough; the tool shows LinkedIn, X and Instagram as text links, so no icon gets blocked as an image. Leave out quotes, and skip legal text unless your company requires it, because it repeats at the foot of every reply. ## The QR code, and where it shows The With QR template puts a QR code beside your details. It holds a vCard 3.0, the contact-card format phones read, with the same details you typed. A phone camera pointed at it, on screen or on paper, offers to save the contact. The [vCard QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/) makes the same code for a printed card. The picture is embedded in the signature's HTML, and not every app shows embedded pictures. Apple Mail on Mac and iPhone, Outlook for Mac, Outlook.com and Outlook on the web, Outlook for iPhone and Android, Yahoo Mail and Thunderbird show it. Gmail, on the web and in its apps, does not; nor does classic Outlook for Windows 2007 to 2016, and some antispam filters treat embedded images as suspicious. The fix: press Download QR PNG and insert the file with the signature box's image button, or host the PNG on your website and paste its https address into the QR image address field. Then send yourself a test email. ## When the signature looks wrong - The font changed. In Apple Mail, untick "Always match my default message font". - Colors gone on iPhone. iPhone Mail keeps only bold, italic and underline; type a plain signature there. - QR code missing in Gmail. Gmail doesn't show the embedded picture; insert the downloaded PNG, or host it. - Logo missing. The address must start with https:// and open the image itself in a new tab. - Signature not in the open message. Outlook adds it to new messages only; start a new one. - Gmail won't save it. The limit is 10,000 characters, an image included; use a smaller or a hosted PNG. ## With Krane, the cards you're handed Your signature is the card you send. For the cards people hand you, Krane reads a paper business card or an event badge on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad into a contact, name to address, and files it under the event you're at. With Krane Pro the contact goes on to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The free plan is 10 scans a week; [pricing](/pricing/) lists what Pro adds, and the [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) page shows a scan. ## Questions about email signatures ### Is this email signature generator free? Yes. There is no account, no email address to enter and no "made with" badge in the signature. The page runs in your browser, so the details you type are turned into a signature on your own computer or phone and nothing is sent to kraneapp.com. The people who make Krane, the iPhone business card scanner, built it. ### Does it work with Gmail? Yes, for the signature itself. The HTML is built the way mail apps expect, with tables, inline styles and web-safe fonts, at most 600 pixels wide, and it pastes into Gmail's signature box with Copy signature. The one exception is the QR picture, which Gmail doesn't show when it's embedded. Add it with the box's Insert image button, or host the PNG and paste its address into the tool. ### Can I add my company logo? Yes, if the logo is already online. Paste the https address of the image, such as the logo file on your company website, into Logo image URL; the signature shows it above your name, with its size set. There is no upload: this page has no server to keep your file, and Gmail and classic Outlook for Windows don't show pictures embedded inside a signature. In Gmail you can also add a logo with the signature box's Insert image button. ### Why doesn't my QR code show in Gmail? The tool embeds the QR picture inside the signature's HTML, and Gmail, on the web and in its iPhone and Android apps, doesn't display pictures embedded that way. Press Download QR PNG, then use Insert image in Gmail's signature box to add the file, from your computer, your Drive (shared publicly) or a web address. Or host the PNG on your own site and paste its https address into the QR image address field. ### How do I add an HTML signature in Outlook? In the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web: Settings → Accounts → Signatures → Add signature, name it, paste with Copy signature, choose it for new messages and for replies and forwards, then Save. In classic Outlook for Windows: File → Options → Mail → Signatures → New, paste under Edit signature, set the defaults, then OK. A classic Outlook signature lives on that computer, so set it up on the web too if you use both. ### Can I use it on iPhone Mail? Only as plain text. iPhone Mail's signature box, under Settings → Apps → Mail → Signature, offers bold, italic and underline, and drops most colors, fonts, columns and images from a pasted signature. Type a short signature there: name, title, company, phone. If you send from the Gmail app, turn on Mobile Signature under Settings → Signature settings; it applies to mail sent from that app. ### What is in the QR code? A vCard 3.0, the contact-card format phones read, with the same name, title, company, phone numbers, email, website and address you typed into the form. There is no link in it and no server behind it: the details sit in the squares themselves, so a phone camera reads them and offers to save the contact. Change a detail and the tool redraws the code. ### Do you store what I type? No. The generator runs in your browser; the signature, the HTML file and the QR PNG are made on your own computer or phone, and nothing you type reaches kraneapp.com. The only thing the page fetches is a picture you point it to, your logo or a hosted QR image, from your own address so the preview can show it. ### Can Krane scan the business cards people hand me back? Yes. Krane photographs a paper card on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad and reads it into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. At an event, the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) reads the printed badge and its QR, PDF417 or Aztec code too, and every scan is filed under that event for [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/). The free plan covers 10 scans a week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane pricing URL: https://kraneapp.com/pricing/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Krane is free for 10 business card scans a week. Krane Pro adds unlimited scans, CSV export and CRM sync, billed through the App Store with no account. Krane is free for 10 scans a week. Krane Pro, which adds unlimited scans, CSV export and CRM sync, is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). There is no account to create. ## Free and Krane Pro The free plan is the whole app for reading cards and keeping them on your iPhone. Krane Pro is for getting them out again, in volume, into a CRM or a spreadsheet. | | Free | Krane Pro | |---|---|---| | Price | Free | $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year | | Scans | 10 per rolling 7-day week | Unlimited | | Card after card | 3 in a row per session | Yes | | Group of cards from one photo | No | Yes | | Events, tags, notes, reminders | Yes | Yes | | Badges | Yes | Yes | | Offline reading | Yes | Yes | | Apple Contacts and vCard | Yes | Yes | | CSV export | No | One event or all cards | | CRM sync | No | HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, webhook | | Auto-send of new scans | No | Yes | Prices are set per country and currency; the App Store shows the price for your account and country before you confirm. Krane Pro is an auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly. ## What the free plan includes The free plan has no end date. It includes everything except the features that move cards in bulk or out of the app: events, tags, notes, where you met, reminders, badge scanning, offline reading, duplicate detection, search, the map, Apple Contacts and vCard sharing. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) page lists every field Krane reads. Ten scans a week covers a card or two a day: a real estate agent collecting cards at showings, a recruiter meeting three candidates a week, anyone who saves contacts to Apple Contacts and calls from there. A drawer of old cards works too, 10 at a time over a few weeks. The week is rolling. Each scan uses one of the 10 for seven days from the moment you take it, then that slot frees up. Scan 10 cards on a Tuesday and you can scan again the next Tuesday. Card-after-card scanning, laying cards down one at a time under the camera, stops after three in a row per session. ## When Krane Pro pays for itself Krane Pro is for the week your cards have to go somewhere other than your phone. A trade show hands you 40 to 300 badges and cards in two or three days. The free plan's 10 scans are gone before the first coffee break. With Krane Pro there is no limit, and card-after-card scanning doesn't stop at three. For the pile left on the booth table at closing time, switch the camera to "Group of cards", spread them out and take one photo; Krane makes a contact for each card in the picture. If your leads have to be in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive the same day, CRM sync sends one card, a selection or the whole event. Turn on "Send new scans automatically" before the doors open and each scan goes out as you take it, so the follow-up email can leave before you fly home. For any other system, a webhook posts each card to Zapier, Make or n8n. If the event team wants a spreadsheet, CSV export gives them one file per event that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. The [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page walks through a show from the first badge to the CRM push. ## Monthly or yearly Choose monthly if your events come in a season: subscribe before the first show, cancel after the last, and your cards stay on the phone in between. Choose yearly if you are at conferences, meetups or showings all year, or if a CRM push every week is part of the job. The yearly plan costs less than twelve months of the monthly plan. Both renew until you cancel. ## How billing works Billing goes through the App Store, not through Krane. The subscription is charged to your Apple Account and renews at the end of each month or year unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends. To cancel, open the App Store's subscription settings on your iPhone and stop the renewal; Pro stays on until the period you paid for runs out. There is no free trial and no introductory price. The free plan, 10 scans a week, is how you try Krane before paying. One subscription covers your iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad when they use the same Apple Account. If Pro doesn't show up after a reinstall or on a new device, tap Restore purchases in the app's Settings. Krane Pro is not shared through Family Sharing, and there are no team or volume plans yet. Each person on a team subscribes on their own Apple Account. Your payment details stay with Apple; Krane never sees them. ## What Krane doesn't do Five limits to know before you subscribe. - **iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only.** There is no Android, Mac, Windows or web version. - **Encrypted badge codes can't be read.** Some shows lock their badge codes to their own lead retrieval app. Krane still saves the printed name, title, company and event. - **iOS 17.6 or later.** An iPhone that can't run iOS 17.6 can't install Krane. - **No web dashboard.** Your cards live on your iPhone and leave it through CSV export, CRM sync, Apple Contacts or a vCard. - **Free is 10 scans a week.** The free plan is a rolling 10-scan week, not unlimited scanning. What Krane collects and why is in the [privacy policy](/privacy/). ## Questions about pricing ### How much does Krane cost? Krane is free for 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year in the US; the App Store shows the price for your account and country. Pro adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync and automatic sending of new scans. ### Is there a free trial of Krane Pro? No. Krane Pro has no trial and no introductory price. The free plan is the way to try Krane: 10 scans a week with events, tags, notes, badges, offline reading and Apple Contacts, with no end date. When you need CRM sync or more scans, subscribe from inside the app. ### What happens when I use my 10 free scans? Krane tells you the week's scans are used up, and you can wait or subscribe. Each scan counts for seven days from when you took it, so the oldest one frees up first. Cards you have already scanned stay open: you can still search them, tag them, add them to Apple Contacts or share a vCard. ### Do I keep my cards if I cancel Krane Pro? Yes. Your cards are stored on your iPhone, not on a Krane server, and cancelling doesn't remove them. When the paid period ends the Pro features stop: no CRM sync, CSV export or group scan, and scanning returns to 10 a week. Everything already scanned stays searchable and can still go to Apple Contacts. ### How do I cancel? In the App Store, not in Krane. On your iPhone open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, choose Krane and tap Cancel Subscription. Do it at least 24 hours before the period ends to avoid the next charge. Pro stays on until the period you paid for runs out. ### Does one subscription work on my iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad? Yes, when both devices are signed in to the same Apple Account. Install Krane on the second device and, if Pro doesn't appear, tap Restore purchases in the app's Settings. Cards don't move between devices on their own; use the backup file to carry them over. ### Why does the App Store show a different price? Apple sets prices per country and currency. The figures on this page are the US prices; the App Store shows the price for the country of your Apple Account, and that is the amount you are charged. Check it on the subscription screen before you confirm. ### Is there a team or company plan? Not yet. Each person subscribes to Krane Pro on their own Apple Account, and there is no volume price. A team can still share one list: export each event's CSV, or set every phone to send new scans to the same HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive account. ### Can I share Krane Pro with my family? No. Krane Pro isn't offered through Apple's Family Sharing, so a family member's subscription doesn't carry over to your Apple Account. The free plan works on every iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad without a subscription. ### Do I need a Krane account to subscribe? No. There is no sign-up and no Krane account. You subscribe through the App Store with the Apple Account already on your phone, and the App Store handles payment, renewal and cancellation. Your cards and CRM tokens stay on your iPhone. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs Blinq URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/blinq/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Blinq is a digital business card with a scanner on its free plan. Krane reads cards on your iPhone and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Blinq is a digital business card you share by QR code or NFC, with a contact scanner on its free plan. Krane is a card and badge scanner for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad that sends what it reads to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. ## The short answer Pick Blinq if you want a digital card of your own and a scanner on a free plan with no stated scan limit. Pick Krane if you want the cards you collect in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, or in a CSV, without a team plan. On Blinq, CSV export is on Pro ($22.49 a month or $199 a year) and native CRM sync is on Business, priced per card with a five-card minimum, as listed on November 8, 2026. Krane Pro covers both for one person and reads each card on the iPhone with no signal. Blinq runs on Android, Mac and the web; Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Using both works: Blinq for your own card, Krane for the cards you're handed. ## When Blinq is the better pick - You want a digital card of your own. Blinq gives you two free, shared by QR code, NFC, Wallet pass or email signature. - You're on Android, or want a Mac app or a web dashboard. Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. - You run a team. Blinq Business has an admin platform, user provisioning and single sign-on through Okta, Entra ID or Google Workspace. - Your CRM is Dynamics 365, Zoho or GoHighLevel. Blinq lists native integrations for them; Krane reaches them only through a webhook or a CSV. Blinq's scanner is also on its free plan with no stated scan limit, and it sells contact enrichment that fills in missing emails and phones per lead. ## When Krane is the better pick - You want scans in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive as one person. Krane Pro sends them; Blinq puts native CRM sync on Business, five cards minimum. - You want a CSV. Krane Pro exports one event or all cards; on Blinq, CSV export starts at Pro. - You scan with no signal. Krane reads the card on the iPhone right away; Blinq queues the scan until you're online. - You don't want an account. Krane has no sign-up; cards and CRM tokens stay on the iPhone. - You collect cards in Japanese, Chinese or Korean. Krane reads almost any script; Blinq's pages don't say which languages its scanner reads. Krane is a scanner only, with no digital card to share. ## What Blinq is, and what Krane is 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. ## Scanning paper cards 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](/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. ## At trade shows and events 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](/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](/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. ## Getting contacts into your CRM 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. ## Price | Plan | Blinq | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | $0: two digital cards, unlimited sharing and contacts, the contact scanner | $0: 10 scans a week, events, badges, offline reading, Apple Contacts | | Paid plan | Premium $9.99 a month or $87.99 a year; Pro $22.49 a month or $199 a year; Business $6.99 per card a month, or $4.99 per card a month yearly, five cards minimum | Krane Pro $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year | | What the paid plan adds | Premium: five cards. Pro: CSV export. Business: native CRM sync, lead capture, team admin, single sign-on, per-lead enrichment | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, webhook), auto-send of new scans | 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](/pricing/)). The App Store shows the price for your account and country. ## Where your contacts live 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. ## Switching from Blinq to Krane Krane can't import a CSV, vCard or another app's export, so there is no transfer step. 1. Keep what's in Blinq. On Blinq Pro, export your contacts and notes as a CSV for your records; on Free or Premium, they stay in your Blinq account. 2. Install Krane on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. There is no sign-up. 3. Scan new cards with Krane from now on. At a show, start the event first so each card is filed under it. 4. If you kept photos of old cards, add them from the photo library, several at once. Each one becomes a contact. 5. With Krane Pro, connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, or export a CSV. If Blinq is your own card, keep it: Blinq for the card you hand out, Krane for the cards you collect. Other scanners are on the [all comparisons](/compare/) page. ## Questions about Krane and Blinq ### Is Krane a good Blinq alternative? For the scanner, yes: Krane reads cards and badges on the iPhone with no signal and, with Krane Pro, sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive or exports a CSV, with no team plan needed. For the digital card, no. Krane does not make a card for you to share, and it runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. ### Is Blinq free? Blinq has a free plan, as listed on November 8, 2026: up to two digital cards, unlimited sharing and contact creation, the contact scanner, Wallet passes and an email signature. CSV export needs Pro, and native CRM sync needs Business. Krane's free plan is 10 scans a week, with events, badge scanning and Apple Contacts included. ### Which is cheaper, Blinq or Krane? It depends on what you need. Blinq's scanner is on its free plan. If you want a CSV, Blinq Pro is $22.49 a month or $199 a year; for CRM sync, Business is $6.99 per card a month with a five-card minimum, as listed on November 8, 2026. Krane Pro, which includes CSV export and CRM sync, is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. ### Does Blinq scan business cards? Yes. Blinq's "Universal contact scanner" reads business cards, event badges and QR codes, and its pricing page and plan articles include it in the free plan. Blinq's pages don't say how it reads a card, which languages it handles, or whether it can read several cards in one photo. ### Which one works without internet? Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away, with no signal, and checks it again when you're back online. Blinq's support article says offline scans are queued on the device, and the contacts are created, enriched and synced once you're back online; it adds that availability depends on your plan. ### Can Blinq and Krane scan trade show badges? Both do. Blinq's scanner reads event badges, QR codes and name tags, and its Business plan adds a Lead Capture Mode and event campaigns. Krane reads the printed name, title, company, event, role and badge number plus QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes, on the free plan. Krane can't decode a badge code the show has encrypted; it keeps the printed details in that case. ### Which CRMs do Blinq and Krane connect to? Blinq lists Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, GoHighLevel and Outlook Contacts, on its Business and Enterprise plans, plus Zapier. Krane Pro connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive from the app and posts to a webhook for Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. Other CRMs reach Krane's data through the webhook or a CSV. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. There is no sign-up. Your cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, and the whole library backs up to one file you can restore any time. Krane Pro is a subscription billed through the App Store on your Apple Account. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only, and requires iOS 17.6 or later. There is no Android, Mac, Windows or web version. Blinq lists apps for iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision and Android, with a web dashboard, so if you need Android or a browser, Blinq is the one of the two that covers it. ### Can I move my contacts from Blinq to Krane? Not directly. Krane has no importer, so it can't read a CSV, vCard or Blinq export. Keep your Blinq contacts where they are, or export them as a CSV on Blinq Pro for your own records. From then on, scan new cards with Krane, and add photos of old cards from your photo library if you still have them. ### Can I use Blinq and Krane together? Yes, and they don't overlap much. Blinq carries your own digital card, shared by QR code, NFC or Wallet pass. Krane scans the cards and badges you're handed, files them under the event, and sends them to your CRM or a CSV. Keep your card in Blinq and your collected contacts in Krane. ### Does Blinq run on iPad? Blinq's App Store listing, checked November 8, 2026, names iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision and does not list iPad. Krane is a universal app and runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad with the same subscription on one Apple Account. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs CamCard URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/camcard/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > CamCard counts high-accuracy scans per plan; HubSpot needs its team edition. Krane Pro has no scan cap and sends cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. CamCard is INTSIG's card scanner and digital business card, sold as "CamCard AI Business Assistant" on iPhone, Android, Mac and the web. Krane scans cards and badges on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. ## The short answer Pick CamCard if you need Android, a Mac or web version, a digital card of your own, or a team database with an admin. Pick Krane if you scan badges at trade shows, want each show filed as its own event, or want HubSpot or Pipedrive sync for one person. CamCard's plans count "high-accuracy" scans: 5 a week on Basic, 200 a month on Premium, 1,000 a month on Pro. Krane Pro has one kind of scan and no cap. CamCard's Salesforce, Google and Outlook sync start on Premium; HubSpot, Dynamics and Zoho need CamCard Business, which is priced on request. Krane connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, and runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. ## When CamCard is the better pick - You're on Android, or want your contacts on a Mac, in a browser or on visionOS. Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. - You want a person to check your scans. CamCard's Artificial Proofreading has staff correct the data read from each card. - You want a digital card of your own. CamCard includes three free, with templates and email signatures. - You run a team. CamCard Business has a shared card database, role permissions and SSO, priced on request. - Your CRM is Dynamics, SugarCRM or Zoho. CamCard Business lists them; Krane reaches them only by webhook or CSV. Paid plans also export to Excel and vCard. ## When Krane is the better pick - You scan badges. Krane reads the printed badge and its QR, PDF417 or Aztec code; CamCard's pages don't mention badges. - You work several shows a year. Krane files each scan under its event; CamCard sorts cards into groups and tags. - You want no cap on scans. Krane Pro has none; CamCard counts high-accuracy scans on every plan. - You want HubSpot or Pipedrive as one person. Krane Pro sends to both; on CamCard, HubSpot needs the Business edition. - You don't want an account or ads. Krane has neither; cards and CRM tokens stay on the iPhone. Krane makes no digital card and has no Android, Mac or web version. ## What CamCard is, and what Krane is CamCard comes from INTSIG, the company behind CamScanner. Its App Store listing is now "CamCard AI Business Assistant" and leads with AI voice transcription of meetings and "AI Business Insights" about the companies you meet. Under that sit the card scanner, a digital business card with templates, email signatures and a lead capture form, and cloud sync across iPhone, Android, Mac and visionOS. A separate product, CamCard Business, adds a team database, admin controls and more CRM targets, with a web app and pricing on request. Krane does one job. It reads the cards and badges people hand you, on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, files them under the event you're at, and sends them to Apple Contacts, a CSV, or HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. There is no account; contacts stay on the device and back up to one file. The difference is in kind. CamCard is a business assistant with a scanner in it. Krane is the scanner. ## Scanning paper cards CamCard calls its reader AI card recognition with auto-correction, and its pricing page counts the reads. Basic lists "100 cards" and 5 high-accuracy AI scans a week. Premium lists unlimited cards and 200 high-accuracy scans a month; Pro lists 1,000. Its Artificial Proofreading option has people check and correct the data. CamCard's homepage says it supports 16 languages. You pick recognition languages in settings; its camera tips advise one to three, since more lower the recognition rate. Whether the individual app reads several cards in one frame, its pages don't say; bulk scanning from desktop scanners is a CamCard Business feature. 