Search for anything QR-related and qr-code-generator.com is hard to miss: it is the largest search property in the category, large enough that Bitly bought its publisher, Egoditor, in December 2021 and rebranded the product QRCG by Bitly in April 2026. It shares its name, minus the article, with The QR Code Generator, a different product owned by Uniqode; this review is about the Bitly one. Most people evaluating QR tools will land here at some point. This review is about what they find when they do.
It was built from the product’s published pages and Bitly’s own blog, read on the dates shown, not from a hands-on account run: the generator now sits behind signup, which is itself part of the story.
What QRCG by Bitly is
A mainstream dynamic-QR platform. Scan analytics come included from the first tier, which is the homepage’s core promise: instantly access your scan data. Bulk creation and API access arrive at the Advanced tier, frames, logo embedding and template designs run across the product pages, and the guide library is among the deepest in the market. The published QR type count is not stated on the pages we read, so our record leaves it unlisted rather than guessed.
The free that is a trial
Here is the homepage, read August 11, 2026.
And here is the pricing page, the same day.
The distance between those two screenshots is the review. The homepage’s headline sells free creation; the plan grid contains Starter, Advanced and Professional, all paid, with the trial as the only unpaid path. Bitly’s own blog completes the picture plainly: most users create codes during a free trial, and the codes deactivate automatically when the trial period finishes. Static codes keep working, dynamic ones need the subscription.
To its credit, none of this is hidden once you reach the pricing page, and the tier quotas are published in full. The gap is between the front door and the checkout, and it is the same funnel shape we documented hands-on at QR Tiger, where the free flow’s download button led to the pricing page.
The pricing, annual-first
Starter costs €8 a month billed annually, charged as €96 up front, for 2 dynamic codes, 10,000 scans and one user. The same tier on monthly billing costs €16, double, and the page says so once you flip the Paid Monthly toggle. Advanced at €15 billed annually carries 50 codes, unlimited scans, bulk creation of 100 and 3,000 API requests; Professional at €40 lifts that to 250 codes and 10,000 API requests. Their pricing FAQ states both upper tiers are billed annually only, and VAT is not included in any displayed price.
Two contract terms from the same FAQ are worth reading before subscribing: cancellation requires notice 30 days before the end of the billing cycle, and downgrades are only possible after the first contract period. Neither is unusual in SaaS; both matter on a plan you prepay a year of. Where that €8 entry sits against the market, with its billing caveat attached, is in our pricing index.
Where the record is thin
The generator sits behind signup, so ease of use is scored from the published pages, provisional until a hands-on account pass. The QR type count is unpublished. EU data residency is unclear: the product came from a German publisher, but where scan data lives post-acquisition is not stated on the pages we read. And our analytics score rests on what the tiers list, not on a dashboard session.
Who it fits, and who should skip it
QRCG by Bitly fits teams that want a mainstream, documented tool with published quotas, analytics from the first tier, and an ecosystem play if they already run Bitly for links. The Advanced tier’s 50 codes with unlimited scans and API access at €15 billed annually is the grid’s best value.
Skip it if you came for the homepage’s promise: there is no free tier, and a trial code that reaches a printer becomes a subscription decision two weeks later. For genuinely free static codes, QR Code Monkey hands you the file with no account. For free dynamic codes with a written no-expiry commitment, Hovercode gives you three. And if monthly billing without a premium matters, Oh My Code starts at $4.99 month to month.
Alternatives worth comparing
The full contrast with the market’s honest-free and trap-free options runs through our free generators guide, where this product’s trial mechanics sit alongside the tools that publish permanent free tiers. The full ranking shows where the market’s biggest name lands once the front-door funnel is weighed against the competent platform behind it.
Our best dynamic QR code generators page compares paid entry plans and selects editable-code platforms by need, with this product’s trial deactivation quoted alongside every other vendor’s rule.
Head to head: Oh My Code vs QR Code Generator by Bitly puts this grid against a tool that sells by the month or once, with the trial and cancellation terms of both quoted.
