Looking for a Better HiHello Alternative? Choose Beaconstac!

Comparing SaaS tools is never easy; less easy is choosing one over the other! Often, both candidates will get the basics done. But the real difference lies in the features or specializations—which align with your needs. 

If you’re exploring the digital business card scene, chances are you’ve stumbled upon HiHello’s and Beaconstac’s solutions. And now you’re curious about your best bet, right? 

Beaconstac is a digital business card solution for eco-conscious businesses to a) measure offline networking efforts and b) centrally manage and scale digital business cards.

HiHello, on the other hand, helps everyone—from individuals to enterprises—turn customer touchpoints into branded, interactive, measurable opportunities.

I do a side-by-side comparison of HiHello and Beaconstac into three easy-to-digest categories: essentials, advanced, and enterprise. 

Let’s make this decision-making process a breeze!

Table of Contents

1. Digital business card essentials
2. Advanced features
3. Enterprise offerings
4. Pricing and plans

Digital business card essentials

1. Card design customization
2. QR Code customization
3. Wallet pass
4. Two-way contact-sharing
5. Analytics

1. Card design customization

Design customizations lend a unique and professional touch to your digital business cards. Customizations help visually represent your brand identity to recipients—be it via a logo or brand colors. 

Here’s how both platforms compare on the design front:

Beaconstac and HiHello let users enhance digital business cards with profile pictures, social links, and company logos. But, with: 

Beaconstac

• Get attractive pre-designed templates for quick and visually-appealing digital business cards
• Change the text color to reflect your brand better
• Get font customizations for further on-brand changes

HiHello

• No pre-designed templates to choose from
• No options to change the text color
• No fonts to choose from

2. QR Code customizations

A QR Code occupies considerable space on your digital business card (unless you share it via a URL). Now imagine that QR Code mismatches with the rest of your card’s design. 

The more the QR Code design is aligned with your brand—the less friction when networking! Moreover, with fully customizable QR Codes, your prospects will be less hesitant to scan since they know where it is coming from. 

Here’s how HiHello and Beaconstac stack up when it comes to QR Code design customization: 

Both platforms let you change the brand logo. However, with:

Beaconstac

• Create circular QR Codes for a distinctive and visually-appealing variation.
• Customize the eye-ball/eye-frame of a QR Code for a personalized touch.
• Customize the logo size within the QR Code.
• Customize the QR Code pattern for creative and unique designs.
• Personalize the QR Code background for overall esthetic.
• Add a custom QR Code frame for CTA and brand identity.

HiHello

• No circular QR Codes.
• No eye-ball/eye-frame customizations.
• No logo resizing option.
• No QR pattern options.
• No custom backgrounds.
• No custom frames around QR Codes.

3. Wallet pass

Traditionally, you would print QR Codes on paper cards for people to scan and view your contact details.

However, with wallet passes, you can easily store your digital business cards in your mobile device, and share instantly. No need to print anything. No app download needed.

Let’s see how Beaconstac stacks up against HiHello:

Both Beaconstac and HiHello support Apple Wallet pass. But, if your target audience uses Android as their primary mobile device, then having Google Wallet pass support could positively impact your networking. 

Beaconstac

• Get both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes to share your cards directly from your mobile device.
• No special app download required (since wallets often come pre-installed with OS). 

HiHello

• No Google Wallet pass support.

4. Two-way contact-sharing

Two-way contact-sharing is a feature where your recipient can exchange contact details through the same card you share. 

This feature is handy when your team meets many clients. It’s easier to collect their information in one interaction and use them for future follow-ups.

Here’s how both platforms compare in this regard:

Beaconstac and HiHello support two-way contact-sharing, making it easy to exchange contacts, swiftly and efficiently.

5. Analytics

QR Code-based digital business cards act as an offline-to-online interface. The best part is: You can add a measurable component to all your offline networking using them.

