Most QR platforms make money the same way: you print a dynamic code during a trial, distribute the materials, and then discover the code stops resolving unless you keep paying — sometimes at renewal prices 40–60% higher than you signed up for. The printed material is the hostage.
Why the model exists
A dynamic QR is a redirect. Someone has to run the server that answers https://short.link/abc for as long as the print exists. That cost is real, but it is tiny: a redirect costs a fraction of a cent, and a code scanned a thousand times a year costs less than a postage stamp to serve. The deactivation is a conversion tactic, not an infrastructure necessity.
What we do instead
Never-dies policy. Cancelling or downgrading freezes editing on codes above your new limit. It never stops redirects. Escrow export. Your workspace can download every slug → destination as JSON at any time, with Cloudflare Worker and Nginx snippets to self-host. Custom domains. On paid plans the printed hostname is yours; re-pointing is a DNS change, not a support ticket. Health monitoring. We check destinations every six hours and warn you before a customer hits a 404 — the opposite of silently letting a code die.
The honest trade-off
We still charge monthly for analytics, routing, workflows, GS1 and team features, because those are ongoing value. And a lifetime plan exists for people who simply do not want another subscription. What we will not do is turn your packaging into leverage.