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QR Code Generator

Create a QR code from a URL, plain text, email address, or phone number. Customize size, error correction, and colors, then download as PNG or SVG.

Try:

Content

Size

Error correction

Foreground color

#000000

Background color

#ffffff

Enter content above to generate a QR code.

How To Use

1.Choose a content type: URL, plain text, email, or phone number — each formats your input correctly under the hood, like adding mailto: or tel: automatically.
2.Type your content and watch the QR code preview update live, with no need to click a generate button.
3.Adjust size (128, 256, or 512px) and error correction level (L, M, Q, H) to match how and where you'll use the code.
4.Pick foreground and background colors if you want the QR code to match your brand, keeping enough contrast between them so it still scans reliably.
5.Download as PNG for most uses, or SVG if you need a scalable, print-ready vector file — or copy the encoded content, or share this tool.

Examples

Website URL

Encode a website link so anyone can scan it with their phone camera and land directly on your page — no typing a URL required.

Plain text

Encode any short block of plain text, useful for instructions or a short message.

Encode an email address using the mailto: scheme, so scanning the code opens the recipient's default mail app with the address pre-filled.

Phone number

Encode a phone number using the tel: scheme, so scanning the code offers to dial the number directly from a mobile device.

Event details

Encode short event details as plain text — a fast way to share a date, time, and location without anyone needing to type it into their phone.

About QR Code Generator

What is a QR Code?

A QR (Quick Response) code is a two-dimensional barcode that stores data as a grid of black and white squares, readable by any modern smartphone camera or a dedicated barcode scanner. It was invented in 1994 by Masahiro Hara at Denso Wave, a Toyota subsidiary, originally to track automotive parts through the manufacturing process faster than the one-dimensional barcodes used at the time — 'Quick Response' refers to the fact that it can be decoded far faster than a traditional barcode. Unlike a standard barcode, which only stores a short numeric string along one dimension, a QR code's two-dimensional grid can hold significantly more data — up to several thousand characters depending on the version and error correction level — including URLs, plain text, contact details, Wi-Fi credentials, and more.

QR codes became ubiquitous worldwide after around 2020, when contactless technology went mainstream for restaurant menus, event check-ins, and payments, and they remain one of the fastest ways to get someone from a physical object to a digital destination without them typing anything.

How QR Codes Work

A QR code encodes data using a structured grid of modules (the individual black or white squares) arranged according to a formal specification (ISO/IEC 18004). Three large square markers in three of the four corners let a scanner instantly detect the code's position and orientation, even if the photo is taken at an angle or the code is partially rotated. The data itself is encoded using Reed-Solomon error correction, a mathematical technique that adds redundant information so the code can still be read correctly even if part of it is dirty, torn, or obscured — this is also what allows a logo to be placed in the center of some QR codes without breaking them.

When your phone's camera scans the code, it locates the position markers, reads the grid pattern, applies the error correction to recover the original data even if a few modules were misread, and decodes the underlying bytes back into whatever content was encoded, then hands it off to the appropriate app to act on.

QR Code Error Correction Explained

QR codes use four standardized error correction levels — L (Low, ~7% of the code can be damaged and still scan), M (Medium, ~15%), Q (Quartile, ~25%), and H (High, ~30%) — which trade off data density against damage resistance. A higher error correction level adds more redundant data to the code, which makes the resulting QR code visually denser but far more resilient to smudges, scratches, folds, low print quality, or a logo placed over the center.

Which level to choose depends on how the code will be used: L or M is fine for a code displayed cleanly on a screen or a high-quality printed flyer that won't get damaged, while Q or H is worth the extra density for codes that will be printed on packaging, exposed to handling and wear, placed outdoors, or have a logo overlaid on top. This tool defaults to M as a sensible middle ground, but lets you switch to any level instantly to match your specific use case.

Best QR Code Use Cases

QR codes bridge the physical and digital world in situations where typing a URL or piece of information would be slow or error-prone. Common uses include restaurant menus (scan to view instead of a printed menu), event check-ins and ticketing (scan to verify entry), Wi-Fi network sharing (scan to join a network without typing a long password), product packaging (scan for setup instructions, warranty registration, or authenticity verification), business cards and print ads (scan to save contact info or visit a website), payment and peer-to-peer transfers (scan to pay), and shipping and inventory tracking (scan to look up a package or item instantly).

The common thread across all of these is speed and accuracy: a QR code eliminates the friction and typos of manually entering a URL, phone number, or block of text on a small mobile keyboard, which is exactly why adoption has grown so quickly across retail, hospitality, events, and logistics.