But without detailed analytics about the whos, wheres, and hows of your recipients—you’re missing out on insights about what worked in your networking, what didn’t, and how you can optimize going forward.

This table compares the analytics by both the platforms:

Both platforms provide data on the number of views, saves, and contacts for a comprehensive understanding of the cards’ performance.

Beaconstac

• Track scans by GPS location and get insights into where your digital business cards are being accessed.
• Analyze scans based on the operating system (OS) and device used for information about user preferences and device compatibility.
• Track scans based on IP address to understand user engagement.
• Analyze scans by the time-of-day, identify peak engagement periods, and optimize future networking efforts.
• Get the total number of QR scans for a quantitative measure of your digital business cards’ overall reach and impact.
• Evaluate the success of different networking campaigns by identifying the top-performing digital business cards.
• Get time-based performance segregation for a detailed breakdown of engagement patterns over specific periods.
• Get Anomalous Scan Detection to ensure bot interference or other anomalies do not skew your QR Code scan data.

From what we could gather, HiHello offers basic digital business card analytics within its own dashboard:

HiHello

• No GPS tracking.
• No OS-based tracking.
• No IP address-based tracking.
• No scans by time-of-day.
• No QR scan analytics.
• No top-performing digital business cards data.
• No time-based scan segregation.
• No anomalous scan detection

Advanced features

For professional networking campaigns, consider these advanced features (details below): 

1. Support
2. Retargeting

1. Support

magine sharing a card created in English that auto-translates (based on device locale) into French upon sharing with a French recipient! That’s an example of how support features make networking more effective! 

Support features such as multi-language and password–protection can help fine-tune your networking for a more impactful experience.  

Some of these features (such as GPS tracking) are particularly helpful to gauge global teams’ overall networking efforts when analyzed collectively. 

Here’s how Beaconstac fares against HiHello in terms of support:

As you can see, if you need value-added features to fine-tune your digital business cards, Beaconstac has covered more than HiHello! 

Beaconstac

• Incorporate GPS location into digital business cards for additional layers of context on team’s networking efforts based on precise location.
• Use password protection for digital business cards for controlled access and restricted sharing of contact information.
• Create multilingual digital business cards to cater diverse audiences and network in people’s language.

HiHello

• No GPS location for digital business cards.
• No password protection for digital business cards.
• No multilingual digital business cards.

2. Retarget

A digital business card solution with retargeting helps build cohorts based on your offline networking data. 

You can then target users who scanned your card with the right marketing campaigns on platforms like Meta and Google. 

Here’s how both platforms perform in terms of retargeting:

If targeting is your requirement, HiHello does not offer the same in their digital business card solution. Take a look into the details: 

Beaconstac

• Retarget users using Meta Pixel or Google Ads. 

HiHello

• No Meta Pixel and Google Ads integrations.

3. Enterprise offerings

If you’re an enterprise looking for a scalable digital business card solution, look for these features (details below): 

1. Security
2. Scalability
3. Collaboration
4. Integrations
5. Customer support

1. Security

When you exchange contact information and business details via QR Codes, robust security measures become a cornerstone of responsible digital business card solutions. 

These platforms reassure users and orgs that their data is handled with the highest privacy and security standards by prioritizing compliance.

Here’s how both platforms compare in terms of security:

Beaconstac and HiHello share common ground with GDPR compliance and SOC® 2 adherence. Both platforms offer user-friendly Single Sign-On (SSO) login options as well. However, with:  

Beaconstac

• Get phishing URL detection to identify and block potentially malicious URLs.
• Get multi-factor authentication (MFA) as an extra layer of security to protect user accounts from unauthorized access.

HiHello

• No phishing URL detection feature.
• No multi-factor authentication.

2. Scalability

Say you’re creating, managing, and tracking digital business cards for a 1000+ team member organization. You need a digital business card solution to scale easily and efficiently. 

Let’s find out how Beaconstac stacks up against HiHello in this regard:

Beaconstac and HiHello share bulk card generation feature; you can create multiple digital business cards in one go. But, with:

Beaconstac

• Get dynamic digital business card QR Code API to automatically create dynamic QR Codes.