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 names in another script. Add the back of a card and both sides go into one contact. For a stack, hold the iPhone over the table and lay cards down one at a time. The [business card scanner](/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 Group of cards mode reads a whole spread from one photo. ## At trade shows and events CamCard's pages describe QR codes: scanning another person's CamCard QR code, and reading business cards through QR codes. They don't mention event badges or an event feature; cards are sorted into groups and tags. Whether the app reads a card with no signal is not stated. Krane's [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) reads the printed name, title, company, event name, badge role and badge number, and decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and other common barcodes. Contact data in the code is merged with the print into one contact. If the badge carries no email or phone, scan the person's card and it joins the same contact. Encrypted badge codes can't be decoded; Krane still saves the printed name, title, company and event. Krane's [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) runs on the free plan. Start an event when you reach the venue and every card and badge you scan is filed under it, with "Met at" and the event's tags filled in. The event screen lists its cards, companies and top tags, and with Krane Pro exports them in one go. Venue Wi-Fi is often weak, so Krane reads each card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. ## Getting contacts into your CRM CamCard's Premium and Pro plans sync to Salesforce, Google Contacts and Outlook. Premium caps Salesforce sync at 1,000 a month; Pro has no cap. HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Zoho are on CamCard Business, plus an Open API. CamCard's pages don't mention Zapier. Paid plans export Excel and vCard; CSV isn't listed. Krane sends to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, from the app, with your tokens stored on the iPhone. In HubSpot it creates a contact, or updates the one with the same email; the event, tags and notes stay in Krane. In Salesforce it creates a Lead or a Contact, sets LeadSource to "Krane" and writes the event, where you met, tags and notes into Description. In Pipedrive it creates a person, links or creates the organization named on the card, and adds a note "Scanned with Krane" with the position, event, tags and notes. Empty fields are never sent, so a push can't blank data in the CRM. A signed webhook posts each card as JSON to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. You can send one card, a selection, a whole event, or every new scan automatically. CSV export, of one event or all cards, opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. ## Price | Plan | CamCard | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | Basic: 100 cards, 5 high-accuracy scans a week, 3 digital cards, with ads | 10 scans a week, with events, badges, tags, notes and Apple Contacts | | Paid plan | Premium $9.99 a month or Pro $24.99 a month; CamCard Business priced on request | Krane Pro: $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US) | | What the paid plan adds | Unlimited cards; 200 (Premium) or 1,000 (Pro) high-accuracy scans a month; Salesforce, Google and Outlook sync; Excel and vCard export; backup; no ads | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and webhook sync, auto-send | CamCard's prices are as listed on its website on November 8, 2026. Its US App Store listing that day shows different in-app purchases ($4.49, $8.49, and $49.99 a year) without saying which plan each belongs to. Premium comes with a 3-day free trial. Krane Pro has no trial; try the free plan first. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. Krane's [pricing](/pricing/) page lists what each plan includes. ## Where your contacts live CamCard saves cards to its cloud server with 256-bit encryption, in data centers in America, Europe, Japan and China, so the same contacts appear on your phone, Mac and the web. Backup Contacts is a paid feature. Whether you must create an account to use the app, CamCard's current pages don't say. Krane has no account. Cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, and you back everything up to one file you can restore any time. CRM pushes go from the app straight to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. ## Switching from CamCard to Krane 1. Keep what's in CamCard. On a paid plan, export your contacts to Excel or vCard before it lapses. Krane has no importer, so that file is your archive; a vCard can be added to Apple Contacts. 2. Install Krane and scan the next card you're handed. There is no account to create, and the first 10 scans a week are free. 3. Add photos of old cards from your photo library, several at once. 4. With Krane Pro, connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive in Settings and turn on "Send new scans automatically" if you want each scan pushed as it lands. If you keep CamCard for your own digital card, run both: CamCard for the card you hand out, Krane for the cards you're handed. ## Questions about Krane and CamCard ### Is Krane a good CamCard alternative? For scanning the cards and badges you're handed, yes. Krane reads cards on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, files them by event, and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro. It has no digital card, no Android or Mac version and no team edition, so it does not replace those parts of CamCard. Other apps are on the [all comparisons](/compare/) page. ### Is CamCard free? CamCard's Basic plan is free. As listed on November 8, 2026, it includes 100 cards, 5 high-accuracy AI scans a week and up to 3 digital cards, and it shows ads. Export, CRM sync and backup are on the paid plans. Krane's free plan is 10 scans a week, with events, badges, tags, notes, reminders and Apple Contacts included. ### Which is cheaper, CamCard or Krane? CamCard's website lists Premium at $9.99 a month and Pro at $24.99 a month, as of November 8, 2026; its US App Store page lists $4.49, $8.49 and $49.99 a year without naming the plan for each. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). The App Store shows the price for your account and country, so compare there before you decide. ### Does CamCard scan business cards? Yes. Card scanning is where CamCard started, and it is still in the app alongside the digital card and the AI voice transcription. Its pricing page counts scans as "high-accuracy AI scans", 5 a week on Basic, 200 a month on Premium and 1,000 a month on Pro, and its Artificial Proofreading option has people check the data read from each card. ### Which one works without internet? Krane does. With no signal, Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online, so a scan never waits on venue Wi-Fi. CamCard's pages don't say whether the app reads a card offline, so if that matters to you, test it on the free plan before a show. ### Can CamCard and Krane scan trade show badges? Krane does. It reads the printed name, title, company, event name, badge role and badge number, and decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes. Encrypted codes can't be decoded; Krane still saves the printed details. CamCard's pages mention scanning QR codes, including another person's CamCard QR code, but don't mention event badges. ### Which CRMs do CamCard and Krane connect to? CamCard Premium and Pro sync to Salesforce, Google Contacts and Outlook. CamCard Business adds HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM and Zoho, with pricing on request. Krane connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, plus a signed webhook for Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. Other systems reach Krane's data through CSV, Apple Contacts or that webhook. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. Krane has no sign-up. Cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, and you back everything up to one file you can restore on a new device. Your Krane Pro subscription is tied to your Apple Account and can be restored from the app's Settings. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad with iOS 17.6 or later, and there is no Android, Mac, Windows or web version. CamCard has apps for iOS, Android, Mac and visionOS, and CamCard Business has a web app, so if you need the same contacts on an Android phone, CamCard is the one to pick. ### Can I move my contacts from CamCard to Krane? Not as a file. Krane has no importer for CSV, vCard or another app's export. Export your CamCard contacts to Excel or vCard on a paid plan to keep them, and scan new cards with Krane from now on. If you still have photos of old cards, add them from your photo library; Krane reads several at once. ### What is CamCard's high-accuracy scanning limit? As listed on November 8, 2026: 5 high-accuracy AI scans a week on Basic, 200 a month on Premium and 1,000 a month on Pro. Basic also lists "100 cards". Krane has one kind of scan, 10 a week free and no cap with Krane Pro. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs Covve URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/covve/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Both scan cards and badges. Covve sells per seat, with a team portal and no free plan. Krane is a one-person iPhone app with 10 free scans a week. Covve is a business card and badge scanner for lead capture, with a web portal for teams, on iOS, Android and the web. Krane is an iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad app that reads the cards and badges you collect and files them by event. ## The short answer Pick Covve if your team needs Android or Mac, a web portal to see everyone's leads, or Zoho CRM or Dynamics 365 as a native connection. Pick Krane if you scan on an iPhone, want a free plan, or need cards read with no signal at the venue. Covve has no free plan; its yearly plans start with a 14-day trial. Krane's free plan allows 10 scans a week with no account. Covve captures cards offline and finishes reading them once you reconnect; Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. On monthly price they are close: Covve Essential is $12 a seat, Krane Pro is $11.99. ## When Covve is the better pick - Your team isn't all on iPhone. Covve runs on iOS, iPadOS, Android, Mac (Apple silicon) and visionOS. Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. - You manage a team's leads. Covve Pro's web portal shows every lead, with live analytics per event; Enterprise adds SSO, audit logs and a 99.95% SLA. - You use Zoho CRM or Microsoft Dynamics 365. Covve syncs with both natively (an add-on on Pro, included in Enterprise). Krane has neither. - You scan cards in many languages. Covve detects 60+ automatically. - Your buyer asks where the data sits. Covve hosts in Germany and the Netherlands and lists ISO/IEC 27001 and a GDPR DPA. If a team shares the leads, or anyone on it uses Android, Covve covers more ground. ## When Krane is the better pick - You scan a few cards a week, or want to try before paying. Krane's free plan allows 10 scans a week; Covve has no free plan. - The venue has no signal. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away; Covve finishes reading when you reconnect. - The badge carries a code. Krane decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and merges them with the printed details. Covve's badge mode reads the printed text only. - You come back with a table of cards. Krane Pro's group scan reads a spread of cards from one photo. - You're one person on HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Krane Pro includes CRM sync; Covve's is an add-on on Pro. For one person scanning on an iPhone, Krane does the job without an account or a seat. ## What Covve is, and what Krane is Covve is a lead capture system built around the scan. The app reads business cards, QR codes and, on Pro, event badges, and a web portal shows a team every lead as it comes in. Native CRM sync, Zapier, a digital business card shared by QR code or NFC, voice capture for notes and an AI bio on each lead belong to the same product, sold per seat in Essential, Pro and Enterprise plans. Krane is a [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) for one person on an iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. One shot reads a card or badge into a contact with every field filled. Each scan is filed under the event you're at, with tags, notes and a follow-up reminder. Krane Pro sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook. There is no account, no portal and no card of your own to share. Both are scanners first. Covve is a team system on several platforms; Krane is a single-user iPhone app. ## Scanning paper cards Covve reads cards with its own model, trained on business cards. Its help center says scans made offline are saved to the device and complete once you're back online. It detects 60+ card languages automatically and reads a card with two languages on it in one scan. You can add the back side to each card. Whether Covve reads several cards from one photo, its pages don't say. After the 14-day trial on a yearly plan, you can't scan more cards until you pay. Krane reads each card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. Lay cards down one at a time under the camera; Krane shoots each one as soon as it is still and reads it while you lay down the next. The free plan allows 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week and three cards in a row per session. Krane Pro removes both limits and adds group scan, which reads a spread of cards from one photo. Krane reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and adds a Latin spelling to names written in another script. Add the back of a card and both sides are read into one contact. ## At trade shows and events Covve reads QR codes on every plan: a contact QR code becomes a lead, and a link-only code goes into the web field. Its badge mode, on Pro and above, reads the printed name, company and job title and does not read the QR code, so it works on badges whose code is locked to the organizer. Groups on every plan sort contacts by event; the Pro portal shows a team's capture per event live. Capture works offline; reading completes when you're back online. Krane reads the printed name, title, company and event from a badge, along with the role and badge number. If the badge carries a QR, PDF417 or Aztec code, Krane decodes it and merges the contact data with the printed details into one contact. Some shows encrypt their codes so only the official app can read them. Krane can't decode those; it still saves the printed name, title, company and event. Start an event when you arrive and every scan is filed under it, with "Met at" and the event's tags filled in. With no Wi-Fi, each badge is read on your iPhone right away. The [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) and [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) pages go into detail. ## Getting contacts into your CRM Covve syncs natively with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive and Microsoft Dynamics 365, with custom field mapping. Native sync is an add-on on Pro, at a price the pricing page doesn't show, and included in Enterprise. Outlook Contacts, Google Contacts and Zapier are in Essential. Covve's pages don't mention a generic webhook. Export is Excel or CSV, including Gmail- and Outlook-shaped layouts; a single contact can be shared as a vCard, but the export sheet has no vCard option. Krane Pro syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive for one person, with no add-on. HubSpot gets a contact with name, email, phones, company, title, website and address, updated if one with the same email exists. Salesforce gets a Lead or a Contact, with the event, where you met, tags and notes in the Description field. Pipedrive gets a person linked to their organization, plus a note carrying the position, event, tags and notes. Every new scan can be sent automatically. A signed webhook posts each card as JSON to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. CSV export covers one event or all cards. Tokens stay on your iPhone, and the app talks to your CRM directly. ## Price | Plan | Covve | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | None. Yearly Essential and Pro plans start with a 14-day trial; monthly plans start right away | 10 scans a week, with events and badges | | Paid plan | Essential: $12 a seat a month or $119 a seat a year. Pro: $20 a seat a month or $199 a seat a year. Enterprise: custom, billed yearly | Krane Pro: $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US) | | What the paid plan adds | Essential: scanning, groups, Zapier, Outlook and Google Contacts sync. Pro: badge mode, web portal, custom fields, branded digital card; native CRM sync as an add-on | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, webhook), auto-send | Covve's prices are as listed on covve.com on November 8, 2026, in US dollars before VAT. Krane Pro has no trial and no team plans; the free plan is the way to try it. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. See [pricing](/pricing/). ## Where your contacts live Covve stores captured contacts on your device and, when you have an account, backs them up to it. Without an account, its help center says, contacts stay on the device and are not backed up anywhere. An account adds backup, a second device, the digital card and team features. Covve hosts on Microsoft Azure Europe and Google data centers in Germany and the Netherlands and lists ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and a GDPR DPA. Krane has no account or sign-up. Cards and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, and you can back everything up to one file and restore it any time. A Krane Pro subscription on the same Apple Account works on your iPhone and iPad. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. The saved card stays on your device. ## Switching from Covve to Krane 1. Export your Covve contacts as Excel or CSV. Keep the file, or import it into your CRM, because Krane can't import a CSV, vCard or another app's export. 2. If Covve already syncs to your CRM, those records stay there. 3. Install Krane on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. There is no sign-up, and the first 10 scans a week are free. 4. If you have photos of old cards, add them from the photo library, several at once. Each one counts as a scan. 5. Scan new cards and badges with Krane from now on. Connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro. Contacts you already saved to Apple Contacts stay where they are. Both apps scan, so most people keep one; the exception is Covve's digital card, if you share one. Other scanners are covered under [all comparisons](/compare/). ## Questions about Krane and Covve ### Is Krane a good Covve alternative? For one person on an iPhone, yes. Krane reads business cards and badges, files them by event and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro, and 10 scans a week are free. It doesn't replace Covve's web portal, team analytics, Android app or digital card. A team that shares leads across several phones will find Covve closer to what it needs. ### Is Covve free? No. Covve's pricing page, as listed on November 8, 2026, has Essential at $12 a seat a month or $119 a year, Pro at $20 or $199, and a custom Enterprise plan. Yearly plans start with a 14-day trial. You can scan without an account, but there is no free tier. Krane's free plan allows 10 scans a week. ### Does Covve have a free plan? Its pricing page lists none. Yearly Essential and Pro plans begin with a 14-day free trial; monthly plans begin billing right away. When the trial ends, you can't scan more cards until you pay, but you keep access to every contact you captured during the trial. If you want to scan a few cards a week at no cost, Krane's free plan allows 10. ### Which is cheaper, Covve or Krane? Covve Essential is $12 a seat a month or $119 a year, and Pro is $20 or $199, as listed on covve.com on November 8, 2026, before VAT. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). The App Store shows the price for your account and country. If 10 scans a week is enough, Krane's free plan costs nothing. ### Does Covve scan business cards? Yes. Scanning business cards is Covve's main job. It reads cards with its own model trained on business cards, detects 60+ languages automatically, reads two-language cards in one scan and lets you add the back of a card. Offline, it saves the capture and completes the reading when you're back online. QR codes are read on every plan; event badges need Pro. ### Which one works without internet? Both capture offline; only Krane reads offline. With no connection, Krane reads the card or badge on your iPhone right away and marks it provisional, then checks it again when you're back online and upgrades the fields. Covve's help center says offline scans are saved to the device, queue up, and complete once you reconnect. ### Can Covve and Krane scan trade show badges? Both do. Covve's badge mode, on Pro and above, reads the printed name, company and job title and does not read the QR code, so it works on organizer-locked badges. Krane reads the printed name, title, company, event, role and badge number, and also decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and merges their contact data into the same contact. Krane can't decode encrypted codes; the printed details are still saved. ### Which CRMs do Covve and Krane connect to? Covve syncs natively with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive and Microsoft Dynamics 365 as an add-on on Pro, included in Enterprise, plus Outlook Contacts, Google Contacts and Zapier from Essential. Krane Pro syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with no add-on, and posts a signed webhook to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. Krane has no Zoho or Dynamics 365 connector. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. Krane has no sign-up. Your cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, and you can back everything up to a single file and restore it any time. Krane Pro is billed through the App Store on your Apple Account and works on your iPhone and iPad. Covve also scans without an account, but needs one for backup, a second device, its digital card and teams. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad with iOS 17.6 or later. There is no Android, Mac, web or Windows version. Covve runs on iOS, iPadOS, Android, Mac with Apple silicon and visionOS, with a web portal on Pro. If anyone on your team uses Android, Covve is the one that covers everyone. ### Can I move my contacts from Covve to Krane? Not as a file. Krane has no importer for CSV, vCard or another app's export. Export your contacts from Covve as Excel or CSV and keep the file or load it into your CRM. If you still have photos of the cards, add them to Krane from the photo library, several at once, and Krane reads them like new scans. ### Can I use Covve and Krane together? You can, though they overlap. Both read the cards and badges you're handed, so running both means two lists. Nothing links the two apps. The case for keeping both is Covve's digital business card, which Krane doesn't have: share your own card from Covve, scan the ones you collect with Krane. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs Haystack URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/haystack/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Haystack is a free digital card with unlimited card scans. Krane reads badges, files cards by event and syncs to Pipedrive. Which one fits your work. Haystack is a free digital business card for people and companies, with an unlimited card scanner built in. Krane is a scanner for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, built for badges, events and CRM sync. ## The short answer Pick Haystack if you want a digital card to hand out and a free way to scan the paper cards you get back; its free plan scans unlimited cards. Pick Krane if you work trade shows: it reads badge codes, files every scan under the event, reads with no signal and sends contacts to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro. Haystack is also the choice for Android, for a web contacts app, or for a company rolling cards out to staff through HR sync and single sign-on. Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, needs no account, and keeps your cards on the device. If you scan a few cards a month and never export them, Haystack free may be all you need. ## When Haystack is the better pick - You scan more than 10 cards a week and don't want to pay. Haystack's Personal plan lists unlimited card scans, as of November 8, 2026. - You want your own digital card. Haystack's is free, shared by QR code, link, email, text message or NFC; the other person doesn't need the app. - You use Android, or want a web contacts app as well as the phone. - Your company is rolling cards out to staff. Haystack has an admin dashboard, HR sync with Entra ID, Google Workspace, Workday and SAP, and Google or Microsoft single sign-on. If the card you hand out matters as much as the cards you collect, Haystack covers both and Krane covers one. ## When Krane is the better pick - You collect badges. Krane reads the QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes on badges and merges them with the printed name, title and company. Haystack's pages don't mention badge scanning. - You want each show's contacts in one list. Start an event and every scan is filed under it, with where you met and the event's tags filled in. - The venue has no signal. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. - You use Pipedrive, or don't want an account. Krane syncs to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, and never asks you to sign up. These matter most to someone who comes home from a show with 100 badges. ## What Haystack is, and what Krane is Haystack is a digital business card platform. Its core is the card you share: by QR code, link, email, text message or NFC, to people who don't need the app, with an email signature to match. Companies roll it out through an admin dashboard, HR sync and single sign-on, and admins can see the cards employees share with the company. The paper card scanner is one feature of that platform, included in the free plan. Krane is a scanner. It reads business cards and event badges on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, files them under the event you are at, and gets them out again: to Apple Contacts, a vCard, a CSV file or a CRM. It has no digital card to hand out, no web app and no team dashboard. The difference is in kind: Haystack is a card you give, with a scanner attached. Krane is a [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) for the cards and badges you are given. ## Scanning paper cards Haystack reads a photo of one card, one or both sides; its help center says it uses optical character recognition. You confirm the email, then can send the person your own digital card. Its FAQ says it reads cards in more than 25 languages. Haystack's pages don't say whether the reading happens on the phone or on a server, and don't mention scanning several cards in one photo. Krane's camera has two modes. "Card or badge" shoots each card as soon as it is still, so you lay cards on the table one after another and it reads each while you set down the next. Free users can scan three in a row per session. "Group of cards", with Krane Pro, reads a whole spread from one photo. Add the back of a card and both sides go into one contact. Krane reads almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and adds a Latin spelling for names in another script. The scan limits differ most. Haystack's Personal plan lists unlimited card scans. Krane is free for 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week; Krane Pro removes the limit. Someone who scans 30 cards once a month and never exports them pays nothing with Haystack and hits Krane's free limit at the tenth card. ## At trade shows and events Show badges carry a code, usually QR, PDF417 or Aztec, and the printed name, title and company. Krane reads both and saves one contact. If the code holds a vCard, an email or a phone, it is merged with the printed details; if it holds only an attendee number, you still get the name, title and company from the print. Some shows encrypt their badge codes so only the official lead retrieval app can read them. Krane can't decode those, and still saves the printed name, title, company and event. Haystack's pages don't mention badge scanning or reading other people's QR codes. In Krane you start an event when you arrive, and every card and badge is filed under it, with "Met at" and the event's tags filled in. The event screen lists its cards and companies and exports them in one go. Haystack groups scanned cards with hashtags in the notes and sorts by company; its pages don't describe an event feature. Krane reads each card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. Haystack's pages don't say how it behaves with no connection. The [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) page lists every code type Krane reads; [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) covers the booth day. ## Getting contacts into your CRM Haystack connects to Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and HubSpot on a paid plan. Its FAQ says Business and Enterprise; its pricing page lists CRM integrations from Pro, so check the plan before you buy. It also lists Zapier, webhooks and a public REST API, without saying which plan includes them. CSV or Excel export, of all contacts, the last 30 days or a date range, is on paid plans only. Krane syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, straight from the app; the tokens stay on your iPhone. HubSpot gets a contact, updated if one with the same email exists. Salesforce gets a Lead or a Contact, your choice, with 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 and your tags. The webhook posts each card as JSON to a URL you choose (Zapier, Make, n8n), signed with a shared secret. Send one card, a selection, a whole event, or every new scan automatically. CSV export, of one event or all cards, is also Pro. Krane doesn't connect to Dynamics 365, and Haystack doesn't list Pipedrive. ## Price Haystack's prices, as listed on November 8, 2026: Personal is free. Pro is $7.95 per user a month, or $4.50 per user a month billed annually. Business is $4.95 per user a month, or $2.50 billed annually, each with a 14-day trial. Enterprise is usage based, through sales. The pricing page shows a dollar sign without naming the currency. Krane is free for 10 scans a week. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US), billed through the App Store, with no trial; the free plan is how you try it. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. The [pricing](/pricing/) page lists everything Pro adds. | Plan | Haystack | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | Personal: unlimited cards, shares and card scans; no CSV export or CRM | 10 scans a week; events, badges, offline reading, Apple Contacts | | Paid plan | Pro $7.95/user/mo or $4.50/user/mo annual; Business $4.95/user/mo or $2.50/user/mo annual (as listed November 8, 2026) | Krane Pro $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US) | | What the paid plan adds | CSV export, CRM integrations; teams and admin on Business | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync, auto-send | ## Where your contacts live Haystack keeps contacts in a cloud account, synced across your devices and the web, with automatic backup. Its help pages don't name the provider or the region. Its pricing page lists a SOC 2 Type II report, and its FAQ says it doesn't sell data to third parties. Its App Store privacy label lists contact info, contacts, user content, identifiers and usage data as linked to you. Krane has no account. Cards and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, and you back everything up to one file you can restore on a new device. There is no cloud sync between an iPhone and an iPad; you move cards with that file. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. Krane's privacy label lists device ID, product interaction and purchase history. ## Switching from Haystack to Krane Krane has no importer, so it can't read a Haystack export, a CSV or a vCard file. What you move is the habit. 1. Keep what you have in Haystack. Export a CSV from the app's settings if you're on a paid plan, or leave the contacts in your account. 2. Install Krane on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. There is no account to create. 3. Scan new cards with Krane from now on. At a show, start the event first. 4. Photos of old cards in your photo library can be added to Krane, several at a time. 5. Contacts you already saved to Apple Contacts stay there. You can also run both: Haystack for the card you hand out, Krane for the badges and cards you bring home. Other apps are on the [all comparisons](/compare/) page. ## Questions about Krane and Haystack ### Is Krane a good Haystack alternative? For the scanning side, yes if you work events: Krane reads badges, files scans by event, reads with no signal and syncs to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro. It doesn't replace Haystack's digital card, because Krane has none. And Haystack's free plan scans unlimited cards where Krane's free plan stops at 10 a week. ### Is Haystack free? Haystack's Personal plan is free and, as listed on November 8, 2026, includes unlimited cards, card shares and card scans. CSV export and CRM integrations need a paid plan, Pro or Business, each with a 14-day trial. Krane is free for 10 scans a week, with export and CRM sync in Krane Pro. ### Which is cheaper, Haystack or Krane? Both have a free plan. For paid plans, Haystack lists Pro at $7.95 per user a month, or $4.50 billed annually, and Business at $4.95 or $2.50, as of November 8, 2026. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US); the App Store shows the price for your account and country. Which costs less for you depends on how much you scan and if you need export. ### Does Haystack scan business cards? Yes. The Haystack app photographs a card, one or both sides, and reads the details with optical character recognition; its FAQ says it handles more than 25 languages. Scans are unlimited on the free Personal plan. Its pages don't mention scanning several cards in one photo or reading badges. ### Which one works without internet? Krane reads each card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online, so a hall with no signal doesn't stop the line at your booth. Everything else in Krane, from events to Apple Contacts, works offline too. Haystack's pages don't say how it behaves with no connection. ### Can Haystack and Krane scan trade show badges? Krane does. It reads the QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes on badges, plus the printed name, title, company and event, and merges them into one contact. Encrypted badge codes can't be decoded, and Krane still saves the printed details. Haystack's pages don't mention badge scanning. ### Which CRMs do Haystack and Krane connect to? Haystack lists Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and HubSpot on paid plans, plus Zapier, webhooks and a REST API. Krane connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive with Krane Pro, and posts to any webhook URL, so Zapier, Make and n8n work. Krane doesn't connect to Dynamics 365; Haystack doesn't list Pipedrive. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. You install Krane and scan; there is nothing to sign up for. Cards and CRM tokens stay on your iPhone, and you back everything up to one file. Haystack's help pages say contacts are saved in your Haystack account and synced across devices and the web. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only, with iOS 17.6 or later. There is no Android, web or desktop version. Haystack has an Android app and a web contacts app, which is a reason to pick it for a team on mixed phones. ### Can I move my contacts from Haystack to Krane? Not by import. Krane can't read a CSV, a vCard or another app's export. Keep your Haystack contacts where they are, or export a CSV on a paid plan, scan new cards with Krane, and add photos of old cards from your photo library. Contacts you saved to Apple Contacts stay there. ### Is Haystack's card scanner really free? By Haystack's pricing page on November 8, 2026, yes: the Personal plan lists "AI card scanner (unlimited)". What isn't free is getting the contacts out, as a CSV or into a CRM; both need a paid plan. The App Store listing shows no in-app purchases for the Haystack app. ### Can I use Haystack and Krane together? Yes, and they don't overlap much. Haystack gives you a card to share by QR code or link. Krane reads the cards and badges other people give you, files them by event and sends them to your CRM with Krane Pro. Nothing links the two apps; each keeps its own contacts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs HiHello URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/hihello/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > HiHello is a digital card app with a metered scanner. Krane reads the cards and badges you collect, with no signal, 10 free a week. Which fits your job. HiHello is a digital business card you share by QR code, NFC or email signature, with a card scanner included on every plan. Krane is an iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad app for reading the business cards and badges other people hand you. ## The short answer Pick HiHello if you want a digital card of your own, run a team that needs admin controls, or work on Android or the web. Pick Krane if your main job is reading other people's cards and badges, especially at trade shows, and getting them into HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. HiHello's free plan includes 5 paper card scans a month; Krane's free plan includes 10 a week. HiHello needs a connection to scan a paper card. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. HiHello's native CRM sync starts at its Business plan, with a 5-seat minimum; Krane Pro syncs for one person. Many people will want both: HiHello for their own card, Krane for the cards they collect. ## When HiHello is the better pick - You want a digital card of your own. HiHello shares it by QR code, link, NFC or Apple and Google Wallet; the person you meet needs no app. Krane has no digital card. - You or your team use Android or the web. HiHello runs on iOS, iPadOS, Apple Watch, visionOS, Android and the web. Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. - You manage a team. HiHello's Business plan adds an admin dashboard, a company directory and pooled scan allowances; Enterprise adds SAML SSO and SCIM. - You want scanned contacts filled out further. HiHello's Professional plan and up adds a title, company and LinkedIn profile. If sharing your own card is the main job, start with HiHello. ## When Krane is the better pick - You collect cards and badges at shows. Krane files each scan under the event and merges QR, PDF417 and Aztec badge codes with the printed badge. - The venue has no signal. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. - You use Pipedrive, or you're one person on HubSpot or Salesforce. Krane Pro syncs with all three without a team plan. HiHello's native sync needs Business, 5 seats minimum, and doesn't list Pipedrive. - You scan more than 20 cards a month. Krane's free plan allows 10 a week; Krane Pro has no limit. If most of the cards you handle are other people's, Krane is built for that. ## What HiHello is, and what Krane is HiHello is built around your own card. You make a digital card, share it by QR code, NFC, link or Wallet pass, and add a matching email signature. Its Universal Contact Scanner is part of the same app: it reads paper cards, badges and QR codes into your HiHello account, and each plan allows a set number of scans a month. Business and Enterprise plans add team admin, a company directory and SSO. Krane is a [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/). One shot reads a card or badge into a contact with every field filled: name, title, company, labeled phones, emails, websites, social profiles and street address. It files scans by event, adds tags, notes and follow-up reminders, and with Krane Pro sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook. Krane has no card of yours to share; a scanned contact can be passed on as a vCard. HiHello is a digital card app that also scans. Krane is a scanner for the cards you're handed. ## Scanning paper cards HiHello's App Store listing says it uses AI to turn paper cards into contacts. Scanning needs a network connection. Scans are metered by plan: 5 a month on the free Personal plan, 20 a month on Professional (unlimited with a paid add-on), 50 per user a month, pooled, on Business, and unlimited on Enterprise. You can scan a stack of up to roughly 100 cards in one sitting or upload existing photos in bulk on any plan; each card counts against the month's quota. HiHello's pages don't say which card languages it reads, or whether it reads the back of a card. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. Hold the phone over the table and lay cards down one at a time: Krane shoots each card as soon as it is still and reads it while you lay down the next. The free plan allows 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week and three cards in a row per session. Krane Pro removes both limits and adds group scan, which reads a whole spread of cards from one photo. Krane reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and adds a Latin spelling to names in another script. Add the back of a card and both sides go into one contact. ## At trade shows and events Krane reads badges as well as cards. Point the camera at a badge and it saves the printed name, title, company and event, the badge role and the badge number. If the badge carries a QR, PDF417 or Aztec code, Krane decodes it and merges the contact data in the code with the printed details into one contact. Some shows encrypt their badge codes so only the official lead retrieval app can read them. Krane can't decode those, but it still saves the printed name, title, company and event. Start an event when you arrive and every scan is filed under it, with "Met at" and the event's tags filled in. On a show floor with no usable Wi-Fi, each card or badge is read on your iPhone right away and checked again when you're back online. The [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) and [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) pages cover this in detail. HiHello scans event badges and QR codes too, and badge scans share the paper-card quota of your plan. Its event lead capture auto-tags contacts by event, and lead capture forms are listed on the Business plan. Scanning a paper card needs a connection, per HiHello's help center; sharing your own card by QR code works offline. ## Getting contacts into your CRM HiHello syncs natively with Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics 365 on its Business and Enterprise plans; Business has a 5-seat minimum. Its FAQ adds Marketo on Enterprise. Google Contacts and Outlook sync are listed. Zapier has one trigger, "New Contact", and a real-time contact webhook is an Enterprise feature. Contacts export as a spreadsheet emailed to you; the file format isn't stated. Pipedrive isn't among the native CRMs. Krane Pro syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive for one person. HubSpot gets a contact with name, email, phones, company, title, website and address, updated if one with the same email exists. 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 their organization, plus a note carrying the position, event, tags and notes. Send one card, a selection, a whole event, or every new scan automatically. A signed webhook posts each card as JSON to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. CSV export covers one event or all cards and opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. Tokens stay on your iPhone, and the app talks to your CRM directly. ## Price | Plan | HiHello | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | Personal: 2 digital cards, 5 paper card or badge scans a month | 10 scans a week, with events, badges and offline reading | | Paid plan | Professional: $6 a month billed yearly ($72 a year) or $8 monthly, 1 user. Business: $5 per user a month billed yearly, 5-seat minimum | Krane Pro: $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US) | | What the paid plan adds | Professional: 20 scans a month (unlimited with an add-on), contact enrichment. Business: 50 scans per user a month, native CRM sync, admin dashboard | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, webhook), auto-send | HiHello's prices are as listed on hihello.com on November 8, 2026; its App Store in-app prices differ (Professional $9.00 a month or $84.00 a year). Business has a 14-day trial. Krane Pro has no trial and no team plans; the free plan is the way to try it. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. See [pricing](/pricing/). ## Where your contacts live HiHello keeps your contacts in your HiHello account, which you sign into with Google, Microsoft or Apple. That is what puts them on the web and on Android as well as your phone. HiHello's FAQ lists SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and the EU-US, UK and Swiss-US Data Privacy Frameworks, and says it does not sell customer data. Where the data is stored isn't stated. Krane has no account or sign-up. Cards and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, and you can back everything up to one file and restore it any time. A Krane Pro subscription on the same Apple Account works on your iPhone and iPad. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. The saved card stays on your device. ## Switching from HiHello to Krane 1. Export your HiHello contacts from Settings > Export Contacts. HiHello emails you a spreadsheet. Keep it, or import it into your CRM, because Krane can't import a CSV, vCard or another app's export. 2. Keep HiHello if you use its digital card. The two apps do different jobs and don't get in each other's way. 3. Install Krane on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. There is no sign-up, and the first 10 scans a week are free. 4. If you have photos of old cards, add them from the photo library, several at once. Each one counts as a scan. 5. Scan new cards and badges with Krane from now on. Connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro when you want them pushed to the CRM. Contacts you already saved to Apple Contacts stay where they are; other scanners are covered under [all comparisons](/compare/). ## Questions about Krane and HiHello ### Is Krane a good HiHello alternative? For the scanning half, yes. Krane reads business cards and event badges on an iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, files them by event and sends them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro. It doesn't replace HiHello's digital card, email signature or team directory. If you use HiHello mainly to share your own card, keep it and add Krane for the cards you collect. ### Is HiHello free? HiHello has a free Personal plan, as listed on its pricing page on November 8, 2026. It includes 2 digital cards, 5 paper card or badge scans a month, sharing by QR code, widget, email, SMS and WhatsApp, Apple and Google Wallet passes and an email signature. More scans, contact enrichment and native CRM sync need a paid plan. ### Which is cheaper, HiHello or Krane? HiHello's Professional plan is $6 a month billed yearly or $8 monthly on its website, as listed on November 8, 2026, with 20 scans a month; its App Store prices are $9.00 a month or $84.00 a year. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US) with unlimited scans. The App Store shows the price for your account and country. If 10 scans a week is enough, Krane's free plan costs nothing. ### Does HiHello scan business cards? Yes. HiHello's Universal Contact Scanner is on every plan and reads paper business cards, event badges and QR codes into your HiHello account. The App Store listing says it uses AI, with edge detection and auto-capture. Scans are metered: 5 a month on the free plan, 20 on Professional, 50 per user on Business, unlimited on Enterprise. It also scans stacks of up to roughly 100 cards in one sitting. ### Which one works without internet? Krane does. With no connection, it reads the card or badge on your iPhone right away and marks it provisional, then checks it again when you're back online and upgrades the fields. HiHello's help center says you cannot scan a paper business card without a network connection, though you can still share your own HiHello card by QR code offline. ### Can HiHello and Krane scan trade show badges? Both do. HiHello scans event badges and QR codes, and those scans share the paper-card quota of your plan. Krane reads the printed name, title, company, event, role and badge number, decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and merges them into one contact. Encrypted badge codes can't be decoded by Krane; the printed details are still saved. ### Which CRMs do HiHello and Krane connect to? HiHello syncs natively with Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics 365 on its Business and Enterprise plans, with Marketo on Enterprise, and offers a Zapier trigger and an Enterprise webhook. Krane Pro syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive for a single user, and posts a signed webhook to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. Krane has no Dynamics 365 connector today. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. Krane has no sign-up. Your cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, and you can back everything up to a single file and restore it any time. Krane Pro is billed through the App Store on your Apple Account, and a subscription works on your iPhone and iPad. HiHello, by contrast, needs a sign-in with Google, Microsoft or Apple. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad with iOS 17.6 or later, and there is no Android, web or desktop version. HiHello runs on iOS, iPadOS, Apple Watch, visionOS, Android and the web. If anyone on your team uses Android, HiHello is the one that covers everyone. ### Can I move my contacts from HiHello to Krane? Not as a file. Krane has no importer for CSV, vCard or another app's export. Export your contacts from HiHello (Settings > Export Contacts) and keep the spreadsheet or load it into your CRM. If you still have photos of the cards, add them to Krane from the photo library, several at once, and Krane reads them like new scans. ### Can I use HiHello and Krane together? Yes. They do different jobs. HiHello carries your own card, email signature and team directory; Krane reads the cards and badges people hand you, files them by event and sends them to your CRM. Nothing links the two apps, so a card you scan in Krane doesn't appear in HiHello, and the reverse. Each keeps its own list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane vs Popl URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/popl/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Popl is a team lead-capture platform with pricing quoted on a call. Krane is a one-person card and badge scanner with a listed price. Where each one fits. Popl is a lead-capture and digital-card platform for sales teams, with team pricing quoted on a call. Krane is a business card and badge scanner for one person on an iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, with a listed price and no account. ## The short answer Pick Popl if you run a booth team that needs an admin dashboard, an Android app, or a CRM other than HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Pick Krane if you scan cards and badges yourself and want the contacts on your iPhone and in your CRM, at a price listed in the App Store. Popl's team plan is priced over a meeting; its individual Pro plans limit badge scanning to a five-scan trial. Krane scans badges free, reads 10 cards a week free, and Krane Pro adds unlimited scans, CSV export and CRM sync. If you want a digital card to hand out by QR code or NFC tap, that is Popl's product. Other scanner apps are on the [all comparisons](/compare/) page. ## When Popl is the better pick - Your team carries Android phones. Popl has an Android app and a web dashboard; Krane runs only on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. - Your CRM is Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho or monday.com. Popl lists 30+ integrations with custom field mapping. - You manage the booth team. Popl's team plan has an admin dashboard, reassignable licenses, lead routing by owner and a dedicated customer success manager. - You want a digital card of your own. Popl sells NFC cards and puts a QR card in Apple Wallet. - You want each lead enriched. Popl adds data from 20+ partners once the scan syncs. For a 20-person team on Dynamics, Popl is built for the job and Krane isn't. ## When Krane is the better pick - You want the price before you talk to anyone. Krane Pro is listed in the App Store. - You scan badges but don't run a team. Badge scanning is free in Krane; in Popl it comes with the team plan. - You don't want an account. Krane stores cards on your iPhone with no sign-in. - You export from your phone. Krane Pro writes a CSV from the event screen; Popl exports from its web dashboard. - You scan cards in Japanese, Chinese or Korean. Krane reads them and adds a Latin spelling of the name. If you are one rep, or a few people each on their own phone, Krane does the job with nothing to roll out. ## What Popl is, and what Krane is Popl is a digital business card and a lead-capture platform. The card side is a profile you share by QR code, NFC tap or Apple Wallet, with a card designer, email signatures and widgets; Popl sells physical NFC cards to go with it. The App Store now titles the app "Popl: AI Lead Capture", and the team plan is where that happens: a badge scanner, a paper card scanner, event campaigns, qualifying questions, lead routing, reporting and sync to 30+ CRMs, run from a web dashboard. Leads live in your Popl account. Krane is a scanner. You point an iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad at a paper card or an event badge and get a contact with every field filled. Each card is filed under the event you're at, and with Krane Pro it goes to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook from the phone. There is no account and no dashboard. ## Scanning paper cards Popl's app reads a paper card with AI OCR, creates a contact and looks the person up on LinkedIn. You can also upload card photos from your camera roll. Popl's pages don't say whether the read happens on the phone or on its servers, and they don't give scan limits per plan, a list of card languages, or whether it reads several cards from one photo. The App Store lists English as the app's only language. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online. The fields are name, job title, company, phone numbers labelled mobile, work, fax and other, email addresses, websites, social profiles and street address. It reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean; a name in a non-Latin script gets a Latin spelling added. Photograph the back of a card and both sides merge into one contact. The app itself runs in eight languages. For a stack of cards, hold the phone over the table and lay them down one at a time; Krane shoots each card as soon as it is still. Free users can scan three in a row per session. With Krane Pro, the Group of cards mode reads a whole spread from one photo. The free plan reads 10 cards or badges per rolling seven-day week; Krane Pro removes the limit. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) page lists every field. ## At trade shows and events Popl's Universal Badge Scanner photographs the printed badge and reads the name and company from the print. Popl's help says scanning only the QR code will not work, which is why it works at shows that encrypt their codes. The scanner is on the team Event Lead Capture plan; individual Pro and Pro Plus users get five scans as a lifetime trial. Leads are stored on the device with no signal, enriched when service returns, and synced to the CRM. Krane's [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) is free. It reads the printed name, title, company and event, decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes, and merges any contact data in the code with the print. Encrypted badge codes can't be decoded; Krane still saves the printed details, and if the person hands you a card, it joins the same contact. Start an event when you reach the venue and every scan is filed under it, with where you met and the event's tags filled in. With no signal, the card is read on the iPhone and checked again online. The event screen lists its cards, companies and top tags and exports them in one go. A full show day is on the [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page. ## Getting contacts into your CRM Popl's team plans sync to Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, monday.com, Slack and others, 30+ in all, with custom field mapping and duplicate matching, at no extra fee. Popl's pages don't make clear what the individual plans include here, and the pages we checked don't mention Zapier or a webhook. CSV export runs from the web dashboard; Popl's own help article gives two different plan requirements for it. Krane Pro sends cards from the phone, with your tokens stored on it and no Krane server in between. HubSpot gets a contact, updated if one with the same email exists. Salesforce gets a Lead or a Contact, your choice, with the event, tags and notes in the Description field. Pipedrive gets a person linked to an organization named after the card's company, plus a note carrying the event and tags. The webhook posts each card as JSON to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server, signed with HMAC-SHA256 when you set a secret. Empty fields are never sent, so a push can't blank data already in the CRM. Send one card, a whole event, or every new scan automatically. CSV export covers one event or all cards. ## Price Popl doesn't publish team pricing. Its pricing page says it quotes over a meeting, and that team plans aren't priced per seat and carry no per-scan fees. Its App Store listing shows the individual plans as in-app purchases: Popl Pro $7.99 and Popl Pro Plus $14.99, with yearly options at $76.99 and $144.99, as listed on November 8, 2026. The listing doesn't label the period of the two non-yearly prices. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). The App Store shows the price for your account and country. What each plan includes is on the [pricing](/pricing/) page. | Plan | Popl | Krane | |---|---|---| | Free plan | Free download; free individual plan for sharing your digital card. Scanner limits not published. | 10 scans per rolling 7-day week, badges included. | | Paid plan | Popl Pro $7.99, Pro Plus $14.99; yearly $76.99 and $144.99 (App Store, November 8, 2026). Team plans quoted on a call. | Krane Pro: $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). | | What the paid plan adds | Pro and Pro Plus: five badge scans, lifetime trial. Team plan: badge scanner, 30+ CRMs, admin dashboard. | Unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync, auto-send. | ## Where your contacts live Popl works from an account. Leads go to your Popl account and its web dashboard, where a team admin can see them and run exports. Popl's pricing page states SOC 2 Type 2; its pages don't say where the data is stored. The App Store privacy label lists a device ID linked to you, used for analytics. Krane has no account and no sign-up. Cards, events and your CRM tokens stay on the iPhone. You can back everything up to one file and restore it any time. Each card is read on your iPhone first, right away, and checked again when you're back online. The app has no ad SDK and no third-party analytics SDK. ## Switching from Popl to Krane Krane has no importer. It can't read a CSV, a vCard file or Popl's export, so the move starts from the day you switch. 1. Export your Popl leads from the web dashboard as a CSV, or sync them to your CRM, so you keep what you have. 2. Install Krane on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad. There is nothing to sign up for. 3. Scan new cards and badges with Krane from now on. Start an event at your next show so each scan is filed under it. 4. If you photographed old cards, add the photos from your library; Krane reads them like a live scan. 5. With Krane Pro, connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive and turn on Send new scans automatically. If you use Popl for your own digital card, keep it and use Krane for the cards people hand you; the two jobs don't overlap. ## Questions about Krane and Popl ### Is Krane a good Popl alternative? For one person scanning cards and badges on an iPhone, yes: a listed price, free badge scanning, no account, and HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive sync with Krane Pro. It does not replace Popl's team plan or its digital card. If you need an admin dashboard, Android, Marketo or Dynamics, or an NFC card, stay with Popl. ### Is Popl free? The Popl app is free to download, and Popl's pages describe a free individual plan for sharing your digital card. They don't publish scan limits for the free plan. Badge scanning is on the team plan; individual Pro users get five scans as a lifetime trial. Krane's free plan reads 10 cards or badges per rolling seven-day week, badges included. ### Which is cheaper, Popl or Krane? It depends on the plan. Popl's App Store listing shows Popl Pro at $7.99 and Popl Pro Plus at $14.99, with yearly options at $76.99 and $144.99, as listed on November 8, 2026; team pricing is quoted on a call. Krane Pro is $11.99 a month or $95.99 a year (US). The App Store shows the price for your account and country. Compare what each plan includes before the number. ### Does Popl scan business cards? Yes. Popl's app reads a paper card with AI OCR, creates a contact and looks the person up on LinkedIn, and you can upload card photos from your camera roll. Popl's pages don't publish scan limits per plan, a list of card languages, or whether it reads several cards at once. Krane reads cards in almost any script, both sides, and a spread of cards from one photo with Krane Pro. ### Which one works without internet? Both capture with no signal. Popl stores leads on the device and enriches and syncs them once service returns. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away, marks it provisional, and checks it again when you're back online, so the contact is usable at once. Krane's CRM pushes wait for a connection too. ### Can Popl and Krane scan trade show badges? Both do, in different ways. Popl's Universal Badge Scanner reads the printed badge rather than the QR code, so it works at shows with encrypted codes; it is on the team Event Lead Capture plan, with a five-scan lifetime trial on individual Pro. Krane reads the print and decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes where they aren't encrypted, free. With an encrypted code Krane still saves the printed name, title, company and event. ### Which CRMs do Popl and Krane connect to? Popl lists 30+ integrations on its team plans, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, monday.com and Slack, with custom field mapping. Krane Pro connects to HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive from the phone, and posts to any webhook URL, which reaches Zapier, Make and n8n. Outlook, Dynamics 365, Slack and monday.com connections are coming soon to Krane. ### Do I need an account to use Krane? No. You install Krane and scan. Cards, events and CRM tokens are stored on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, and the backup is one file you keep where you like. Popl works from an account: leads sync to your Popl dashboard, which is also where exports run. ### Does Krane work on Android? No. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, requires iOS 17.6 or later, and has no Android, Windows, Mac or web version. Popl has an Android app and a web dashboard. If part of your team carries Android phones, Popl is the one that covers everyone. ### Can I move my contacts from Popl to Krane? Not by import; Krane can't read a CSV, vCard or another app's export. Export your Popl leads to a CSV or your CRM so you keep them, then scan new cards with Krane. Photos of old cards in your library can be added and read. Contacts already in Apple Contacts stay there. ### Does Popl publish its prices? Not for teams. Popl's pricing page says it quotes over a meeting rather than publishing, and that team plans aren't priced per seat and have no per-scan fees. The individual plans appear as in-app purchases on the App Store: Popl Pro $7.99, Popl Pro Plus $14.99, yearly $76.99 and $144.99, as listed on November 8, 2026. Krane's price is in the App Store and on this site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Trade show ROI and cost per lead calculator URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/trade-show-roi-calculator/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Free ROI and cost per lead calculator for a trade show, conference or any event. Runs in your browser: cost per lead, cost per deal, ROI and break-even. A cost per lead calculator and ROI calculator for a trade show, conference or any event. Type your own costs and results over the example numbers to get cost per deal, ROI and break-even. ## How to calculate trade show ROI and cost per lead Trade show ROI is the gross profit from the show minus its total cost, divided by the total cost, as a percentage. Gross profit is the revenue from deals the show produced multiplied by your gross margin; with no margin entered, ROI is (revenue − cost) ÷ cost. Cost per lead is the total cost divided by the number of leads. The table follows the calculator's order. Three results are not in it: - Pipeline = qualified leads × deal value. - Cost per qualified lead = total cost ÷ qualified leads. - Break-even leads = break-even deals, unrounded, ÷ (qualified share × close rate), rounded up. | Step | Formula | Example | |---|---|---| | Total cost | Sum of the cost lines | $6,000 + $4,000 + $1,500 + $3,000 + $2,500 + $800 + $200 = $18,000 | | Leads | Typed, or visitors × capture rate | 150 | | Qualified leads | Leads × qualified share | 150 × 30% = 45 | | Deals | Qualified leads × close rate | 45 × 20% = 9 | | Revenue | Deals × average deal value | 9 × $8,000 = $72,000 | | Gross profit | Revenue × gross margin | $72,000 × 60% = $43,200 | | ROI | (Gross profit − total cost) ÷ total cost | ($43,200 − $18,000) ÷ $18,000 = 140% | | Cost per lead | Total cost ÷ leads | $18,000 ÷ 150 = $120 | | Cost per deal | Total cost ÷ deals | $18,000 ÷ 9 = $2,000 | | Break-even deals | Total cost ÷ (deal value × margin), rounded up | $18,000 ÷ ($8,000 × 0.6) = 3.75 → 4 | These numbers are made up to show the arithmetic; they are not a benchmark. Enter a margin: ROI on revenue overstates the return when the product costs money to deliver. Deals from a show can take months to close, so run the calculator again when they do. ## Event and conference ROI The same formulas measure the ROI of a conference, a sponsorship or an event you host. Only the cost lines change. A sponsorship or registration fee goes in Booth space, tickets and flights in Travel and hotel, and the venue and catering of your own event in Other. At a conference where you have no booth, your leads are the people you spoke with and got contact details from, each with a card or badge scan and a note on what they asked about. Decide two things before the event: what counts as a lead, and how deals will be credited to it, usually a lead source or tag in the CRM. Without both, nobody can measure the event's ROI months later, when the deals close. ## What to count as the cost of a show Count everything the show cost. Booth space is the fee for the floor. Booth build and graphics covers the stand, its printing and the install. Shipping and drayage is the freight to the venue plus drayage, the venue's charge for moving your crates from the loading dock to your booth. Travel and hotel takes flights, rooms and meals. Staff time is salary for the days at the show, not only expenses. Promo and giveaways covers pens, bags and the pre-show mailing. Other takes lead retrieval rental, power, internet, furniture and sponsorships. Leaving staff time out makes the show look cheaper than it was. ## Why lead capture decides the result Every figure below Total cost is multiplied from the lead count. A conversation at the booth that nobody recorded is a lead the formula never sees. One recorded without a way to reach the person, no email, no phone, a badge photo with no notes, counts as a lead but can't become a deal, so it lowers the qualified share and the close rate. Get a contact detail you can use, plus one note on what the visitor asked for. Ask about budget, timing and who decides while the person is in front of you; then the qualified share you type later is a count. ## Leads lost between the booth and the CRM The leads that count are the ones a salesperson can follow up from the CRM. Between the booth and that record, leads go missing: cards left in a tote bag, badge scans exported from the show's own system days later, a spreadsheet typed up by hand from a stack of cards, two reps scanning the same visitor. A folder of .vcf contact files from the show opens in the [VCF viewer and converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) and comes out as one spreadsheet. Run the calculator twice: with the leads collected at the booth, then with the number that reached the CRM. The gap between the two ROI figures is what the lost leads cost. ## How to raise trade show ROI - Capture every conversation. A scan or a card for each person you talk to raises Leads, and every figure below it. - Qualify at the booth and write one note. That raises Qualified share and tells sales whom to call first. - Follow up within days, while the visitor still remembers your booth. That shows up in Close rate. - Cut cost lines that bring no leads: a stand larger than you can staff, giveaways nobody keeps. That lowers Total cost. - Pick shows your buyers attend. A smaller show with a higher qualified share can beat a bigger one; compare two with the visitors × capture rate option. A [vCard QR code](/tools/business-card-qr-code/) on the booth sign lets visitors save your contact as well. ## With Krane, every lead from the booth reaches the CRM Krane is an app for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Its [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) and [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) read what people hand you at the booth, and every scan is filed under the show. Each card is read on your iPhone right away, with no signal, and checked again when you're back online. With Krane Pro, you send the whole event to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, or export a CSV, so the lead count you paid for is the lead count that reaches the CRM. Free for 10 scans a week. More on [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/). ## Questions about trade show ROI ### What is a good ROI for a trade show or event? There is no single figure. Any ROI above 0% means gross profit covered the cost of the show or event; below 0% it didn't. Whether 40% or 200% is good depends on your margin and on how long your deals take to close. Compare it with your other channels, and with the same event last year, using the same formula and the same cost lines each time. ### How do you calculate cost per lead at a trade show? Divide the total cost of the show by the number of leads captured. In the example, $18,000 ÷ 150 leads = $120 per lead. Cost per qualified lead divides by qualified leads instead: $18,000 ÷ 45 = $400. The second figure is the better one to compare across shows, because it leaves out visitors who were never going to buy. ### Should I use revenue or profit to calculate ROI? Gross profit. Revenue includes money you will spend delivering the product, so ROI on revenue looks better than the show did. Enter your gross margin and the calculator uses revenue × margin. Leave margin blank and it counts the whole deal value as return, which is ROI on revenue; in the example that turns 140% into 300%. ### How many leads do I need to break even? Break-even deals = total cost ÷ (average deal value × gross margin), rounded up. Break-even leads = that figure before rounding ÷ (qualified share × close rate), rounded up. In the example: 18,000 ÷ (8,000 × 0.6) = 3.75, so 4 deals; 3.75 ÷ (0.3 × 0.2) = 62.5, so 63 leads. With fewer than 63 captured leads, at those rates, the show loses money. ### Is my data sent anywhere? No. The calculator runs in your browser; nothing you type is uploaded or stored by kraneapp.com, and there is no email or account. "Share these numbers" writes the figures into the link itself, after the # sign, which browsers don't send to the server; anyone who opens the link sees the same inputs. It works on any computer or phone with a modern browser. ### What should I count as a lead? A person whose contact details you have and who agreed to hear from you: a badge scan, or a business card with a note on what they asked about. People who walked past the booth or took a pen are visitors, not leads. If you only know how many people came by, use the booth visitors × capture rate option to estimate the lead count. ### How do I track which deals came from a show? Put the show's name on every lead when it enters the CRM, as the lead source or a tag, so you can count the closed deals months later and run the calculator again. Krane files each scan under its event; with Krane Pro the event name goes into the Salesforce Description field and into a Pipedrive note, so the deals from that show can be filtered later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # The vCard format, line by line URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/vcard-format/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > The vCard (.vcf) format line by line: versions 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 compared, the common properties, line folding, quoted-printable and garbled characters. A vCard (.vcf) file is plain text, one property per line. Three versions are in use, and they differ mostly in how they write parameters, character sets and photos. ## vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 compared | | 2.1 | 3.0 | 4.0 | |---|---|---|---| | Standard | versit Consortium specification (not an RFC) | RFC 2426 | RFC 6350 | | Published | 1996 | 1998 | 2011 | | Required lines | VERSION; N in practice | VERSION, N, FN | VERSION, FN | | A mobile number is written | `TEL;CELL:` | `TEL;TYPE=CELL:` | `TEL;TYPE=cell:` | | Character set | `CHARSET=` on each line, often a local code page | not stated in the file; UTF-8 in practice | UTF-8, always | | Accented text | may be quoted-printable | plain text | plain text | | Photos | `ENCODING=BASE64` | `ENCODING=b` (base64) | a URI, often a `data:` URI | | Who writes it | older phones, classic Outlook | iPhone, iCloud, Google Contacts | fewer apps so far | To see which one you have, open the file in a text editor and read the second line. `VERSION:3.0` is the one you will meet most. ## The properties you'll see | Property | What it holds | Example | |---|---|---| | `FN` | The name as it should be shown | `FN:Amélie Lefèvre` | | `N` | The name in five parts: family; given; additional; prefixes; suffixes | `N:Lefèvre;Amélie;;;` | | `ORG` | Company, then any department | `ORG:Northfield Tools;Sales` | | `TITLE` | Job title | `TITLE:Sales Director` | | `TEL;TYPE=…` | A phone number; types include CELL, WORK, HOME, FAX and VOICE | `TEL;TYPE=WORK,VOICE:+1 555 555 0100` | | `EMAIL` | An email address, with an optional type | `EMAIL;TYPE=WORK:amelie@example.com` | | `ADR` | A postal address in seven parts: PO box; extended; street; city; region; postal code; country | `ADR;TYPE=WORK:;;12 Main St;Springfield;IL;62701;USA` | | `URL` | A website | `URL:https://example.com` | | `NOTE` | Free text | `NOTE:Met at booth 14\, spring show` | | `PHOTO` | A picture, encoded in the file or linked | `PHOTO;ENCODING=b;TYPE=JPEG:/9j/4AAQ…` | Property names are not case-sensitive, so `tel` and `TEL` mean the same. Lines that start with `X-` are a vendor's own additions, such as `X-SOCIALPROFILE`. Apple and Google also group a value with a custom label by putting the same prefix on both lines: `item1.EMAIL:billing@example.com` and `item1.X-ABLabel:Billing` belong together. A reader that ignores the prefix still gets the email, only without its label. ## The same contact in each version vCard 2.1, with the accented name in quoted-printable: ``` BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Lef=C3=A8vre;Am=C3=A9lie;;; FN;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Am=C3=A9lie Lef=C3=A8vre TEL;CELL;VOICE:+1 555 555 0142 END:VCARD ``` vCard 3.0: ``` BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Lefèvre;Amélie;;; FN:Amélie Lefèvre TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 555 555 0142 END:VCARD ``` vCard 4.0, with the number as a `tel:` link: ``` BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:4.0 FN:Amélie Lefèvre N:Lefèvre;Amélie;;; TEL;TYPE=cell;VALUE=uri:tel:+1-555-555-0142 END:VCARD ``` ## Line folding and quoted-printable Long lines are folded. In 3.0 and 4.0 a writer splits a long line by inserting a line break followed by one space or tab; RFC 6350 asks for lines of no more than 75 octets. A reader joins them by deleting the line break and that one character, and nothing else. A tool that also deletes the next space, or keeps the first one, glues two words together or adds a space in the middle of an email address. A photo in base64 runs to hundreds of folded lines, which is why a .vcf with pictures is many times the size of one without. Quoted-printable belongs to 2.1. Each byte outside plain ASCII becomes an equals sign and two hex digits, so "é" in UTF-8 is `=C3=A9`. A line that ends in `=` is a soft break: the value carries on at the start of the next line. ## Character sets and garbled names - A 2.1 file with no `CHARSET=` was usually written in the phone's or Windows' local code page. Read as UTF-8, its accents turn into question marks. - "é" where "é" should be means the opposite: UTF-8 text read as Windows-1252, often by Excel. - A 3.0 file doesn't state its character set. Today's exports write UTF-8, and a reader should assume it. - A 4.0 file is UTF-8 by definition. - In 3.0 and 4.0 a comma, semicolon or backslash inside a value is escaped with a backslash, and a line break inside a note is written `\n`. A reader that skips this splits one value into two. ## Converting between versions and to CSV The [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) reads all three versions, folded lines, quoted-printable text, `item1.` labels, and files in UTF-8, UTF-16 or Windows-1252, then writes a CSV with one row per contact. Turned around, it makes one vCard 3.0 file from a CSV. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Photos are skipped. If you need the basics first, read [what a VCF file is](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/). ## With Krane: vCards from paper cards Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad works from the other end: it reads a printed business card into a contact, then adds it to Apple Contacts or shares it as a vCard. With Krane Pro it also exports a CSV or sends the contact to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. It can't import a .vcf. ## Questions about the vCard format ### Which vCard version should I use? Write 3.0 unless the system you're feeding asks for something else. iPhone, iCloud and Google Contacts export it and every contacts app imports it. Use 4.0 when the receiving software asks for it. Write 2.1 only for an old device that reads nothing newer. ### Is a VCF file the same as a vCard? Yes. vCard is the format and .vcf is its usual file extension; some software uses .vcard. The text inside is the same: BEGIN:VCARD, the properties, END:VCARD. ### Why do accented names look wrong after import? The importer read the file in the wrong character set. "é" means UTF-8 text was read as Windows-1252; question marks usually mean a 2.1 file in a local code page was read as UTF-8. Convert it with a tool that detects the encoding, or re-export the contacts as vCard 3.0. ### What does "item1." mean in a vCard? It is a group prefix. Apple and Google put the same prefix on a value and on the line that holds its custom label, such as item1.EMAIL and item1.X-ABLabel:Billing, so the label stays with the right email. Software that doesn't know groups keeps the email and drops the label. ### Can a vCard hold a photo? Yes. In 2.1 and 3.0 the PHOTO line carries the image itself, encoded as base64 text, which makes the file much larger. In 4.0 PHOTO is a URI: a link to the image, or a data: URI with the image inside. ### What is the MIME type of a vCard? text/vcard. Older software and some mail servers still send text/x-vcard. The file extension is .vcf. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card QR code generator URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/business-card-qr-code/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Make a vCard QR code for your business card. A phone camera scans it and offers to save your contact. Static, never expires, SVG or PNG, in your browser. Type your details and this page makes a QR code for business cards and badges. A phone camera scans it and offers to save you as a contact. Free, no account, nothing uploaded. ## How to make a QR code for business cards 1. Fill in the fields: first and last name, company, job title, mobile and work phone, email, website. Address and a note are optional; a blank field is left out of the code. 2. Check the card mock. The code redraws as you type, next to your name and company. 3. Pick the dark and light colors and the error-correction level. The default, M, suits most cards. 4. Download the SVG for print, or the PNG (1,024 pixels) for screens. The [email signature generator](/tools/email-signature-generator/) puts the same code in your email signature. 