FAQs

No. The entire QR code — from encoding your content into the correct data format to rendering the final grid of black and white squares — is generated locally in your browser using the qrcode JavaScript library, with zero server-side processing involved. Nothing you type or select (your URL, text, email address, phone number, or color choices) is ever transmitted over the network to stakritools' servers or any third party. This is particularly worth knowing if you're generating a QR code for something sensitive, like an internal-only URL, a personal Wi-Fi password, or contact information you don't want logged anywhere. You can verify this yourself by checking your browser's network tab while generating a code — you'll see no outgoing request carrying your content.

Error correction level controls how much of the QR code's data can be damaged, obscured, or misread while the code still scans successfully, using a mathematical technique called Reed-Solomon coding that embeds redundant data alongside the actual content. The four standard levels are L (Low, ~7% damage tolerance), M (Medium, ~15%), Q (Quartile, ~25%), and H (High, ~30%). Higher levels make the code denser (more visual detail packed into the same size) in exchange for much better resilience to real-world wear like smudges, creases, low-quality printing, or a logo placed over part of the code. If you're printing the code on something that will be handled frequently or printed at lower quality, choose a higher level; for a clean digital display, a lower level keeps the code simpler and easier to scan from a distance.

Yes. QR codes generated by this tool have no license restrictions, royalties, watermarks, expiration dates, or usage limits attached — the underlying QR code technology itself has been royalty-free since Denso Wave (the original patent holder) publicly waived its patent rights for the core QR code standard, which is why QR codes are freely usable by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose, commercial or otherwise. You're free to use the codes this tool generates on product packaging, marketing materials, business cards, event signage, or anywhere else, without needing to credit this tool or pay any fee. The only thing worth double-checking before mass-printing is that the specific content you encoded (like a URL) will remain valid for as long as you plan to use the printed material.

The most common cause is insufficient contrast between the foreground and background colors — scanners rely on clearly distinguishing dark modules from light ones, so similar or low-contrast color combinations can cause scan failures even though the code looks fine to a human eye. Other frequent causes include shrinking the code too small relative to how far away it will be scanned from, printing at low resolution or with a printer that blurs fine detail, and placing a logo or design element over too much of the code without a correspondingly high error correction level to compensate. If a code isn't scanning, first check contrast and size, then try regenerating it with a higher error correction level (Q or H) for extra resilience.

It depends on the error correction level and the type of data being encoded, but a QR code can hold up to roughly 4,296 alphanumeric characters or about 7,089 numeric-only digits at the lowest error correction level (L), with the capacity shrinking as you increase error correction or as you encode less efficient data types (general text, which tops out around 2,953 characters at level L). In practice, most real-world QR codes — URLs, contact info, Wi-Fi credentials — use only a small fraction of this capacity, typically under 300 characters, since shorter content also produces a simpler, less dense, more reliably scannable code. If you're encoding something unusually long, consider shortening the URL first rather than pushing close to the theoretical maximum.

This tool doesn't currently support overlaying a logo directly, but you can achieve a similar result by generating your QR code here at a high error correction level (Q or H) and then adding a logo on top using an image editor, since higher error correction levels are specifically designed to tolerate a portion of the code being covered or obscured without breaking the scan. As a rule of thumb, keep any overlaid logo to no more than about 20–25% of the total code area, positioned in or near the center, and always test-scan the final result with multiple phone models and camera apps before printing or publishing it at scale, since logo placement is one of the more common reasons an otherwise-valid QR code fails to scan reliably in the field.

The QR code image itself never expires — it's a static, permanent encoding of whatever content you generated it with, and will scan and decode the same way indefinitely, whether that's tomorrow or ten years from now. What can 'expire' is the destination the code points to: if you encoded a URL and that page is later deleted or moved, the QR code will still scan successfully and correctly reveal the original URL, but visiting it will now lead to a broken link, since the code has no way to update itself once printed. This is why many businesses that print QR codes on long-lived physical materials use a URL shortener or a redirect service they control, so they can update where the link points to later without needing to reprint the QR code itself.

PNG is a raster (pixel-based) image format — the file you download is a fixed grid of pixels at whatever size you selected, which looks perfectly sharp at that size or smaller, but can appear blurry or pixelated if you scale it up significantly larger. SVG is a vector format — the QR code is described mathematically as a set of shapes rather than pixels, so it can be scaled to any size, from a tiny icon to a building-sized banner, with no loss of sharpness whatsoever. For most everyday uses (websites, digital displays, small printed materials) PNG is simpler and works everywhere; for large-format printing (posters, banners, signage) or professional design work where the code might need to be resized later, SVG is the better choice.

QR Code Generator handles one type of visual encoding. These related tools cover other formats and identifiers you might need alongside it — all processed locally in your browser.

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