If you’ve made it this far in your QR Code journey, you’ve likely found a creative and powerful use case for QR Codes in your business. 

You were scouting the internet for a QR Code that would meet your requirements and decided to try out the Adobe QR Code.

You used their generator and created a free QR Code but then realized: 

1. You can’t add a logo of your choice 
2. You can’t change the shape of the QR Code
3. You can’t customize it beyond the four-color palette they offer

And even if you wanted the plain old, black and white QR Code, you realized you’d have to sign up for their entire product range before downloading it. 

On an unbiased note, we used Adobe’s QR Code generator and compared it to ours. And all we’re doing here is putting down our research in a concise, feature-based manner. 

By the end of this post, you’ll be able to gauge which solution can help you create a QR Code and make the most of it for your use case or campaigns. 

Table of contents

1. The essentials: must have features to create a QR Code
2. The good to haves: Features you can unlock with a premium QR Code
3. Pricing and Plans
4. Our take on Adobe vs Beaconstac
5. Frequently Asked Questions

The essentials: must-have features if you’ve set out to create a QR Code

Let’s consider running a large direct mail campaign with QR Codes. You add a QR Code to your mail, redirecting your customers to your websites. By the end of the week, you see a slight surge in your website visits, but:

1. You are unsure if it’s the result of your campaign
2. You cannot track the open rates and hence, have no statistics to prove that customers opened it 

You re-check by scanning a sample of the QR Code you sent out, and it leads to a 404 error page. 

With no option to change it now—as it’s printed and shared—you realize that your campaign efforts may not have borne any results. 

With a free QR Code, you may just miss out on crucial features that could otherwise elevate your campaign efforts.

For a single-use case or diverse, here are some essential options a QR Code generator should provide:

1. Option for both static and dynamic QR Codes

Adobe’s free QR Codes nail the requirements for a rudimentary one-time use case scenario, where you need not track the scans, edit the QR Code destination, or even add your brand logo to it. 

What does this mean? Adobe’s free QR solution only provides static codes. 

Static codes are not editable or trackable. If you need them for a campaign or use case that’s not big on analytics, editing, or customization, these may do the job. 

Beaconstac’s QR Code generator and Adobe provide static QR Codes for free. But to overcome the limitations of a static QR Code, you need dynamic QR Codes, which only the former provides. 

Dynamic QR Codes let you track the who, when, and where behind your QR Code scans. Essentially:  

1. You can edit the URL behind the QR Code anytime
2. You can resize them and use them across multiple use cases
3. You can customize and password-protect your QR Codes, and so on 

With these features, switching to dynamic QR Codes can make a huge difference, depending on your use case.  

2. Ability to extensively customize 

Let’s say you’ve designed a poster and now want a QR Code that matches the color palette. Or you’d want to make the QR Code background transparent.

With Adobe’s QR Code generator, you may be able to generate one. But due to the limited color palette, creating one that matches your poster may be a hassle. 

Additionally, there’s no option to change the shape of your QR Code. If a round QR Code matches your product design better, you cannot create one on Adobe.

But with Beaconstac, customization is extensive, even with free QR Codes. You can:

1. Choose between two QR Code shapes 
2. Choose from a diverse color palette to customize the QR Code and even the pattern within

While the customization options are limited with Adobe, you cannot add a logo or CTA text below QR Code. These aren’t features of their generator itself.

With Beaconstac, you can create a QR Code with logo, change the background, and add a frame—all from one dashboard. 

On this front, Beaconstac offers a wider range of creative control over its free and paid QR Codes. 

3. Ease of use

We tried creating a QR Code on Adobe’s generator, and here’s our verdict.  

It may not fit the “ease of use” category for a free QR Code generator. 

Here’s why: 

Let’s say you downloaded your QR Code in a specific color, but on the design front, it doesn’t match your marketing collateral. 

Now, if you were to go back and edit the Adobe QR Code, here’s what you would face:

1. No edit options. Their generator doesn’t allow you to change an existing QR Code. You would have to start from scratch and create a new one
2. To edit an existing QR Code, you would have to use their design software, which has a steep learning curve.

Beaconstac’s QR Code generator makes it easy on your end. You can edit static QR Codes post-download, provided you’re still on the generator. 

With dynamic QR Codes, you get an entire dashboard to edit any features of your QR Codes, from customization to download format, at any time.

4. Scannability

To maintain customer engagement and brand interaction across your use cases, ensuring the QR Codes are always scannable is key. 

Free solutions can fall short of features such as error correction that ensure scannability. On the other hand, paid QR Code solutions like Beaconstac provide durable, high-resolution QR Codes with error correction.  

Adobe’s QR Codes do not guarantee scannability at all times. And this is because they lack the error correction feature. 

Even though Adobe offers QR Codes in SVG—a high-resolution vector format—it can still render the QR Code non-scannable if the pattern fades over time. 

With Beaconstac, you can avoid this scenario when you enable a higher level of error correction on the dashboard. This way, you ensure that your QR Codes remain scannable. 

The good-to-haves: Features that you can unlock with a premium QR Code maker like Beaconstac

A free QR Code works as an introduction to a product that has the potential to offer returns in terms of analytics, ROI, and customer engagement. 

To further tap into its benefits and how it can aid your marketing efforts, here are some features of a paid QR Code solution:

1. QR Code analytics

QR Codes on posters, flyers, and marketing collateral are a great way to initiate audience engagement. But what good is a campaign without data to gauge your audience’s response?

Adobe’s software allows you to add QR Codes to templates such as posters. But with no way to track the data, all your efforts in designing and deploying the marketing collateral could be in vain. 

This is where the limitations of a free Adobe QR Code hold a roadblock. 

As a QR Code solution, Beaconstac’s paid QR Codes surpass this limitation. 

