8 Best Digital Business Card Solutions in 2023 [Updated] | Medium
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8 Best Digital Business Card Solutions [2023]: The Complete List
Due to COVID-19, there has been a tectonic shift towards everything digital. As per a McKinsey report, the pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of customer experiences by at least 3 to 4 years.
With this push for digitalization, one thing, in particular, is being digitized at a fast rate.
It’s the traditional, paper-based business card.
Due to their limitations and the continual rise in the number of smartphone users, traditional business cards are now being replaced by digital business cards (a.k.a. electronic or e-business cards) en masse.
In fact, as per this study, the digital business card market is expected to touch US$ 242.3 million at an 11.2% CAGR by 2027, with North America leading this adoption growth.
But what exactly is accelerating this adoption and are digital business cards really helpful?
Table of contents
Are digital business cards worth it?
The answer is a resounding YES. Here are the top 4 reasons that make digital business cards superior to their traditional counterparts:
#1. They instantly deliver information and are easy to share: Unlike their paper-based counterparts, electronic business cards deliver contact information instantly. The receiver can just scan, tap, or click a digital business card and save the details on their smartphones in less than a minute.
Moreover, e-business cards can be easily shared via Apple or Google Wallets, QR Codes, URLs, email, social media, etc.
The best part? Digital business cards do not require any app to access them. A user can instantly and directly view the encoded information upon engaging with the card.
#2. They help you track client engagement: With traditional business cards, there is no way to ascertain whether a client engaged with them unless the person contacted you.
Did they dispose of your card or try calling you but couldn’t get through? You wouldn’t know.
But with a digital business card, you can track whether your client engaged with it or retarget them on Google and Facebook if they haven’t taken the desired action yet.
#3. They are eco-friendly: Over 7 million trees are cut down every year to print paper business cards. The shift to digital business cards is helping companies conduct business responsibly and sustainably.
#4. Remote work is furthering the need for digital contact sharing: As more and more companies go remote, client-facing professionals are looking for ways to share their contact information digitally. This is further pushing the adoption of electronic business cards.
Because of this increasing demand for digital business cards, companies are actively looking for reliable and robust digital business card solutions.
If you Google ‘best digital business card’, you’ll find hundreds of solutions. But, most of them are not capable enough to deliver the required results and positively impact the ROI for your business.
So to make it easier for you, I have curated a list of the top 8 digital business card makers that you can choose from.
The 8 best digital business card makers in the market
Before getting into the in-depth review of each solution, let’s discuss the 9 most important capabilities and characteristics of the best digital business card generators.
How to choose the best digital business card solution: 9 Things to consider
#1. Ease of Use: Make sure the solution is easy to use so anyone can create a digital business card. Usually, the best way to figure that out is by signing up for a free trial of the digital business card generator.
#2. Page Design Capabilities: How easily and beautifully can you design your contact information page, and what type of details (social media handles, location, website URL) can you add to your card?
#3. Analytics & Tracking: Does the solution let you track client engagement (number of card views, views by location and devices, user demographics, and more)?
#4. User Interface: Is the product interface clean, intuitive, and consistent enough to provide a great user experience?
#5. Security: Since clients and customers are willing to trust you by engaging with your digital business card, you must pick a solution that has the best security standards. These are the top security features to look out for: GDPR and SOC-2 Type 2 compliance, URL-based phishing detection, SSO authentication, data encryption, and custom domain.
#6. Affordability: Does the solution offer great value at an affordable price?
#7. Ease of Sharing: Does the digital business card maker let you easily share your digital business card in numerous ways?
#8. Bulk Creation: Large teams look for a solution that can let them bulk create hundreds or thousands of digital business cards. Check if the solution offers the bulk creation feature.
#9. API & Integrations: Does the solution provide API access and/or integrations to let you automate digital business card creation?
This is crucial, particularly for small businesses that cannot afford to purchase third-party tools to automate their e-business card creation process.
To dig deeper, the following parameters are of higher importance than the ones mentioned above:
- Security: As you create digital business cards for your team with their personal or professional details, it is imperative to choose a solution that keeps this data secure.
- Analytics & tracking: It is crucial to understand how your electronic business card performs. This can be achieved with the help of a solution that offers comprehensive and meaningful insights.
- APIs, Integrations & Bulk Creation: To quickly create digital business cards at scale, it is essential for the solution to offer API access, integrations with other relevant tools, and bulk creation capabilities.
I strongly recommend opting for excellent solutions in these departments while being good in others.