5. Scan it from the screen with two or three phones before printing. ## What the code holds (vCard 3.0) A business card QR code from this page holds a vCard, the contact-card format phones read. The phone opens its new-contact screen with the fields filled in. The text is vCard 3.0 in UTF-8, so a name with accents, or in Japanese or Cyrillic script, comes through as typed. The exact text is under the preview. This is a static code: the contact is written into the squares themselves. Many generators instead encode a short link to the vendor's server, which is how those codes can be edited after printing, how they count scans, and why they stop working when the plan lapses. This code has no link in it, so nobody is told when it is scanned and nothing expires. To change a phone number, you make a new code and reprint. | Field | vCard line | Notes | |---|---|---| | Name | `N` and `FN` | `N` holds last and first name apart; `FN` is the full name the phone shows | | Company | `ORG` | Saved as the contact's company | | Job title | `TITLE` | | | Mobile phone | `TEL;TYPE=CELL` | Saved with the Mobile label | | Work phone | `TEL;TYPE=WORK` | Saved with the Work label | | Email | `EMAIL` | | | Website | `URL` | Saved as the contact's website; a LinkedIn profile address works here too | | Address | `ADR` | Optional; usually the longest line | | Note | `NOTE` | Optional; keep it to a few words | Other people's .vcf files go through the [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) into a spreadsheet. ## Business card QR code size and printing A common rule of thumb is at least 2 cm (0.8 in) across on a business card, larger when the vCard is long. Every character adds squares, so each square prints smaller, and small squares blur. Under the preview, the tool gives the smallest width for your code, worked out so each square prints at least 0.4 mm wide. It warns when the code gets dense; the address and the note add the most. Leave a quiet zone, an empty margin about four squares wide, on all sides, and keep the code dark on a light background. Light squares on a dark card fail on some readers. Use the SVG for print: it is a vector file, so it stays sharp at any size. Error correction is how much of the code can be scratched or covered and still read: about 7% at L, 15% at M, 25% at Q and 30% at H. Higher levels add squares. Go to Q or H if the card will live in a wallet or something will sit over the middle. ## Common mistakes - A light code on a dark card. - A code under 2 cm, or a long vCard squeezed into a small one. - A cropped quiet zone, the code touching a logo or the card's edge. - A paragraph in the note field. - Printing 500 cards without scanning the proof on a second phone. - A dynamic code from a subscription service, which stops working when the plan ends. See [which QR codes expire, and why](/tools/business-card-qr-code/do-qr-codes-expire/). ## With Krane, the other side of the handshake This tool makes the code on your card. Most cards you are handed at a show have no code. Krane, on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, photographs the printed card and reads it into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. It files each card under the event you're at and, with Krane Pro, sends it to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. On a badge with a QR code, the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) merges the contact data in the code with the printed details. Krane can't import a .vcf or CSV file; it reads paper. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. ## Questions about vCard QR codes ### Is this business card QR code generator free? Yes. There is no account, no email address to enter and no watermark on the download. The page runs in your browser: the details you type are turned into a code on your own computer or phone, and nothing is sent to kraneapp.com. The maker of Krane, the iPhone business card scanner, built it. ### Will the QR code expire? No. The code is static: your contact details are written into the squares, with no link to a server in between, so it reads for as long as the print is legible. For the same reason you can't edit it after printing. A new phone number means a new code and a new print run, so put only lasting details in the code and keep a direct line that may change in print only. ### Does the code work on iPhone and Android? Yes. The built-in camera app on an iPhone and on most Android phones recognizes a QR code and, when the code holds a vCard, offers to add the person to Contacts. Older phones may need a QR reader app. Names with accents or in Japanese, Korean or Cyrillic script come through. Test with both kinds of phone before printing. ### How do I make one on iPhone? Open this page in Safari on your iPhone, type your details and tap Download PNG. Safari saves the file to Downloads in the Files app. To keep it in Photos, open it in Files, tap Share, then Save Image. Tap Download SVG as well and send that file to your printer. Before you order, scan the code on your screen with a second phone. ### How do I put this QR code on a Canva business card? Download the SVG, which stays sharp at any print size, or the PNG. In Canva, open your card design, add the file under Uploads and drag it onto the card. Keep the white margin around the squares, make the code at least 2 cm (0.8 in) across, and scan the design on your screen with a phone before you order prints. ### Can I add my LinkedIn profile? Yes, through the Website field. Paste your profile address, such as linkedin.com/in/yourname, and the tool writes it into the vCard as the contact's website (the `URL` line), which the phone saves as a link. There is one website field, so it holds either LinkedIn or your company site. Type the other into the note, where it is saved as plain text. Each extra address adds squares. ### Can I put it in Apple Wallet? No. Apple Wallet holds passes, and a pass is a signed file this tool doesn't make; it makes a QR image. To show your code from your phone, save the PNG to Photos and open it when someone asks for your details. They scan it from your screen with their camera, the same as from a printed card. ### How big should the QR code be on a business card? At least 2 cm (0.8 in) across is the common rule, and bigger if the vCard is long. The more characters in the code, the more squares, and the smaller each square prints. The tool shows the smallest width for your code under the preview. Leave an empty margin about four squares wide around it, and if the preview looks crowded, cut the address or the note. The [business card QR code size guide](/tools/business-card-qr-code/business-card-qr-code-size/) has the full table. ### Which error correction level should I choose? M, the default, for most cards. It lets about 15% of the code be damaged and still read, with a moderate number of squares. L (about 7%) makes the smallest code; Q (25%) and H (30%) survive more scratching but add squares, so they need more room on the card. Choose H if you plan to cover the middle with a logo. ### Can I put a logo in the middle? This tool doesn't add one. If you place a logo over the code in your layout software, it covers squares, and the phone has to recover them from the error-correction data. Set the level to H, keep the logo to a small part of the code's area, and test the result on two or three phones before printing. ### Can Krane read a QR code on a card or badge? Yes. On a badge, Krane decodes QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and merges the contact data in the code with the printed name, title and company into one contact, which is how its [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) works. On a business card it reads the whole printed side, code or not, into named fields. Krane can't import a .vcf file; it works from the camera and your photo library. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Open a VCF file and convert it to CSV URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Open a .vcf (vCard) file, see its contacts, and convert VCF to CSV for Excel, Google, Outlook or a CRM, and back. Runs in your browser, nothing uploaded. Open a .vcf (vCard) file to see every contact, download them as a CSV for Excel, Google Sheets or a CRM, or turn a CSV into a .vcf. The file stays in your browser. ## What is a VCF (vCard) file? A VCF file holds contacts in the vCard format, the standard that phones and email programs use to exchange contact details; .vcf is the file extension. It is plain text. Each contact runs from BEGIN:VCARD to END:VCARD, one detail per line: FN for the name, then TEL, EMAIL, ADR (address) and ORG (company). One file can hold a single contact or a whole address book. Versions 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0 are in use, and they write some lines differently. A spreadsheet can't use the file as it is, because it needs a row per contact and a column per field. More on [what a VCF file holds, line by line](/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/) and on [how the vCard format's versions differ](/tools/vcf-to-csv/vcard-format/). ## How to open a VCF file on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android Each system opens a .vcf by importing it into its address book. - On Windows, Outlook imports contacts from a CSV, not a .vcf. Microsoft's own route for a .vcf goes through the Windows Contacts folder, which asks you to click OK for each contact, then exports a CSV for Outlook. - On a Mac, double-click the file and Contacts opens it; click Add to import. - On an iPhone, tap the .vcf attachment in Mail or Messages to import its contacts. - On Android, open the Contacts app, tap Organize, then Import from file, and pick the .vcf. To look inside first, drop the file on this page. It runs in any browser and changes no address book. ## How to convert a VCF file to CSV 1. Get the .vcf. The next section shows where iPhone, iCloud, Google Contacts and Outlook export one. 2. Drop the file here, choose it from a folder or paste the vCard text. Several files at once are fine. 3. Pick a column set: Excel / Google Sheets, Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce (Lead) or Krane. 4. Check the preview before you download. The table shows the first 10 contacts in the columns you picked, and Show all lists every one. The line under it counts the contacts and lists any line the tool couldn't read. 5. Download the .csv. It holds every contact, in UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel shows accents correctly on a double-click. Turn the mark off for a tool that doesn't want one. ## Getting a .vcf out of your iPhone, iCloud, Google or Outlook On the iPhone, open a person in Contacts and tap Share Contact. On iOS 17 and later, tap and hold a list name, or select several contacts, to share them as one file. On icloud.com/contacts, choose Select All Contacts, then Export vCard from the Actions menu, which puts every iPhone contact in one file. At contacts.google.com, choose Export, then vCard (for iOS Contacts). Classic Outlook on Windows saves one contact as a .vcf and exports the whole list as a CSV through File > Open & Export > Import/Export. It wants CSV headers in the language it runs in; the Outlook column set here writes the English ones. ## Which column set to pick | Destination | Column set | Notes | |---|---|---| | Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers | Excel / Google Sheets | One row per contact, plain headers. Several emails or phones share a cell, separated by "; " | | Google Contacts | Google Contacts | Google's import headers; each email and phone is a Label and Value pair | | Outlook | Outlook | Outlook's field names: Business Phone, Mobile Phone, E-mail Address | | HubSpot | HubSpot | Contact property labels: First name, Email, Phone number | | Salesforce | Salesforce (Lead) | Lead field labels: Last Name, Company, Title | | A sheet laid out like Krane's export | Krane | Krane's export columns; Tags, Event and Met At stay empty, since a .vcf has no such fields | Import screens match columns to fields by header name, so matching names spare you mapping each column by hand. ## CSV to VCF: the other way Switch the direction at the top to CSV → VCF and drop in a CSV, or paste the rows. Comma and semicolon separators are both detected. Each column is matched to a contact field by its header, and a menu beside it changes the match. The download is one .vcf in vCard 3.0 with every contact: open it on your iPhone, or import it into Google Contacts or Outlook. For a QR code that holds one contact, use the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/). ## Accents, columns and other common problems - Excel shows "é" instead of "é". It read a UTF-8 file as the old Windows code page. Leave the byte-order mark on, or use Data > From Text/CSV and pick 65001: Unicode (UTF-8). - Every contact lands in one column. Your Excel expects semicolons, as it does in several European locales. Open the file through Data > From Text/CSV and set the delimiter. - Phone numbers lost a leading zero or the "+". Excel guessed they were numbers; import the column as text. - A contact is missing. Check the skipped lines under the preview. - Salesforce rejects rows. A Lead needs a Last Name and a Company. - Photos are skipped. A CSV can't hold them. ## With Krane: the cards that never become a .vcf This page converts contact files you already have. Paper cards from a show never need typing. Krane, on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad, photographs each card and reads it into a contact. With Krane Pro it exports the same CSV as the Krane column set above, or sends cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week; CSV export and CRM sync are Krane Pro, on the [pricing](/pricing/) page. Krane can't import a .vcf or CSV file. ## Questions about converting vCard and CSV ### Is this VCF to CSV converter free and private? Yes. There is no account and no email address to enter. The page does the conversion in your browser: the .vcf you drop in is read on your own computer or phone, and nothing is sent to kraneapp.com. You can turn off Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works. The people who make Krane, the iPhone business card scanner, built it. ### Why does Outlook or Windows only show the first contact in my .vcf? Microsoft's Outlook help says that when a vCard holds several contacts, only the first appears in Outlook's window. Outlook for Windows imports contacts from a CSV, not a .vcf. Drop the file here instead and Show all lists every contact in it. Pick the Outlook column set, download the CSV and import it in Outlook through File > Open & Export > Import/Export. The CSV holds every contact. ### How do I export all my iPhone contacts to Excel? The iPhone shares contacts only as a .vcf, and Excel can't open a .vcf with many contacts in it. Sign in at iCloud.com, open Contacts, select all and export them as a vCard; or in the iPhone's Contacts app, select the contacts and share them. Drop that file here, pick the Excel / Google Sheets column set and download the CSV. Excel opens it with one row per contact. ### Why does Excel show strange characters instead of accents? When you double-click a UTF-8 CSV that has no byte-order mark, Excel reads the bytes as the old Windows code page, and "é" comes out as "é". This tool writes the mark by default, so Excel reads the file as UTF-8. If you turned it off, or the file came from somewhere else, use Data > From Text/CSV and choose 65001: Unicode (UTF-8) as the file origin. ### Can I convert a CSV back to a vCard (.vcf)? Yes. Switch the direction at the top to CSV → VCF, drop or paste the CSV, and check that each column found the right contact field; change any match in its menu. The download is one .vcf in vCard 3.0 with all the contacts, which iPhone, Google Contacts and Outlook can import. A comma or a semicolon separator is detected. ### Which vCard versions does it read? vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0, in one file or many. That covers exports from iCloud and the iPhone's Contacts app, Google Contacts with its "item1." labeled fields and custom labels, Outlook, and older phones that wrote quoted-printable text. Folded long lines are joined, and files in UTF-8, UTF-16 or Windows-1252 are read. Photos inside the file are skipped. ### Can I import the CSV into HubSpot or Salesforce? Yes. Pick the HubSpot column set and the headers come out as HubSpot's contact property labels (First name, Email, Phone number, Company name), so HubSpot's import matches them on its own. Pick Salesforce (Lead) for Salesforce's Lead field labels. Salesforce rejects a lead with no Last Name or Company, so fill those in before you upload. ### How many contacts can it convert at once? The tool sets no limit. Your browser does the work, and a file with thousands of contacts converts on a computer without trouble. The limits are at the other end: Google Contacts imports up to 3,000 contacts per CSV file, so split a larger export into several files before importing there. ### Can Krane import my .vcf or CSV file? No. Krane has no importer. It reads paper business cards and event badges with the camera and exports a CSV of its own, the Krane column set on this page. It can add a scanned card to Apple Contacts and share a card as a vCard, so contacts move out of Krane, not into it. Use this page for the files you already have. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # What a VCF file is and how to open it URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/vcf-to-csv/what-is-a-vcf-file/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > A VCF file is a vCard: a plain-text contact card that phones, iCloud, Google and Outlook export. See what's inside, how to open it, and how to make it a CSV. A .vcf file is a vCard: a plain-text file of contact details. It can hold one person or a whole address book, and every phone's contacts app knows how to open it. ## What's inside a .vcf file The name stands for "virtual contact file". Open one in any text editor and you see lines like these, one detail per line: ``` BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Rivera;Sam;;; FN:Sam Rivera ORG:Northfield Tools TITLE:Sales Director TEL;TYPE=CELL:+1 555 555 0142 EMAIL;TYPE=WORK:sam.rivera@example.com URL:https://example.com END:VCARD ``` `BEGIN:VCARD` and `END:VCARD` mark where one contact starts and stops. `VERSION` says which edition of the format wrote it. `N` holds the name in parts, last name first; `FN` is the name as it should be shown. `ORG` is the company, `TITLE` the job title, and `TEL` and `EMAIL` carry a type, so a phone knows which number is the mobile. A photo, when there is one, sits inside the file as a long block of encoded text. The three versions in use (2.1, 3.0 and 4.0) and every property are laid out on the [vCard format](/tools/vcf-to-csv/vcard-format/) page. ## Where .vcf files come from - **iPhone.** In Contacts, open a person and tap Share Contact. On iOS 17 and later you can share a whole list or a selection as one file. - **iCloud.com.** In Contacts, select all and export them as a vCard. - **Google Contacts.** Export, then choose vCard (for iOS Contacts). - **Outlook.** Classic Outlook on Windows saves a single contact as a .vcf. - **Email and websites.** A signature or a "Save contact" button often attaches or downloads one. - **QR codes.** A QR code on a business card can hold the same vCard text; the phone camera reads it and offers to save the contact. ## One file, many contacts A .vcf with many people in it is the same block repeated: one `BEGIN:VCARD` … `END:VCARD` after another. To count the contacts, search the file for `BEGIN:VCARD`. This is why the file confuses some programs. Contacts apps on the iPhone, the Mac and Google read every block. Others stop after the first contact, and a spreadsheet that opens the file as text puts each line in its own row, so one person spreads over ten rows. ## How to open a VCF file | Device | How to open it | What you get | |---|---|---| | iPhone or iPad | Tap the file in Mail, Messages or Files, then Add to Contacts or Create New Contact | The contact, or all of them, in Contacts | | Mac | Double-click the file | Contacts opens and asks to import every card in it | | Windows | Double-click, or import it in Outlook | Outlook imports one contact per file; for a file with many, use Google Contacts or convert it to CSV | | Android | Open the file and pick the Contacts app | The contacts saved to the phone's account | | Google Contacts on the web | Import, then choose the file | Every contact added to your Google account | | Excel or a text editor | Open the file | The raw lines; Excel puts each line in a row of its own | ## Turning a .vcf into a spreadsheet The [VCF to CSV converter](/tools/vcf-to-csv/) gives you one row per contact. Drop the file on the page, pick a column set (Excel / Google Sheets, Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce or Krane), check the preview and download the CSV. The file is UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel shows accents and names in other scripts correctly when you double-click it. The page reads vCard 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0, and files with thousands of contacts. It runs in your browser: nothing is uploaded and there is no account. It also goes the other way, from a CSV back to one .vcf. ## With Krane: paper cards into contacts The cards you're handed at a show arrive on paper, not as a .vcf. Krane on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad reads each printed card into a contact: name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address. From there it saves the contact to Apple Contacts or shares it as a vCard, and with Krane Pro it exports a CSV or sends it to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. The [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) is free for 10 scans a week. Krane can't import a .vcf file. ## Questions about VCF files ### Is a VCF file the same as a vCard? Yes. vCard is the name of the format, and .vcf is the file extension it uses. Some software also saves the same text with a .vcard extension. Whatever the extension, the file starts with BEGIN:VCARD and any contacts app can read it. ### Is it safe to open a VCF file? A vCard is plain text, not a program, so opening it can't run anything on your computer or phone. Treat it like any attachment, though: if it came from a sender you don't know, don't save it, because the numbers and links inside can be anything. ### Why does my VCF file only show one contact? The file probably holds many contacts, and the program you opened it with reads only the first. Search the file for BEGIN:VCARD to count them. Import it into Contacts on a Mac or iPhone, or into Google Contacts, which read every contact, or turn it into a spreadsheet with the converter. ### Can I open a VCF file in Excel? Excel opens it as text, with each line of the vCard in its own row, so one contact fills several rows. To get one row per contact with named columns, convert the file to CSV first, then open the CSV in Excel. ### How do I make a VCF file of my own contact? On the iPhone, open your own card in Contacts and tap Share Contact; the file it sends is a .vcf. To see the vCard text for a printed card, the [business card QR code generator](/tools/business-card-qr-code/) shows exactly what its QR code holds. ### Can Krane open a VCF file? No. Krane has no importer for .vcf or CSV files. It works the other way: it reads paper business cards and event badges with the camera, and can share each contact as a vCard or add it to Apple Contacts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Business card scanner for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad URL: https://kraneapp.com/business-card-scanner/ Updated: 2026-11-07 > Krane reads both sides of a business card into a contact with named fields, works with no signal, and sends it to Apple Contacts or your CRM. Point the camera at a card. Krane reads the front and the back into one contact with named fields, so you can call or email the person, save them to Apple Contacts, or send them to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. ## Scan a card in three steps. 1. Scan: Hold your iPhone over the card. Krane takes the picture when the card is still; add the back if there is one. 2. Read: Name, title, company, phones, emails, website, address and social profiles go into their own fields, on the phone, with or without signal. 3. Send: Add the contact to Apple Contacts or share a vCard. With Krane Pro, send it to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, a webhook or a CSV. ## How a scan works Open Krane and tap Scan. The camera opens in "Card or badge" mode. Lay the card flat, hold the iPhone over it and keep still. Krane takes the picture as soon as the card stops moving in the frame; you can also tap the shutter yourself. It reads the text while the picture is still on screen, and the card lands in your list with its fields filled in. For a handful of cards, stay where you are. Put the next card down and Krane shoots that one too, reading it while you reach for the one after. On the free plan you can scan three in a row this way in one session. With Krane Pro there is no limit on the run. If the back of the card carries more, a direct line or the Japanese side, open the card and add the back. Krane reads it and merges it into the same contact, so one person is one record. Cards you photographed earlier can be read from the photo library. Pick one photo, or several at once, and each becomes a card. You can also start a scan by asking Siri or from a Shortcut. A plain text scan gives you a block of words. Krane gives you a contact: the phone number sits in a phone field you can tap, and the email in an email field you can write to. ## What Krane reads from a card Each card becomes a contact with these fields. | On the card | What you get | |---|---| | Name | Person name. A name in a non-Latin script also gets a Latin spelling | | Title | Job title | | Company | Company name | | Phone numbers | Each number with its label: mobile, work, fax or other | | Email addresses | Each address, as its own field | | Websites | Each web address | | Social profiles | Links to the profiles printed on the card | | Street address | Address | | Anything else | Saved as additional info | Many cards put English on the front and the local language on the back, or print the direct line only on the reverse. Add the back from the card screen and Krane reads it into the same contact rather than making a second one. Both images stay with the card, so when a digit looks wrong you can check it against the original. ## Cards in almost any language Krane reads cards in almost any language and script, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. When a name is printed in a non-Latin script, Krane adds a Latin spelling as a separate line and keeps the original as printed. You can search for the person by either one, and you can read the name out when you call. A card with English on one side and Korean on the other reads as one contact: add the back and the fields from both sides go into the same record. The app itself is in eight languages: English, German, Japanese, French, Korean, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. ## It reads with no signal Cell signal drops inside exhibition halls and basements, and venue Wi-Fi is often slow or missing. Krane needs neither to read a card. With no connection, the iPhone's own text recognition reads the card right away, and Krane saves it with its fields filled in and a provisional mark. When the phone is back online, Krane checks the card again and upgrades the fields where the second read is better. You don't rescan anything. ## Where the contact goes From the card screen you can call, message or email the person, open their website or social profile, add them to Apple Contacts, or share them as a vCard, the standard contact file. All of that is on the free plan. With Krane Pro, the Send to menu adds your CRM and a spreadsheet. | Free | Krane Pro | |---|---| | Add to Apple Contacts | Send to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive | | Share as a vCard | Webhook to Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server | | Call, message or email from the card | CSV export of one event or all cards | | Open website and social profiles | Send every new scan automatically | In HubSpot, Krane creates a contact, or updates the one that already has that email. In Salesforce it creates a Lead or a Contact, your choice, with the event, where you met, tags and notes in the Description field. In Pipedrive it creates the person and links them to their organization. Empty fields are never sent, so a push can't blank out data already