And here’s exactly how: 

1. You can create dynamic, trackable QR Codes.
2. You can access a dashboard that lets you know when a QR Code was scanned, where, the device used, and even the duration of audience engagement. 
3. You can even integrate your campaigns with third-party tools such as Google Analytics for detailed analysis.

This way, a dynamic, paid QR Code can fill in for the data gap of a static QR Code.

2. Safety and security

QR Code use cases are versatile; end-users can scan them in magazines, newspapers, websites, or billboards globally.

When there’s such a diverse audience engagement on the other end, ensuring that your QR Codes are safe and not prey to security compromises is key.

But here’s the catch: Adobe’s QR Code generator is primarily a free, online option. And such static QR Codes fall short of the security measures paid QR Code solutions offer. 

Static QR Codes from free online generators may not meet the safety standards of a paid solution where dynamic and static QR Codes are secure. 

On this front, Beaconstac’s safe QR Code generator can guarantee safe and secure data collection and customer interaction. 

Being SOC® 2 Type 2 compliant and GDPR certified, your QR Codes are free from security compromises, whether on billboards or flyers, globally or domestically. 

3. Bulk generation

Free online QR Code generators produce static QR Codes that you can download one at a time. The same goes for Adobe’s generator. 

But what if your use case included multiple QR Codes? Consider inventory management, where you’d have to use QR Codes for multiple boxes. Or even a brand that sends out magazines on a global scale! 

Creating one QR Code at a time for multiple boxes or magazine pages can be a monolith of a task. 

But this isn’t an actual job description, thanks to bulk QR Code generators such as Beaconstac. You can bulk-generate QR Codes leading to the same or different URLs, files, or media of your choice.

This makes creating bulk QR Codes easy, a feature that Adobe’s QR Code generator falls short of. 

4. Collaboration and integration

You may prefer to analyze your QR Code campaign data with third-party applications such as Google Analytics or migrate them onto a separate software. 

But with Adobe’s QR Codes, you are restricted from these opportunities as no third-party collaboration and integrations are available. 

But paid solutions like Beaconstac have the upper hand. You can: 

1. Migrate your data onto a third-party software or analyze data using Google Analytics
2. Enable integrations such as Zapier to automate tasks like emailing the end-user when scanning a QR Code 
3. Connect your QR Code campaigns to nearly 4000+ apps with workflow integrations such as Zapier, Integromat, or Workato 

And, if you have a team that needs to access organizational QR Code campaign data, Beaconstac gives you the option of collaborating with your team on the dashboard. 

You can provide QR Code data access to specific members of your team—or even create different teams and modify access for each team member on Beaconstac dashboard. 

5. Customizable campaigns

Given the possibilities with QR Codes, why just stop at sharing black-and-white ones? 

Not only can you customize how the QR Code looks, but also the content it leads to. 

But that is, if you’re shifting from the limitations of static QR Codes like Adobe’s, to a paid dynamic one. 

With Beaconstac, you can go beyond customizing your QR Codes and having control over the minute aspects of your campaign. Here’s how:

1. If you’re running a global campaign, you can opt for multilingual QR Codes. This ensures an end-user in Mexico, Peru, or South Korea is redirected to your local website based on language preference on their phone.
2. If you want to restrict audiences of a certain age from accessing the content behind the QR Codes, you can enable age-gated access. 
3. If you’re sharing sensitive content, create QR Codes with password to restrict access.

And the features don’t end there. Opting for a paid solution gives you creative control over your campaigns compared to static, free ones.  

6. White labeling

For bigger organizations, government offices, or even individuals who prefer branding throughout their tools, white labeling is a must. 

Adobe’s QR Codes do not support white labeling. In such cases, dynamic QR Codes are your best bet.

For instance, if you’re running a QR-based marketing campaign for a client, you can remove all traces of Beaconstac from the dashboard and brand it as your own. 

White labeling enables consistent branding or maintains consistency for government agencies to make the platform look like their own. 

Adobe QR Code vs Beaconstac QR Code: Pricing and plans

Adobe’s free version includes basic QR Code customization. Their paid plans do not include QR-based features but access to their image-editing software.

On the other hand, Beaconstac is a dedicated, paid QR Code solution with advanced customization and access to an entire suite of QR Code features.

Why should you choose Beaconstac over the limitations of Adobe’s QR Codes?

By now, we believe you have better clarity on what Adobe QR Codes offer and how Beaconstac’s QR Codes can fill in the gaps. 

If you’re looking for an image-based solution with basic QR-based features, Adobe may fit your requirement. 

If you want trackable, editable, and scalable QR Codes that gather engagement metrics and are safe to deploy globally, Beaconstac’s QR Code maker is your tool. 

Curious how a paid QR Code solution can add value to your next campaign? Get started by signing up for a free trial.

Frequently asked questions

1. Does Adobe Express QR Code expire?

Yes, Adobe express QR Code can expire if the link inserted is wrong, if your website has a 404 error or if the QR Code is damaged or tampered. To avoid these, one can switch to dynamic QR Codes that are editable and have in built error correction.

2. Can you edit a QR Code in Adobe?

Yes, you can only edit the color of the QR Code in Adobe. You cannot edit the content, personalize the QR Code as per your brand, or add a frame such as “Scan me”.

3. How long do Adobe QR Codes last?

Given that Adobe QR Codes are static, they an expire if the link or the content you embed expires, or if the QR Code is damaged. In such cases, the QR Code does not lead to any content or can be unscannable.

• Author Details

Author Details

Navya Muralidhar

Navya is an ardent writer focusing on the benefits of QR Codes for businesses. She has been writing about QR Code topics into action oriented guides since 2019. Presently, she helps people understand the benefits of paid QR Code solutions as a powerful marketing tool. To know more about her work around QR Codes, click here.

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