
Show HN: Make a QR code with your domain spelled out in the code pattern - koch
https://www.toecodes.com/link
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chrischen
Just because you _can_ make it a subscription doesn't mean you should.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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lxe
Wait, what am I buying?

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