in the record. After a push the card keeps a link to the CRM record, so you can open it from Krane later. Your CRM tokens stay on the iPhone; the app talks to the CRM directly. You can send one card, a selection or a whole event from the list. Each connection also has a "Send new scans automatically" switch: turn it on before a show and every card you scan reaches the CRM without another tap. The field mapping for each CRM is in the table on the [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page, and each connection is described under [CRM sync](/#crm). The CSV opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets, one column per field, with English headers whatever language the app runs in. Phone and email columns are numbered (Mobile 1, Mobile 2, Email 1) and there are as many as the contact with the most numbers needs; a Badge ID column appears when any exported contact has one. ## Keep each card in context A card by itself doesn't say which show it came from or what the person asked about. Start an event when you arrive, from the app or by asking Siri, and every card you scan until you end it is filed under that event, with "Met at" filled in and the event's tags added. An event has a name, start and end dates, a location, tags and notes. The event screen lists its cards and companies and exports them in one go, which is the basis of [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) with Krane. After a scan, add a tag, a note, and a reminder for the day you said you'd get back to them. The reminder opens that card. Mark the people you most need to reach as favorites. Search covers every field, so a city name finds the person whose address is there, and cards show up in the iPhone's Spotlight search as well. Filter by tag or event, or group the list by company. Scan the same person twice and Krane flags the duplicate; one tap merges the two. Your contacts also appear on a map. Show badges go through the same camera; see the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) page for what Krane reads from a badge. ## A stack of cards at once With Krane Pro, switch the camera to "Group of cards", spread the stack on the table and take one photo. Krane finds each card in the picture and makes a separate contact for every one. If an event is running, the whole batch is filed under it with the event's tags, the same as a single scan. A drawer of old cards goes through this way, one photo per spread, and anyone already in your list is flagged as a duplicate. ## No account, your data on your phone There is no sign-up. Your cards, their images and your CRM tokens are stored on the iPhone, and CRM pushes go straight from the app to the CRM with no Krane server in between. Back everything up to a single file whenever you like and restore it any time. What Krane collects and why is on the [privacy policy](/privacy/) page. ## Free and Pro The free plan gives you 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week, with events, tags, notes, where you met, reminders, offline reading, badge scanning, Apple Contacts, vCard sharing, duplicate detection, search and the map. Krane Pro is an auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly. It adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, CRM sync to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and webhooks, and automatic sending of new scans. ## Questions about scanning cards ### Can an iPhone scan business cards into Contacts? Yes, with Krane. Scan the card, open it and add it to Apple Contacts. The name, phones, emails, company and address go in as proper contact fields. The free plan includes this for 10 scans a week. The iPhone's own Live Text adds one field at a time; the guide on [scanning business cards on iPhone](/scan-business-cards-iphone/) shows the difference. ### How do I scan a business card with Krane? Open Krane, tap Scan, hold the phone over the card and keep still. Krane takes the picture itself and reads it. Put the next card down to keep going, or open the card to add its back. ### Does Krane read both sides of a card? Yes. Add the back from the card's screen and Krane reads it into the same contact. Both pictures are kept with the card. ### Can it read Japanese, Chinese or Korean business cards? Yes. Krane reads cards in almost any language and script. A name in Japanese, Chinese or Korean characters gets a Latin spelling added alongside the original. ### Do I need an internet connection to scan? No. With no connection Krane reads the card on the iPhone right away and marks it provisional. When you're back online it checks the card again and upgrades the fields. ### Where do scanned business cards go on my iPhone? Into Krane's own list, stored on the phone, filed under the event that was running when you scanned. They show up in Spotlight search too. From there you add a card to Apple Contacts, share it as a vCard, or, with Krane Pro, send it to your CRM or export a CSV. ### Can I scan a pile of business cards at once? Yes, with Krane Pro. Switch the camera to "Group of cards", spread them out and take one photo; each card becomes its own contact. For a handful, stay in the normal mode and lay cards down one at a time. Krane shoots each one as it lands. ### Can I send a scanned card to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive? Yes, with Krane Pro. Send one card, a selection or a whole event, or turn on automatic sending for new scans. A record with the same email is updated rather than duplicated. Your tokens stay on the iPhone. ### Can I export scanned cards to Excel? Yes, with Krane Pro. Export one event or all cards as a CSV that opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. There is one column per field: company, name, position, address, each phone and email, website, tags, event, where you met, notes, follow-up date and date scanned. ### Do I need to create an account? No. There is no sign-up. Cards and CRM tokens are stored on the iPhone, and you can back everything up to one file. ### Is the business card scanner free? Krane is free for 10 scans in a rolling seven-day week, including offline reading, events, tags, notes, reminders, Apple Contacts and vCard sharing. Krane Pro is a subscription that adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export and CRM sync. ### Does Krane work on iPhone Duo, iPad or Android? Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad; it is one app for all three. There is no Android, Mac, Windows or web version. It needs iOS 17.6 or later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Event badge scanner for your iPhone URL: https://kraneapp.com/badge-scanner/ Updated: 2026-11-07 > Read event badges with your iPhone. Krane saves the name, title and company plus the badge code, files the lead under the event, and sends it to your CRM. Krane reads a conference badge with the iPhone camera: the printed name, title, company and event, plus whatever contact data the QR, PDF417 or Aztec code holds. Each badge is filed under the show you're at. ## Scan a badge in three steps. 1. Start the event: Enter the show's name and dates when you arrive; every scan from then on is filed under it. 2. Scan the badge: Hold the iPhone over it. Krane reads the print and the code and saves one contact, with or without a signal. 3. Follow up: Add a tag and a note while they're at the booth, then send the event to your CRM or export a CSV with Krane Pro. ## How a badge scan works Start the event when you reach the venue: give it the show's name and dates, or ask Siri to start it. While the event is running, every badge and card you scan is filed under it, "Met at" is filled with the event, and the event's tags are added to each contact. Open the scanner and hold the iPhone over the badge. The camera reads the printed text and the code in the same pass. Krane shoots once the badge is still; you can also tap the shutter yourself. You can also pick a photo of a badge from your library. The contact appears on screen with the fields filled in: name, title, company, the event name, the badge role (attendee, exhibitor, speaker, press, staff, sponsor, VIP or organizer) and the badge number. If the code held an email or phone number, those are on the contact too. Add a note and a tag while the person is still at the booth, then scan the next badge. The event screen lists every contact from the show, the companies and the top tags, and you can search any field or filter by tag. ## What's on a badge, and what Krane reads | On the badge | What you get in Krane | |---|---| | Printed name | Person name | | Printed title and company | Job title and company | | Event name | Event name on the contact | | Role (attendee, exhibitor, speaker, press, staff, sponsor, VIP, organizer) | Badge role | | QR, PDF417 or Aztec code | Whatever the code holds: a vCard or MeCard, an email, a phone number, a web address, or an attendee number | | Badge number | Badge ID, also a column in the CSV export | The code is the square or striped pattern that the show's own scanner reads, and what it holds is up to the organizer. Some shows put a vCard or MeCard in it, a small text record with the person's name, email and phone number. Others put only an attendee number, which means nothing outside that show's registration system. Krane also understands a code that holds just an email, a phone number or a web address. Krane reads the code and the print together and saves one contact. When the code holds contact details, they are merged with the printed name, title and company. When it holds only a number, you still get the name, title and company from the print, and the number is kept as the badge ID. Besides QR, PDF417 and Aztec, Krane reads the other common barcodes some shows print instead, such as Data Matrix and Code 128. ## Encrypted badge codes Some shows encrypt their badge codes so that only the show's own lead retrieval app can decode them. Krane cannot read those codes, and it does not guess at what is in them. The scan itself looks the same as any other, minus the code's contents. Krane saves the printed name, title, company and event, and the role if it is printed. The code is kept as text on the contact. What is missing is usually the email or phone number. Ask for the person's business card and scan it on the spot. Krane joins the card to the badge contact, so you end with one record that has the event and role from the badge and the email, phone and website from the card. If there is no card, type the email into the note field; it stays with the same contact. ## Badges and business cards in one list Badges and cards scanned during an event go into the same list. The event screen shows every person you met, grouped by company if you like, with the top tags across the show. You don't keep a badge list and a card list and reconcile them afterwards. If the same person turns up twice, a badge on Tuesday and a card on Wednesday, Krane flags the duplicate and merges the two with one tap. A badge with no email and the person's card become one contact with everything from both. See the [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) for what Krane reads from a card, front and back, and [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) for running a whole show in Krane, from the first badge to the CRM push. ## No signal in the hall Exhibition halls are often short of Wi-Fi and cell signal. Krane doesn't wait for a connection. It reads the badge on your iPhone right away, using the text recognition built into iOS, and marks the contact as provisional. When you're back online it checks the badge again and fills in anything the first read missed. The code is read on the phone as well, so an email in a vCard shows up with no signal at all. ## Notes while the conversation is fresh By the evening you won't remember which of the 40 people you met wanted a demo. Krane puts the event's tags on each badge as you scan it, so the show and your own labels are already there. After the scan, add a tag for what they asked about, a note in your own words, and a follow-up reminder. When the reminder fires it opens that card, so you write the email with the badge and the note in front of you, and can call or email from the card itself. "Met at" is already filled with the event. All of this is on the free plan. ## Your iPhone or the show's rented scanner Most shows rent exhibitors a lead retrieval device or app that reads that show's badges. It is rented per event, it decodes the show's codes in full, including encrypted ones, and the list it produces covers that show only. | | Rented lead retrieval | Krane | |---|---|---| | What you carry | A device or app rented per show | The iPhone in your pocket | | Badge codes | Decodes that show's codes, encrypted or not | Reads open QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes; printed details at any show | | Business cards | Badges only | Badges and business cards in one list | | Where the leads live | One show's list | All your shows in one app | If a show encrypts its codes and you need the email from every badge, the rented scanner gets it and Krane does not. For everything else Krane does the same job on the phone you already carry: it reads the printed details at any show, reads the business cards the rented scanner can't, and keeps this show's leads next to last year's. You can run both, the rented scanner for that show's codes and Krane for the cards and notes. ## Getting badge leads into your CRM With Krane Pro, each badge goes to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive from the Send to menu: one contact, a selection, or the whole event at once. Turn on "Send new scans automatically" for a connection and every badge is sent as you scan it. Krane creates a HubSpot contact, a Salesforce lead (or contact, your choice) or a Pipedrive person, linked to its organization when the badge names a company. If a record with the same email already exists, it is updated. Empty fields are never sent, so a badge with no phone number can't blank the phone number already in your CRM. The event name, where you met, tags and notes go into the Description field in Salesforce and into a note in Pipedrive, and the contact in Krane keeps a link to the CRM record. A webhook posts each badge as JSON to a URL you choose, for Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server. The CSV export has columns for Event, Met At, Tags and Notes, plus a Badge ID column whenever an exported contact has one, and opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. CRM tokens stay on your iPhone and the push goes straight from the app to the CRM. The field-by-field mapping is in the table on the [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page; each connection is described under [CRM sync](/#crm). ## Free and Pro Badge scanning is on the free plan: 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week, with events, tags, notes, reminders, duplicate merging and offline reading included. There is no account to create; your contacts stay on the iPhone and can be backed up to one file. Krane Pro is a subscription that removes the scan limit and adds CSV export, CRM sync, auto-send and group scan, which reads a spread of business cards from one photo. ## Questions about scanning badges ### Can I scan trade show badges with my iPhone? Yes. Krane uses the iPhone camera to read the printed name, title, company and event on the badge, and the QR, PDF417 or Aztec code at the same time. The result is one contact filed under the event. It runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only. ### Which badge codes can Krane read? QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes, and other common barcodes such as Data Matrix and Code 128. If the code holds a vCard, MeCard, email, phone number or web address, Krane puts those details on the contact. If it holds an attendee number, that becomes the badge ID. ### What information is in a conference badge QR code? It depends on the organizer. Some codes hold a vCard or MeCard with the person's name, email and phone number. Others hold only an attendee number that means something to the show's registration system and nothing else. Krane saves whatever is there and adds the printed details on top. ### What if the badge code is encrypted? Some shows encrypt their badge codes so only the show's own lead retrieval app can read them. Krane does not decode those. It saves the printed name, title, company and event, and keeps the code as text. Scan the person's business card and it joins the same contact. ### Does Krane read the badge if there is no code on it? The printed name, title, company and event are read from the badge itself; the code is extra. A badge with only print gives you a contact with those fields, and the role if it is printed. ### Does the badge scanner work in a hall with no Wi-Fi? Yes. Krane reads the badge on your iPhone right away and marks it provisional, then checks it again when you're back online. The code is also read on the phone, so contact details in it appear without a signal. ### Can I scan badges and business cards at the same show? The same camera reads both, into the same event. Badges and cards sit in one list, and a badge without an email plus that person's card are merged into one contact. ### What happens if I scan the same person twice? Krane flags the duplicate and offers to merge the two records with one tap. Scanning someone's badge on one day and their card on another ends with one contact that holds both. ### How do I get badge leads into HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive? With Krane Pro, open the Send to menu on a contact, a selection or the whole event and pick the CRM. A record with the same email is updated instead of duplicated, and empty fields are never sent. Turn on "Send new scans automatically" and each badge goes as you scan it. A webhook reaches other tools through Zapier, Make or n8n. ### Can I export badge scans to Excel? With Krane Pro, export one event or all cards as a CSV. It opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets, with columns for Event, Met At, Tags, Notes and a Badge ID column when any exported contact has one. ### Do I still need the show's lead retrieval scanner? Only if the show encrypts its badge codes and you need the email from every badge, since only the official app decodes those. At shows with open codes, or when the printed details and a business card are enough, Krane covers it on the phone you already carry. ### Is the badge scanner free? Yes. The free plan includes badge scanning, 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week, with events, tags, notes, reminders and offline reading. Krane Pro is a subscription that adds unlimited scans, CSV export and CRM sync. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # How to scan business cards on iPhone URL: https://kraneapp.com/scan-business-cards-iphone/ Updated: 2026-11-07 > The iPhone's Live Text reads a business card one field at a time. Krane fills the name, title, company, phones, email and address from one shot. Your iPhone can read the text on a business card, but it doesn't build the contact. Live Text hands you one field at a time. Krane fills every field of the contact from one shot. ## Steps 1. Open Krane: Tap Scan; the camera opens ready for a card or a badge. 2. Hold the card under the camera: Krane takes the shot when the card is still and fills in every field. 3. Save to Contacts: Tap Add to Contacts to put the person in Apple Contacts, or keep the card in Krane under the event. ## Does the iPhone have a business card scanner? No. The iPhone has no app built to scan business cards, but three tools that come with it each do part of the job. Live Text, in the Camera and Photos apps, reads the text on the card and lets you act on one item at a time. The document scanner in Notes and Files saves the card as a PDF. The Camera saves it as a photo. All three are free and already on your phone. None of them turns a card into a contact with the name, title, company, phone and email in their own fields. For that you type, or copy and paste, each field yourself, or you use a scanner app such as Krane. ## Live Text: one field at a time Live Text reads the card well. It finds phone numbers, email addresses and websites in the text and makes each one tappable. Open the Camera and point it at the card. When the iPhone sees text, the Live Text button appears in the corner of the viewfinder. Tap it and the text freezes on screen. Touch and hold the phone number, and a menu offers to call it, send a message, copy it, or add it to Contacts. Choose Add to Contacts, then Create New Contact. You now have a contact with a phone number and no name. Go back to the card for the email. Touch and hold it, choose Add to Contacts again, and this time Add to Existing Contact, then find the contact you just made. The name, job title and company are plain text to Live Text, so you select each one, copy it, switch to Contacts and paste it into the right field. A second phone number or the address is another round of the same. The result is a correct contact once every field is in, after five or six trips between the Camera and Contacts. For 20 cards from a meeting, that is every trip 20 times. Live Text also works on a photo you already took: open it in Photos and tap the same button. ## Notes and the document scanner: a picture of the card The Notes app can scan a card as a document. In a note, tap the camera or attachment button and choose Scan Documents. The iPhone finds the edges of the card, straightens it and saves it as a PDF inside the note. The Files app has the same scanner in its menu and saves the PDF to a folder you pick. The scan is sharp and easy to keep, and Notes can find words in it when you search. It is still a picture of a card. The phone number isn't in a phone field, the person isn't in your Contacts, and the card doesn't show up when you call or write to them. A plain photo from the Camera goes to Photos, next to everything else you shot that week. ## Where do scanned business cards go on iPhone? Each tool puts the card in a different place, and only one of them makes a contact. | Tool | Where the card ends up | A contact with every field filled? | Find it later by event or company? | |---|---|---|---| | Camera photo | Photos library | No | No | | Live Text | Nowhere, until you add each item to Contacts | Only the fields you add one by one | No | | Notes or Files scan | A PDF in a note or a folder | No | Only by searching the text | | Krane | Your card list in Krane, and Apple Contacts with one tap | Yes, from one shot | Yes, by event, company, tag or any field | A photo and a PDF keep the card safe but leave the work of typing it in. Live Text saves some typing and adds a tap for every field. Krane saves the person as a contact and keeps the list of everyone you met in one place, sorted by where you met them. ## One shot fills every field Krane reads the whole card at once and puts each piece of text in the field it belongs to. From one shot you get: - the person's name, job title and company, - every phone number, labelled mobile, work, fax or other, - every email address and website, - social profiles and the street address, - anything else on the card, kept under additional info. The labels matter on a card with three numbers. Krane files the mobile as mobile and the office line as work, so you know which one to call. With Live Text you see three numbers and decide yourself. If the back of the card has more on it, a direct line or the same details in Japanese, open the card and tap Add back side. Krane reads the back into the same contact, so one person stays one record. Cards in almost any language and script are read, including Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and a name in a non-Latin script gets a Latin spelling added next to it. The card appears on screen with its fields filled in and the photo of the card above them. If a field is wrong, tap it and fix it, as you would in Contacts. From the card you can call, message or email the person, or open their website and social profiles. You don't need signal for any of this. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online, then fills in anything the first read missed. ## How to scan a business card with Krane 1. **Open Krane and tap Scan.** The camera opens in "Card or badge" mode, which reads business cards and event badges. 2. **Lay the card flat and hold the iPhone over it.** Keep still. Krane takes the picture by itself as soon as the card stops moving in the frame; you can also tap the shutter button. 3. **Check the fields.** The contact appears with the name, title, company, phones, email, website and address filled in. Tap any field to correct it. 4. **Add the back, if there is one.** Open the card, tap Add back side and scan the other side. 5. **Tap Add to Contacts.** The person is saved to Apple Contacts with every field in place. Cards you photographed earlier work too. Choose a photo from your library, or several at once, and each one becomes a card. You can also start a scan by asking Siri or from a Shortcut. ## A stack of cards, not one A meeting or a show leaves you with a pile of cards. Krane has two ways through it. Card after card: hold the phone over the table and lay the cards down one at a time. Krane shoots each card as soon as it is still and reads it while you put down the next. The free plan scans three in a row this way in one session; with Krane Pro the run has no limit. Group of cards: with Krane Pro, switch the camera to "Group of cards", spread the cards out and take one photo. Krane reads every card in the spread and saves each as its own contact. If you start an event first, every card from the stack is filed under it, with "Met at" filled in and the event's tags added. The [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) page covers a whole show this way, badges included; the [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) page covers the badges. ## After the scan: Contacts, events, CRM **Add to Apple Contacts with one tap.