Note: After testing all 8 solutions in this list, I have assigned scores out of 10 based on the above-mentioned 9 parameters.
There is also an overall rating for each solution to help you decide better.
8 Best digital business card makers in 2023
With Beaconstac, you can quickly create digital business cards through their easy-to-use and intuitive platform.
There are plenty of fields to fill in for the information you can add to your contact detail page — contact, address, website, location, 20+ social media links, Shopify and Calendly links, user image, and more.
The solution lets you go completely paperless when sharing your card with clients. After creating the card, you can quickly send it to your Apple or Google Wallet and directly share it via your mobile device. This helps you avoid the hassle of printing business cards and carrying them with you.
On the analytics front, Beaconstac offers in-depth tracking for your electronic business cards. You can learn about the number of card views, unique card views, and the location of the people who accessed your card. You can also integrate Google Analytics with this solution to understand demographics and user behavior.
As for security, this solution easily beats others on this list. Beaconstac is GDPR and SOC-2 Type 2 compliant and offers multi-factor authentication, URL-based phishing detection, SSO login, data encryption, and custom domain to keep your data safe.
Also, this solution provides bulk creation capabilities, API access, and 4,000+ integrations (via Zapier, Integromat or Make, and Workato) to let you automate digital business card creation.
Lastly, with their Microsoft Active Directory integration and auto-distribute feature, you can automate both the creation AND distribution of digital business cards for your organization.
You can check out Beaconstac’s reviews on G2 — the solution is rated 4.95/5.
View Beaconstac’s pricing plans.
HiHello, another popular digital business card solution, is next on this list.
As soon as you sign up, you can navigate through an easy-to-use dashboard. This solution lets you create beautiful digital business cards that you can use to link numerous details — contact information, social media, PDFs, and more.
You can share your electronic business card via a QR Code, email, text, or URL. There is also an option to mask your phone number and use a HiHello number instead if you wish to share your e-business card via text.
However, you get basic analytics with this solution — the total number of card views and saves and the number of new contacts made. Moreover, these analytics are available only on their Professional and Business plans.
Also, I couldn’t find any information about how HiHello keeps your and your customers’ data safe through their digital business cards.
Lastly, you need to opt for their Business plan to access the bulk creation feature.
Check out HiHello’s pricing plans.
Knowee’s digital business card solution is extremely easy to use and quickly lets you add various data fields to your business card. This solution offers multiple card designs and a custom template for you to design your electronic business card.
As for analytics and metrics, you can view the total number of users, clicks, and views on the dashboard. This solution utilizes SSO login and URL masking and lets you validate new cards to keep your data secure.
Moreover, the solution provides you with CRM, email, and other on-demand customizations.
However, the bulk creation capability is only available for their custom Enterprise plans. Also, their pricing is on the higher side as it starts at $4.7/month/user.
Dibiz is the next digital business card maker on this list.
With this solution, you can create satisfactory electronic business cards. Dibiz’s dashboard, card design templates, and UI are not as modern and intuitive as you’d prefer.
This solution’s analytics and tracking capabilities are limited to the number of unique visitors, card shares, and the total number of clicks made to call a number on your digital business card.
However, the company website doesn’t discuss security measures and their API & integration capabilities. Also, the bulk creation feature is limited to the Biz plan.
In conclusion, this solution barely keeps up with the competition and is hard to recommend.
You can view Dibiz’s pricing plans.
DCard is another option that lets you easily create digital business cards. In addition to including contact details, this solution lets you add your products & services, portfolio, and testimonials to your electronic business card.
As for analytics, DCard only shows the total number of card views. Their website does not discuss the solution’s security levels, bulk creation feature, and API & integration capabilities.
I could not create more than one distinct digital business card via my account during the evaluation. To add to it, their marketing copy does not specify how many cards you can create per plan. This could mean creating only one distinct digital business card per account, no matter which plans you choose.
Starting at $7 a month, this solution might not be cost-effective for your business, especially if you’re looking to scale up.
Next up on the list — Kado.
As soon as I logged in to the dashboard, it took me some time to get started. This is because how Kado works:
You need to set up the card design, which includes customizing the design, adding basic contact details, and/or embedding a CTA button or video. Kado will automatically generate a digital business card for your profile with this information.
Then, you need to add users and their details so they can receive an email with their electronic business cards. The recipient will have the ability to edit some basic information.
This, in my honest opinion, is not intuitive and user-friendly.