HiHello

• No dynamic digital business card QR Code API available.

3. Collaboration

You need a collaborative digital business card platform to: 

• Collectively manage and update contact information
• Ensure org-wide design consistency, and
• Maintain networking accuracy across the organization 

Here’s how both platforms compare in terms of collaboration:

Both platforms support multi-user access. It means team members can independently access and manage digital business cards in their personalized dashboard.

Administrators on both Beaconstac and HiHello can control team member access and permissions from their end for effective management. Additionally, with:

Beaconstac

• Get an asset library for a centralized repository of digital assets (such as logos, profile images, etc.)
• Configure separate teams for organized collaboration.
• Allows users to lock templates for brand consistency. 
• Transfer digital business card QR Codes across teams

HiHello

• No asset library to store frequently used assets.
• No option to configure separate teams.
• No template-locking feature.
• No support for digital business card QR Code transfer across teams.

4. Integrations

How well does your SaaS platform integrate with your existing tech stack?

Integration capabilities are especially relevant if you’re an enterprise looking to use digital business cards, and want them to easily mesh with the software tools already in use like CRMs. 

Let’s compare the integrations provided by both platforms:

Both Beaconstac and HiHello share a robust set of integrations for versatility and added functionality of their digital business card solutions.

Beaconstac

• Get Open API to seamlessly integrate with external applications and customize your digital business card experience.
• Get Make integration to connect apps and automate workflows.
• Integrate with Canva for additional design flexibility.
• Get Slack integration for streamlining communication and collaboration between team members within the platform.

HiHello

• No Open API access.
• No integration option with Make. 
• No integration option with Canva.
• No integration option with Slack.

5. Customer support

You may need help:

• Setting up digital business cards
• Troubleshooting while integrating the dashboard with a software 
• During bulk card generation
• Automating the card distribution for large teams, etc. 

Whatever help you need, even a small delay in getting that could affect revenue for large teams that rely on digital business cards for networking. This is why you need strong customer support for quick issue resolution. 

Take a look at how both the candidates compare in this regard: 

As you can see, both platforms offer email support and a dedicated account manager for enterprise-tier plans. However, with:

Beaconstac

• Get live chat support for real-time conversations with representatives and immediate assistance.
• Get phone support for immediate and direct communication with support agents.
• Get a dedicated knowledge base that walks you through all the features on the platform.

HiHello

• No live chat support.
• No phone support for instant issue resolution.
• No knowledge base of features.

4. Pricing and plans

With transparent pricing and flexible plans you can scale usage based on your networking requirements. 

Additionally, a clear understanding of the pricing model helps avoid unexpected (and hidden) costs and allows informed decision-making. 

Here’s how both platforms compare on the plans and pricing front:

Beaconstac 

• Choose from four plans: Solo, Team, Business, Business+.
• Get advanced analytics and GPS tracking starting from Solo.
• Create teams and organizations on the Business plan.
• Get Open API access and dynamic card QR API from Pro plan onwards.

HiHello

• Choose from three plans: Professional, Business, and Enterprise.
• Get basic digital business card analytics. No GPS tracking. 
• Limited team and organization support; they are available only on the Enterprise plan.
• No API access.

Choose a digital business card solution that fits your bill

The best digital business card maker for you is based on your requirements. And it is always better to have features that exceed your needs, rather than insufficient!  

If you want to know more about Beaconstac, schedule a Beaconstac demo or begin a 14-day free trial. 

Or better yet—if you’re already convinced about going with Beaconstac, directly purchase our digital business card solution. 

• Author Details

Author Details

Rithika Sarmah

Through the lens of a Product Marketer at Beaconstac, I craft stories that resonate, inspire, and engage users. When I am not pursuing my dreams, you’ll find me lost in thoughts of my heart’s true calling—the mountains.

[email protected]