** The contact then shows up wherever your iPhone uses Contacts: in the Phone app when they call, in Mail when you write, in Messages. If your iPhone's default contacts account is an Exchange or Google account, the contact is saved there and reaches Outlook or Gmail too. You can also share any card as a vCard, the standard contact file other phones and email programs open. The card also stays in Krane, where you can find it later. Search any field, filter by tag or event, or group the list by company. Add a note about what you talked about, and a follow-up reminder that opens that card when it fires. Scan the same person twice and Krane flags the duplicate and merges the two with one tap. With Krane Pro you can export one event or every card as a CSV for Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or send cards to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. A webhook reaches other tools through Zapier, Make or n8n. Each connection is described under [CRM sync](/#crm), and the [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) page lists every field Krane reads. ## When Live Text is enough If you get a card now and then and only need the phone number, Live Text is the quicker route. Point the Camera, tap the number, call or save it. Nothing to install. Krane earns its place when the cards come in stacks: more than a few a week, people you need to follow up with, a trade show, or a CRM the contacts have to reach. That is when filling every field from one shot, and finding the person again by event or company, saves the evening of copying and pasting. ## Free and Pro Krane is free for 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week. There is no account to create, and your cards stay on your iPhone, where you can back everything up to one file. Everything in this guide is on the free plan except group scan, CSV export and CRM sync. Krane Pro is a subscription that adds those and removes the scan limit. ## Questions about scanning cards on iPhone ### Does the iPhone have a business card scanner? Not as a separate app. Live Text in the Camera and Photos apps reads the text on a card, and the Notes and Files apps can scan it as a PDF. None of them fills a contact with every field, which is what a scanner app such as Krane does. ### Can I scan a business card into my iPhone Contacts? Yes. With Live Text you add the phone number or email to a contact one item at a time and type or paste the rest. With Krane you scan the card once and tap Add to Contacts, and the name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address go in together. ### Where do scanned business cards go on iPhone? A Camera photo goes to Photos. A Notes scan is a PDF inside a note, and a Files scan is a PDF in the folder you chose. Live Text saves nothing until you add each item to Contacts. Krane keeps the card in its own list and saves it to Apple Contacts with one tap. ### Can Live Text add a business card to Contacts? Partly. Touch and hold a phone number or email in Live Text and choose Add to Contacts, then create a new contact or add to an existing one. Each item is a separate step, and the name, title and company have to be copied or typed in yourself. ### Why doesn't Live Text fill in the whole contact? Live Text reads text and recognizes things it can act on, like phone numbers, emails and web addresses. It doesn't decide which line is the person's name, which is the job title and which is the company, so it can't lay out a contact. Krane reads the card as a business card and puts each line in its field. ### How do I scan a business card with the Notes app? Open a note, tap the camera or attachment button and choose Scan Documents. Hold the iPhone over the card; Notes finds the edges and saves the scan as a PDF in the note. You can search the text later, but the card does not become a contact. ### Is there a free business card scanner app for iPhone? Krane is free for 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week, with no account. The free plan includes events, tags, notes, reminders, Apple Contacts, vCard sharing and offline reading. Krane Pro is a subscription for unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export and CRM sync. ### Can I scan both sides of a business card? Yes. Scan the front, then open the card in Krane and tap Add back side. Krane reads the back into the same contact, so a card with English on one side and Japanese on the other is still one person. ### Can I scan several business cards at once on iPhone? Yes, two ways. Card after card: lay the cards down one at a time under the phone and Krane shoots each one, three in a row on the free plan and without limit on Krane Pro. Group of cards, with Krane Pro, reads a whole spread of cards from one photo. ### Does it work without Wi-Fi or signal? Yes. Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away, using the text recognition built into iOS. When you're back online it checks the card again and fills in anything the first read missed. ### Can I scan business cards into Outlook from my iPhone? Krane has no direct Outlook connection yet; it is coming soon. Today, set your iPhone's default contacts account to your Exchange or Outlook account and tap Add to Contacts on each card, and the contact syncs to Outlook. With Krane Pro you can also export a CSV and import it into Outlook. ### How do I organize business cards on my iPhone? Start an event in Krane before a show or a meeting, and every card you scan is filed under it. Add tags, notes and follow-up reminders, then search any field or group the list by company. All of this is on the free plan. ### Does Krane work on iPad and iPhone Duo? Yes. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad and needs iOS 17.6 or later. It does not run on Android, Mac or Windows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Trade show lead capture on your iPhone URL: https://kraneapp.com/trade-show-lead-capture/ Updated: 2026-11-07 > Scan badges and business cards at the booth, file them under the show, and send the whole event to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive the same day. Krane reads badges and business cards at the booth, files each one under the show with your tags and where you met already filled in, and with Krane Pro sends the whole event to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive the same day. ## Before, during and after the show. 1. Before the show: Create the event with its name, dates, location and tags, and connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive once with Krane Pro. 2. At the booth: Scan badges and cards with one camera, with or without a signal, and add a note and a reminder while the visitor is still there. 3. After the show: Send the whole event to your CRM or export it as a CSV the same day, with existing contacts updated rather than duplicated. ## Before the show Create the event in Krane before you leave for the venue. Give it the show's name, its start and end dates and the location. Then add the tags you want on every lead from this show: the product line you are demoing, the territory, "demo requested", whatever your follow-up is sorted by. From the moment the event starts, every badge and card you scan is filed under it, "Met at" is filled with the show's name, and those tags are added to each contact. You type them once. If the leads are going to a CRM, connect it once with Krane Pro. HubSpot takes a private app token and Pipedrive an API token; Salesforce signs you in with your Salesforce login. For Salesforce, choose whether each scan becomes a Lead or a Contact. The token stays on your iPhone, and the app sends to the CRM directly, with no Krane server in between. On the morning of day one you can start the event by asking Siri or from a Shortcut, which saves finding the app while you are setting up the booth. ## At the booth One camera reads both badges and business cards. Open the scanner, hold the iPhone over the badge on the visitor's lanyard or the card they hand you, and Krane shoots as soon as the picture is still. The contact appears in the event's list with the name, title, company, phone numbers, emails and websites read from the print, and whatever the badge's code holds, from an attendee number to a full vCard. When a visitor hands you two or three cards for colleagues, or you have five left from the last conversation, lay them on the table one at a time under the phone. Krane shoots each card the moment it is still and reads it while you set down the next. On the free plan you can scan three in a row per session; with Krane Pro there is no limit. Before the visitor walks off, add what the follow-up will need: a note ("wants a quote for 200 units, ships to Ohio"), a tag beyond the ones the event adds, and a reminder for the day you promised to call. The reminder opens that card when it fires. After 40 conversations in a day you will not remember which one asked about the 200 units; the note typed while they were in front of you is what the follow-up email gets written from. ## Badges and business cards in one list A badge gives Krane less than a card, but enough to find the person. From the print it reads the name, title, company and event name, plus the badge role (attendee, exhibitor, speaker, press, staff, sponsor, VIP or organizer) and the badge number. From the code, a QR, PDF417 or Aztec code or another common barcode, it takes whatever contact data the show put there: a vCard, an email, a phone number or a URL. The printed details and the code contents are merged into one contact. Some shows encrypt their badge codes so only their own lead retrieval app can decode them. Krane cannot decode those. It stores the code as text and saves the printed name, title, company and event, which is enough to find the person afterward. Most badges carry no email or phone. When the visitor hands you a business card as well, scan it and it joins the same contact instead of making a second one. From a card Krane reads the name, title, company, phone numbers labelled mobile, work, fax or other, email addresses, websites, social profiles and street address, and adds a Latin spelling to a name in a non-Latin script. The [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/) and [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) pages list every field each one reads. ## No signal on the show floor Krane does not need a connection to scan. It reads each badge and card on your iPhone right away, using the text recognition built into iOS, and marks the contact provisional. When the phone is back online, Krane checks each one again and upgrades the fields with the better read. Scanning runs at the same pace in a basement hall as on the hotel Wi-Fi, so the visitor in front of you is not waiting for a signal. Sending to a CRM does need a connection. ## Duplicates and the end-of-day stack The same person comes past the booth on Tuesday and again on Thursday, or hands you a card you scanned the day before. Krane flags the match and offers a one-tap merge, so the event list has one contact for them. For the stack of cards in your jacket at the end of the day, switch the camera to Group of cards (Krane Pro). Spread the cards on the hotel desk, take one photo, and Krane reads each card in the picture as its own contact. While the event is still running, they are filed under it like the badges you scanned at the booth, with the same tags and "Met at". ## After the show, into your CRM the same day With Krane Pro, the event's list goes to wherever your follow-up runs from. One row per destination: | Destination | What Krane creates | If the person is already there | Where the event, tags and notes land | |---|---|---|---| | HubSpot | A contact: name, email, phone, mobile, fax, company, job title, website, address | A contact with the same email is updated | They stay in Krane; HubSpot gets the contact fields only | | Salesforce | A Lead (the default) or a Contact, your choice: name, title, email, phone, mobile, fax, street, and company and website on a Lead. LeadSource is "Krane" | A record with the same email is updated | The Description field | | Pipedrive | A person, with the organization linked or created when the card has a company. Emails and phones keep their labels | A person with the same email is updated | A note, "Scanned with Krane", with the position, event, where you met, tags and notes | | Zapier, Make, n8n or your own server (webhook) | One JSON object per card, posted to a URL you choose; the card image can be included | Whatever your workflow decides | In the JSON. With a shared secret, each request is signed (HMAC-SHA256 over the timestamp and body) | | CSV | A `BusinessCards-.csv` file for the event; opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets | Handled on import | The Event, Met At, Tags and Notes columns, plus Badge ID when any contact has one | From a card's Send to menu, send one lead right after the conversation; from the event, send a selection or the whole event in one go. Or turn on "Send new scans automatically" for the connection and every scan goes as soon as it lands. Each card keeps a link to its CRM record after the push. Empty fields are never sent, so a card with no fax number cannot blank a fax number already in HubSpot. The HubSpot and Pipedrive tokens and the Salesforce sign-in stay on your iPhone; the app talks to the CRM directly. See [CRM sync in Krane](/#crm) for each connection. ## Your iPhone or the show's rented scanner Many shows rent exhibitors a lead retrieval device or app for the event. The difference is what each one reads and where the leads end up. | | The show's lead retrieval | Krane | |---|---|---| | Cost | Rented per event | 10 scans a week free; Krane Pro is a subscription | | This show's badges | Decodes the show's own codes, including encrypted ones | Reads the printed name, title, company and event on any badge, and QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes when they are not encrypted | | Business cards | Depends on the show | Read into the same list as the badges | | The next show | A new rental | The same app and a new event; every show in one place | | Hardware | The show's handset or an app installed for the event | The iPhone you already carry | If a show encrypts its badge codes, the official app is the only way to read the code. Krane still saves the printed details from the same badge, and the visitor's card if they give you one. A rental is one more cost of the show. The free [trade show ROI and cost per lead calculator](/tools/trade-show-roi-calculator/) adds it to the booth, travel and staff time and divides the total by your leads. ## Free and Krane Pro Krane is free for 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week. The free plan includes events, tags, notes, reminders, offline reading, badge scanning, duplicate detection, Apple Contacts and vCard sharing. A booth that collects more than 10 leads a week needs Krane Pro, an auto-renewing subscription, monthly or yearly, which adds unlimited scans, Group of cards, CSV export, CRM sync and auto-send. [Krane for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad](/) is on the App Store; there is no account to create. ## Questions about trade show leads ### How do I capture leads at a trade show with Krane? Create an event for the show, start it when you reach the venue, and scan each visitor's badge or business card with the iPhone camera. Every scan is filed under that event with your tags and "Met at" filled in. Add a note and a reminder after each conversation, and when the show ends, send the event to your CRM or export it with Krane Pro. ### Can I keep leads from different shows apart? Yes. Each show is its own event in Krane, with its own dates, tags and notes, and the event screen shows only the cards and badges scanned while it was running. You can filter all your contacts by event, group them by event or company, and export one event on its own. ### Can Krane scan trade show badges, or only business cards? Both, with the same camera. From a badge it reads the printed name, title, company, event name, role and badge number, plus the contents of a QR, PDF417 or Aztec code. From a card it reads the name, title, company, phone numbers, emails, websites, social profiles and address. ### What if the show encrypts its badge codes? Krane cannot decode an encrypted code; only the show's own lead retrieval app can. It still saves the printed name, title, company and event from the badge. If the visitor gives you a business card too, scan it and it joins the same contact. ### Does Krane work without Wi-Fi at the venue? Yes. Krane reads each badge and card on your iPhone right away and marks it provisional, then checks it again when you are back online. Scanning runs at the same pace with no signal; sending to a CRM needs a connection. ### How do I send the leads from one show to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive? Connect the CRM once in Krane's settings with Krane Pro. Then open the event and send the whole list, or a selection, from the Send to menu. If you turn on "Send new scans automatically" for the connection, each scan goes to the CRM as it lands. ### What happens if someone is already in my CRM? In HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive, a record with the same email is updated rather than duplicated. Empty fields on the card are never sent, so a push cannot blank data the CRM already has. Each card keeps a link to the CRM record after the push. ### Can I scan a stack of cards after the show? Yes. With Krane Pro, switch the camera to Group of cards, spread the stack on a desk and take one photo; Krane reads each card in the picture as its own contact. For a smaller handful, lay the cards under the phone one at a time and Krane shoots each one as soon as it is still. ### How do I export leads from one show to Excel? Open the event and export it as a CSV with Krane Pro. The file opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets, with one column per field, including Event, Met At, Tags, Notes and Badge ID when any contact has one. Headers are always in English, so the file opens the same way on every machine. ### Can I add notes and follow-up reminders at the booth? Yes, and they are free. After a scan, add a note, extra tags and a follow-up date on the card. The reminder opens that card when it fires, and the notes travel with the contact to Salesforce, Pipedrive and the CSV. ### Do I need to rent the show's lead retrieval scanner if I use Krane? Only if you need the contents of that show's encrypted badge codes, which only the show's own app can decode. For badges with open codes, and for the printed details on any badge, Krane reads them on your iPhone, and it reads business cards as well. Your leads from every show stay in one app. ### Is Krane free for trade shows? Krane is free for 10 scans in any rolling seven-day week, including events, tags, notes, reminders, badge scanning and offline reading. A show that brings in more leads than that, or leads that have to reach a CRM or a CSV, needs Krane Pro, which is a subscription. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Desktop Business Card Scanner URL: https://kraneapp.com/scanner/ > A desktop business card scanner from Krane is on the way. Leave your email to hear when it is available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Privacy Policy URL: https://kraneapp.com/privacy/ > Privacy notice for the Krane business card scanner app: what information is processed, how it is used and shared, and your privacy rights.

Last updated November 12, 2026

This Privacy Notice for Kostiantyn Malynin ("we," "us," or "our"), describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you: - Download and use our mobile application (Krane - Building Relationships), or any other application of ours that links to this Privacy Notice - Engage with us in other related ways, including any sales, marketing, or events **Questions or concerns?** Reading this Privacy Notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. We are responsible for making decisions about how your personal information is processed. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com). ## Summary of key points {#summary} This summary provides key points from our Privacy Notice, but you can find out more details about any of these topics by clicking the link following each key point or by using our table of contents below to find the section you are looking for. **What personal information do we process?** When you visit, use, or navigate our Services, we may process personal information depending on how you interact with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. [Learn more about personal information you disclose to us.](#collect) **Do we process any sensitive personal information?** Some of the information may be considered "special" or "sensitive" in certain jurisdictions, for example your racial or ethnic origins, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs. We do not process sensitive personal information. **Do we collect any information from third parties?** We do not collect any information from third parties. **How do we process your information?** We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent. We process your information only when we have a valid legal reason to do so. [Learn more about how we process your information.](#process) **In what situations and with which parties do we share personal information?** We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties. [Learn more about when and with whom we share your personal information.](#share) **How do we keep your information safe?** We have adequate organizational and technical processes and procedures in place to protect your personal information. However, no electronic transmission over the internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. [Learn more about how we keep your information safe.](#safe) **What are your rights?** Depending on where you are located geographically, the applicable privacy law may mean you have certain rights regarding your personal information. [Learn more about your privacy rights.](#rights) **How do you exercise your rights?** The easiest way to exercise your rights is by submitting a data subject access request, or by contacting us. We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Want to learn more about what we do with any information we collect? Review the Privacy Notice in full. ## Table of contents {#contents} 1. [What information do we collect?](#collect) 2. [How do we process your information?](#process) 3. [What legal bases do we rely on to process your personal information?](#legal-bases) 4. [When and with whom do we share your personal information?](#share) 5. [Do we offer artificial intelligence-based products?](#ai) 6. [How long do we keep your information?](#retention) 7. [How do we keep your information safe?](#safe) 8. [Do we collect information from minors?](#minors) 9. [What are your privacy rights?](#rights) 10. [Controls for do-not-track features](#dnt) 11. [Do United States residents have specific privacy rights?](#us-rights) 12. [Do we make updates to this notice?](#updates) 13. [How can you contact us about this notice?](#contact) 14. [How can you review, update, or delete the data we collect from you?](#review) ## 1. What information do we collect? {#collect} ### Personal information you disclose to us *In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.* We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us. **Personal Information Provided by You.** The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect may include the following: - images **Sensitive Information.** We do not process sensitive information. All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete, and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information. ### Website cookies and measurement {#cookies} *In Short: Our website (kraneapp.com) uses cookies to count visits and to see which ads bring people to it. You can accept or decline them.* - **Google Analytics** counts page visits, where visitors come from (for example a search engine or ChatGPT) and taps on our App Store links. Google receives your IP address, browser details and the pages you view, and sets first-party cookies (`_ga`). - **OpenAI ads measurement (the OpenAI pixel)** loads only if you arrived by clicking one of our ads in ChatGPT. It tells OpenAI that the page was viewed and whether you tapped an App Store link, so we can see whether the ad worked. OpenAI sets first-party cookies (`__oppref`, `__obref`) and receives your IP address and browser details. We do not use these tools to build advertising profiles, and the Krane app itself does not use them. **Your choice.** If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, these cookies are only set after you choose "Accept" on the cookie banner. Elsewhere they are on unless you choose "Decline". You can change your choice at any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page. Your choice is stored in your browser. ## 2. How do we process your information? {#process} *In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent.* We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including: - **To save or protect an individual's vital interest.** We may process your information when necessary to save or protect an individual's vital interest, such as to prevent harm. ## 3. What legal bases do we rely on to process your information? {#legal-bases} *In Short: We only process your personal information when we believe it is necessary and we have a valid legal reason (i.e., legal basis) to do so under applicable law, like with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services to enter into or fulfill our contractual obligations, to protect your rights, or to fulfill our legitimate business interests.* **If you are located in the EU or UK, this section applies to you.** The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR require us to explain the valid legal bases we rely on in order to process your personal information. As such, we may rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information: - **Consent.** We may process your information if you have given us permission (i.e., consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose. You can withdraw your consent at any time. [Learn more about withdrawing your consent.](#withdraw) - **Legal Obligations.** We may process your information where we believe it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations, such as to cooperate with a law enforcement body or regulatory agency, exercise or defend our legal rights, or disclose your information as evidence in litigation in which we are involved. - **Vital Interests.** We may process your information where we believe it is necessary to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of a third party, such as situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person. **If you are located in Canada, this section applies to you.** We may process your information if you have given us specific permission (i.e., express consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose, or in situations where your permission can be inferred (i.e., implied consent). You can withdraw your consent at any time. In some exceptional cases, we may be legally permitted under applicable law to process your information without your consent, including, for example: - If collection is clearly in the interests of an individual and consent cannot be obtained in a timely way - For investigations and fraud detection and prevention - For business transactions provided certain conditions are met - If it is contained in a witness statement and the collection is necessary to assess, process, or settle an insurance claim - For identifying injured, ill, or deceased persons and communicating with next of kin - If we have reasonable grounds to believe an individual has been, is, or may be victim of financial abuse - If it is reasonable to expect collection and use with consent would compromise the availability or the accuracy of the information and the collection is reasonable for purposes related to investigating a breach of an agreement or a contravention of the laws of Canada or a province - If disclosure is required to comply with a subpoena, warrant, court order, or rules of the court relating to the production of records - If it was produced by an individual in the course of their employment, business, or profession and the collection is consistent with the purposes for which the information was produced - If the collection is solely for journalistic, artistic, or literary purposes - If the information is publicly available and is specified by the regulations ## 4. When and with whom do we share your personal information? {#share} *In Short: We may share information in specific situations described in this section and/or with the following third parties.* We may need to share your personal information in the following situations: - **Website measurement.** When you visit our website, Google (Google Analytics) and, if you arrived from one of our ads in ChatGPT, OpenAI receive the information described in "[Website cookies and measurement](#cookies)", subject to your cookie choice. - **Business Transfers.** We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company. ## 5. Do we offer artificial intelligence-based products? {#ai} *In Short: We offer products, features, or tools powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, or similar technologies.