At the time of evaluation, Kado offered no analytics and tracking capabilities.
The solution is GDPR compliant and follows all AWS security measures for the positives. You can also add users in bulk either by uploading an Excel file or syncing contacts via Gmail or Outlook.
Kado’s pricing plans start at $4.95/month/user. (Their pricing page says $4.95/month, but $4.95/month/user. See the image attached.)
When it comes to ease of use and intuitiveness, QRD lags behind others on this list. This is because you can only create a static e-business card directly — one that cannot be changed after creation.
To create a dynamic digital business card, you need to first create a landing page — the solution lets you create one right on the dashboard — and enter all your details. Then, this landing page works as your e-business card. This functionality may be confusing for a lot of users.
When it comes to page design and analytics capabilities, this solution delivers. There are many fields for you to enter to share contact details as per your requirements.
On the dashboard, there is a report that lets you track engagement by location, devices, and the number of times unique users engaged with your card. You can also integrate Google Analytics to discover deeper customer insights.
QRD delivers on the security front as it is GDPR compliant and offers data encryption, password protection, domain masking, and two-factor authentication. You also get access to APIs for digital business card creation and automation.
You can check out QRD’s pricing here.
QR Code Generator Pro is an easy-to-use and intuitive solution to create digital business cards for your company. Using this generator, you can link all your basic contact details and social media profiles to your card.
You can track engagement by time, location, and analytics devices. There is also an option to integrate Google Analytics, but that is limited to a certain type of dynamic electronic business cards (the ones that can be updated even after their creation).
This solution also offers bulk creation capabilities, but these are limited to only a few types of digital business cards. Moreover, they offer APIs for e-card creation and automation.
As for the security measures and integrations, I couldn’t find any information on their website or dashboard during my evaluation.
View their pricing plans.
Final verdict: Which digital business card solution should you choose?
There you have it — the 8 top digital business card makers available today. These solutions have been tested on the 9 most important parameters to help you make an informed decision.
To summarize it for you, I have outlined the best digital business card solutions by business size. This conclusion is based on the 2 most essential features of each business type:
For Enterprise Businesses: Based on Security and Bulk Creation
For Mid-Sized Businesses: Based on Analytics & Tracking and Page Design Capabilities
For Small Businesses: Based on Ease of Use and Affordability
Frequently asked questions
What is an electronic business card?
An electronic business card, a.k.a. digital business card, is an instant and smart way to share your contact details. These digital cards can contain your basic contact information such as name, phone number, and designation, and multimedia content such as user image, Google Maps location, and various social media links.
What is included when you send an electronic business card?
The content shared via your electronic business card depends on the digital business card solution you choose. This is because every digital business card solution does not let you add multimedia content — images, Google Maps location, and social media links to your e-card.
But when you use solutions like Beaconstac, HiHello, etc., you can add both basic contact details and multimedia content to your card to make it more engaging for your clients.
What should be on a digital business card?
The information to be added to a digital business card depends on your requirements. Make sure all necessary contact details are linked to your e-business card. In addition, you can link to your social media handles, YouTube videos, Calendly link, office location, website URL, and much more.
Are digital business cards helpful?
Absolutely. Digital business cards are superior to their traditional counterparts as they allow for instant and safe contact sharing. Moreover, virtual business cards are eco-friendly, cost-effective, and trackable.
Which digital business card solution has the best reviews?
As per leading software review platforms (such as G2) and the most credible online review guides, Beaconstac is the best digital business card solution available today.
This is because Beaconstac’s digital business card maker trumps the competition through:
- Contactless sharing options via Apple and Google Wallet
- Enterprise-grade security
- Scalable card creation and distribution
- Comprehensive card-scan analytics — all without forcing you to download an app.
Which are better: NFC business cards or digital business cards?
While NFC business cards are digital, they do not let you network in a 100% contactless manner. This is because you need to create and share physical NFC cards that you can tap on your clients’ mobile devices.
On the other hand, when you opt for digital business cards, you can network in a truly contactless manner. These e-business cards are shareable via Apple and Google Wallets, email signatures, and social media.
Moreover, digital business cards are trackable, safe, and eco-friendly — making them a superior alternative to NFC business cards.
Do I need to recreate a digital business card if I wish to update it?
No. Solutions such as Beaconstac, HiHello, etc., offer dynamic digital business cards you do not have to recreate and reshare to update.
You can simply make the updates on your digital business card provider’s dashboard, and your clients can access your updated business card information in real-time.