* As part of our Services, we offer products, features, or tools powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, or similar technologies (collectively, "AI Products"). These tools are designed to enhance your experience and provide you with innovative solutions. The terms in this Privacy Notice govern your use of the AI Products within our Services. ### Use of AI Technologies We provide the AI Products through third-party service providers ("AI Service Providers"), including Anthropic. As outlined in this Privacy Notice, your input, output, and personal information will be shared with and processed by these AI Service Providers to enable your use of our AI Products for purposes outlined in "[What legal bases do we rely on to process your personal information?](#legal-bases)" You must not use the AI Products in any way that violates the terms or policies of any AI Service Provider. ### Our AI Products Our AI Products are designed for the following functions: - Image analysis ### How We Process Your Data Using AI All personal information processed using our AI Products is handled in line with our Privacy Notice and our agreement with third parties. This ensures high security and safeguards your personal information throughout the process, giving you peace of mind about your data's safety. ## 6. How long do we keep your information? {#retention} *In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.* We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting, or other legal requirements). When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible. ## 7. How do we keep your information safe? {#safe} *In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.* We have implemented appropriate and reasonable technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the Services within a secure environment. ## 8. Do we collect information from minors? {#minors} *In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.* We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent's use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com). ## 9. What are your privacy rights? {#rights} *In Short: Depending on your state of residence in the US or in some regions, such as the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland, and Canada, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information. You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time, depending on your country, province, or state of residence.* In some regions (like the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right (i) to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, (ii) to request rectification or erasure; (iii) to restrict the processing of your personal information; (iv) if applicable, to data portability; and (v) not to be subject to automated decision-making. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information. You can make such a request by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section "[How can you contact us about this notice?](#contact)" below. We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws. If you are located in the EEA or UK and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your Member State data protection authority or UK data protection authority. If you are located in Switzerland, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. **Withdrawing your consent:** If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, which may be express and/or implied consent depending on the applicable law, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us by using the contact details provided in the section "[How can you contact us about this notice?](#contact)" below. However, please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal nor, when applicable law allows, will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent. **Opting out of marketing and promotional communications:** You can unsubscribe from our marketing and promotional communications at any time by replying "STOP" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" to the SMS messages that we send, or by contacting us using the details provided in the section "[How can you contact us about this notice?](#contact)" below. You will then be removed from the marketing lists. However, we may still communicate with you — for example, to send you service-related messages that are necessary for the administration and use of your account, to respond to service requests, or for other non-marketing purposes. If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com). ## 10. Controls for do-not-track features {#dnt} Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this Privacy Notice. California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser DNT signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring DNT signals, we do not respond to them at this time. ## 11. Do United States residents have specific privacy rights? {#us-rights} *In Short: If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, or Virginia, you may have the right to request access to and receive details about the personal information we maintain about you and how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, get a copy of, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. More information is provided below.* ### Categories of Personal Information We Collect We have collected the following categories of personal information in the past twelve (12) months: | Category | Examples | Collected | | --- | --- | --- | | A. Identifiers | Contact details, such as real name, alias, postal address, telephone or mobile contact number, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, and account name | NO | | B. Personal information as defined in the California Customer Records statute | Name, contact information, education, employment, employment history, and financial information | NO | | C. Protected classification characteristics under state or federal law | Gender, age, date of birth, race and ethnicity, national origin, marital status, and other demographic data | NO | | D. Commercial information | Transaction information, purchase history, financial details, and payment information | NO | | E. Biometric information | Fingerprints and voiceprints | NO | | F. Internet or other similar network activity | Browsing history, search history, online behavior, interest data, and interactions with our and other websites, applications, systems, and advertisements | YES (website visits only, see [Website cookies and measurement](#cookies)) | | G. Geolocation data | Device location | NO | | H. Audio, electronic, sensory, or similar information | Images and audio, video or call recordings created in connection with our business activities | NO | | I. Professional or employment-related information | Business contact details in order to provide you our Services at a business level or job title, work history, and professional qualifications if you apply for a job with us | NO | | J. Education Information | Student records and directory information | NO | | K. Inferences drawn from collected personal information | Inferences drawn from any of the collected personal information listed above to create a profile or summary about, for example, an individual's preferences and characteristics | NO | | L. Sensitive personal Information | | NO | We may also collect other personal information outside of these categories through instances where you interact with us in person, online, or by phone or mail in the context of: - Receiving help through our customer support channels; - Participation in customer surveys or contests; and - Facilitation in the delivery of our Services and to respond to your inquiries. We will use and retain the collected personal information as needed to provide the Services or for: - Category H - As long as the user has an account with us ### Sources of Personal Information Learn more about the sources of personal information we collect in "[What information do we collect?](#collect)" ### How We Use and Share Personal Information Learn more about how we use your personal information in the section, "[How do we process your information?](#process)" **Will your information be shared with anyone else?** We may disclose your personal information with our service providers pursuant to a written contract between us and each service provider. Learn more about how we disclose personal information to in the section, "[When and with whom do we share your personal information?](#share)" We may use your personal information for our own business purposes, such as for undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration. This is not considered to be "selling" of your personal information. We have not disclosed, sold, or shared any personal information to third parties for a business or commercial purpose in the preceding twelve (12) months. We will not sell or share personal information in the future belonging to website visitors, users, and other consumers. ### Your Rights You have rights under certain US state data protection laws. However, these rights are not absolute, and in certain cases, we may decline your request as permitted by law. These rights include: - Right to know whether or not we are processing your personal data - Right to access your personal data - Right to correct inaccuracies in your personal data - Right to request the deletion of your personal data - Right to obtain a copy of the personal data you previously shared with us - Right to non-discrimination for exercising your rights - Right to opt out of the processing of your personal data if it is used for targeted advertising (or sharing as defined under California's privacy law), the sale of personal data, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects ("profiling") Depending upon the state where you live, you may also have the following rights: - Right to access the categories of personal data being processed (as permitted by applicable law, including Minnesota's privacy law) - Right to obtain a list of the categories of third parties to which we have disclosed personal data (as permitted by applicable law, including California's and Delaware's privacy law) - Right to obtain a list of specific third parties to which we have disclosed personal data (as permitted by applicable law, including Minnesota's and Oregon's privacy law) - Right to review, understand, question, and correct how personal data has been profiled (as permitted by applicable law, including Minnesota's privacy law) - Right to limit use and disclosure of sensitive personal data (as permitted by applicable law, including California's privacy law) - Right to opt out of the collection of sensitive data and personal data collected through the operation of a voice or facial recognition feature (as permitted by applicable law, including Florida's privacy law) ### How to Exercise Your Rights To exercise these rights, you can contact us by submitting a data subject access request, by emailing us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com), or by referring to the contact details at the bottom of this document. Under certain US state data protection laws, you can designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. We may deny a request from an authorized agent that does not submit proof that they have been validly authorized to act on your behalf in accordance with applicable laws. ### Request Verification Upon receiving your request, we will need to verify your identity to determine you are the same person about whom we have the information in our system. We will only use personal information provided in your request to verify your identity or authority to make the request. However, if we cannot verify your identity from the information already maintained by us, we may request that you provide additional information for the purposes of verifying your identity and for security or fraud-prevention purposes. If you submit the request through an authorized agent, we may need to collect additional information to verify your identity before processing your request and the agent will need to provide a written and signed permission from you to submit such request on your behalf. ### Appeals Under certain US state data protection laws, if we decline to take action regarding your request, you may appeal our decision by emailing us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com). We will inform you in writing of any action taken or not taken in response to the appeal, including a written explanation of the reasons for the decisions. If your appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to your state attorney general. ### California "Shine The Light" Law California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the "Shine The Light" law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us by using the contact details provided in the section "[How can you contact us about this notice?](#contact)" ## 12. Do we make updates to this notice? {#updates} *In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.* We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date at the top of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information. ## 13. How can you contact us about this notice? {#contact} If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at [info@kraneapp.com](mailto:info@kraneapp.com) or contact us by post at: Kostiantyn Malynin ## 14. How can you review, update, or delete the data we collect from you? {#review} Based on the applicable laws of your country or state of residence in the US, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, details about how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please fill out and submit a data subject access request. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Free tools for business cards and contacts URL: https://kraneapp.com/tools/ Updated: 2026-11-12 > Free tools for business cards and contacts: card reader, QR code generator, VCF viewer and converter, contact list template, email signatures. No sign-up. Seven free tools for business cards and contacts, no sign-up. Five upload nothing; the card reader sends a photo to be read, and the card maker sends your brief and name for design ideas. ## Why these tools are free The tools come from the maker of Krane, the business card scanner for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Each does one small job around a card or a contacts file: a photo of a paper card read into a contact, a card of your own made ready to print, a QR code for the card you print, a .vcf opened and turned into a spreadsheet, a blank contact list to fill in, an email signature built from a template, a show's cost worked out per lead. People search for one of those jobs, find the tool, and some later look at the app. That is why they are free. Five of them also cost little to run, because the work happens on your computer or phone. The business card reader and the card maker's design ideas are the exceptions: each request costs Krane money, so the reader is free up to 3 reads a week and the design ideas up to 10 requests a day. There are no ads on the tool pages. Free business card tools usually sit behind a form that asks for your email; these have no form, no sign-up, and nothing inside the tool that sells you anything. ## What leaves your browser From five of the tools, nothing. The QR code generator, the VCF viewer and converter, the contact list template, the signature generator and the ROI calculator each carry their code in the page. Once the page has loaded, your computer or phone does the rest: it draws the QR code from the fields you fill, reads the .vcf you drop in, builds the template file, assembles the signature and works out the ROI. None of that is sent to kraneapp.com. You can check this. Open one of the five, let the page load, then turn off Wi-Fi. The tool keeps working. The one thing that travels is the ROI calculator's share link, which carries your numbers in the link itself. The business card reader is one exception. A photo can't be read in the browser, so the page shrinks yours and sends it to Krane to be read. Krane doesn't store the photo or the contact it reads. The business card maker is the other: it draws the card in your browser, but when you ask for design ideas it sends your brief, name, job title, company and tagline to Krane, never your phone numbers, email or address, and a photo if you start from your old card. Each tool page says at the top which kind it is. Krane the app keeps your scanned cards on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, with no account to create. ## The cards you collect: Krane The tools cover the card you hand out, the contacts you already have in a file and the odd single card. The paper cards and badges you are handed at a show are Krane's job. Krane is a [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. Photograph a card and it reads the name, title, company, phones, emails, website and address into one contact, on the phone right away, and checks it again when you're back online. Start an event when you reach the venue and every card and badge from that show is filed under it, with where you met and the event's tags filled in: the [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) side. The free plan covers 10 scans a week and saves to Apple Contacts. Krane Pro adds unlimited scans, CSV export and sending to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Both plans are on the [pricing page](/pricing/). ## Questions about the free tools ### Are these tools really free? Yes. None of the seven has a paid version behind it. Five have no limit on how often you use them; the business card reader gives 3 reads a week and the card maker 10 design requests a day, because each costs Krane money. They are made by the maker of Krane, the iPhone business card scanner, and they bring people to the site; that is how they pay for themselves. ### Do I need an account? No. There is nothing to log in to, no sign-up, and no email form before the download. Open the tool, use it, download the result. Krane the app has no account either: your cards and CRM tokens are stored on the iPhone, and the backup is a single file you keep. ### Is my data uploaded anywhere? From five of the tools, no. The business card reader shrinks your photo and sends it to Krane to be read, and Krane does not store the photo or the contact. The card maker sends your brief, name, job title, company and tagline when you ask for design ideas, and a photo if you start from an old card; Krane stores none of it. With the other five, the contact details behind your QR code, the .vcf you drop in, the template you download, the signature you build and the booth costs you type stay on your computer or phone. ### Do the tools work on a phone? Yes. They work in any current browser, on an iPhone, an Android phone or a computer. The VCF viewer and converter is easiest on a computer, where you can drag the file in, but a phone can pick a .vcf from Files or a mail attachment. The tools are the one part of kraneapp.com that works on Android and Windows; the Krane app is iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only. ### Can I import the CSV or vCard into Krane? No. Krane has no importer for .vcf or CSV files; it fills its list by scanning cards and badges. The files from the card reader and the converter are for your address book, spreadsheet or CRM. The converter writes a CSV for Excel, Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot or Salesforce, or a .vcf for Apple Contacts. Its Krane column set matches a CSV exported from Krane Pro column for column. ### Can I suggest a tool? Yes. Write to info@kraneapp.com with the job you want done and, if you have one, a sample file. Small jobs around cards and contacts are the kind we build. If a tool gives a wrong result, send the input that caused it and we will fix it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Krane compared with other business card apps URL: https://kraneapp.com/compare/ Updated: 2026-11-08 > Scanners and digital business card apps do different jobs. How Krane compares with CamCard, Covve, HiHello, Popl, Blinq and Haystack, checked Nov 8, 2026. Business card apps split into two kinds: scanners that read the cards you collect, and digital cards that share your own. Each comparison here says where the other app is the better pick. ## Two kinds of business card app A scanner is built around the cards other people hand you. You photograph the card, the app reads the name, title, company, phones and emails into a contact, and the contact goes somewhere: Apple Contacts, a CSV file or a CRM. CamCard and Covve are in this group, and so is Krane. CamCard and Covve have added digital cards of their own; Krane shares a vCard instead. A digital business card app is built around your own card. You share it by QR code, NFC or a link, and the other person needs no app. HiHello, Blinq and Haystack are digital cards first; Popl sells a digital card alongside team lead capture for events. All four have added a scanner for paper cards. The difference shows up in three places. Scan limits: a digital card app scans as a side feature, so it often meters it. HiHello's free plan allows 5 paper card or badge scans a month, as its pricing page listed on November 8, 2026; Haystack's free plan says unlimited. CRM plans: at HiHello and Blinq, native sync with Salesforce or HubSpot sits on the Business tier, sold per user with a five-seat minimum. Accounts: HiHello and Popl keep scanned contacts in your account on their servers. Krane has no account; the cards stay on your iPhone, iPhone Duo or iPad, and Krane Pro adds CRM sync for one person. ## Which one fits you - You hand out your own card more than you collect others'. Look at a digital card app: HiHello, Blinq, Haystack or Popl. Each shares your card by QR code or NFC, and the person you meet needs no app. - A team of 20 at one booth, leads going into Dynamics 365. Look at a team plan. HiHello, Blinq and Popl list Dynamics 365 among their team-plan CRMs and give the manager an admin dashboard. Krane has no team plan and no Dynamics connector. - One rep, a show with no signal, Pipedrive. Look at Krane. It reads each card on the phone right away, files it under the event, and sends it to Pipedrive with Krane Pro. No team plan is needed. - A card now and then, no export. Look at a free plan. Krane's covers 10 scans a week and saves to Apple Contacts. Haystack's lists unlimited scans; HiHello's allows 5 a month. - Android in the team. Look at any app here except Krane. CamCard, Covve, HiHello, Popl, Blinq and Haystack all list an Android app. Krane runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only. - A shared card database for the whole company, with single sign-on. Look at CamCard Business or Covve Enterprise. Both list SSO and admin controls on their team pages. ## How we compared Every value about another app was read on that app's own website, help center and App Store page on November 8, 2026, and each per-app page links the source. We did not use third-party reviews, and we show no ratings. Where a page didn't say, the table says "Unknown" rather than our guess. Several makers don't state whether cards are read on the phone or on a server, or which card languages they read. Prices are US list prices on that date and change; where a maker's website and its App Store listing disagree, the per-app page says so. Krane's own limits sit in the same table: 10 free scans a week, CRM sync and CSV export only with Krane Pro, no Android, no digital card of its own. The plans and what each includes are on the [pricing page](/pricing/). If a value is out of date, write to info@kraneapp.com; corrections are welcome. ## What Krane is, in one paragraph Krane is a [business card scanner](/business-card-scanner/) for iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad. It reads the name, title, company, phones, emails, website, social profiles and address of a card into one contact. With no signal it reads on the phone right away and checks the card again when you're back online. It is also a [badge scanner](/badge-scanner/): it reads QR, PDF417 and Aztec codes and merges them with the printed name, title and company. Start an event and every scan is filed under it, which is the [trade show lead capture](/trade-show-lead-capture/) side. There is no account; cards stay on the device. The free plan covers 10 scans a week. Krane Pro adds unlimited scans, group scan, CSV export, and HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or a webhook. ## Questions ### What is the best business card scanner app for iPhone? It depends on the job. If you need your own digital card and a team directory, HiHello, Blinq, Haystack or Popl are built for that. If you need the cards you're handed read into contacts, Krane does that on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad with no account, reads with no signal, and sends to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive with Krane Pro. Covve and CamCard are scanners too, and both add Android. ### What's the difference between a business card scanner and a digital business card app? A scanner reads other people's paper cards and badges into contacts you can call, export or push to a CRM. A digital business card app shares your own card by QR code, NFC or link, and the person you meet needs no app. Most digital card apps have added a scanner, often with a monthly scan allowance. A scanner like Krane shares only a vCard of a saved contact. ### Is there a free business card scanner app? Krane is free for 10 scans a rolling week, with events, badges, offline reading and Apple Contacts included; CSV export and CRM sync need Krane Pro. Among the others, Haystack's free plan listed unlimited card scans and HiHello's 5 a month on November 8, 2026. Covve has no free plan; its annual plans start with a 14-day trial. ### Which business card apps work without internet? Krane reads the card on your iPhone right away and checks it again when you're back online, so the contact is usable at once. Covve, Popl and Blinq save the scan offline and finish reading or enriching it once a connection returns. HiHello's help center says paper card scanning needs a connection. CamCard's and Haystack's pages don't say. ### Which business card apps connect to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive? Krane sends to all three with Krane Pro, from one phone, with no team plan. Covve lists all three as native integrations, as an add-on on its Pro plan or included in Enterprise. Blinq lists all three on Business and Enterprise. HiHello lists Salesforce and HubSpot on Business; Pipedrive is absent from its native list. Popl lists Salesforce and HubSpot on its team plans. CamCard lists Salesforce on its individual paid plans. ### Can I use a digital business card app and Krane together? Yes, and for many people it is the right answer. Keep HiHello, Blinq, Haystack or Popl for the card you hand out, and scan the cards you receive with Krane. The two apps don't need to talk to each other: your card goes out from one, and the contacts you collect land in Krane, Apple Contacts and, with Krane Pro, your CRM. ### Is there a CamCard alternative for iPhone? Krane is one, for the scanning part. Both read paper cards. CamCard also offers a digital card, Android and Mac apps and a separate team edition, and its pages name no event feature. Krane adds badges and events, reads with no signal, needs no account, and runs on iPhone, iPhone Duo and iPad only. Export and CRM sync are paid on both. ### How often is this comparison updated? Every value was checked on November 8, 2026, and each per-app page carries the date it was last read. Makers change plans and prices without notice, so treat the table as a snapshot from that date and confirm on the maker's own pricing page before you buy. If you spot a change before we do, write to info@kraneapp.com and we will recheck it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Guides for trade shows and business cards URL: https://kraneapp.com/blog/ > Guides from Krane on scanning business cards and badges, trade show lead capture, and getting contacts into HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Excel. How to scan business cards and badges and get them into your CRM.