QR codes for things you can't reprint
Print it once. Change where it goes whenever you like.
A LinkShift code goes on the menu, the badge, the box, the sign. What it points to follows a schedule you set: happy hour at four, brunch on Sunday, the launch page during launch week. The ink never changes. The destination does.
Same printed code. Bronze hours have a rule; the rest fall back to the dinner menu.
The problem
A printed link is a promise you can't take back.
The QR code on your table tents points at the spring menu. It's August. The one on 400 conference badges goes to an agenda for a day that's over. The one on the packaging sends people to a registration page when what they need, six months later, is support.
You can't edit ink. So either you reprint, which costs money and a week, or the code quietly keeps sending people to the wrong place. Most people choose the second one without deciding to.
LinkShift separates the thing you print from the place it goes. The code is permanent. The destination has a calendar.
How it works
Three things, in this order.
Create a code
Name it for the thing it'll be printed on. Give it a fallback, the place people land when nothing else is scheduled. Download the QR as SVG for the print shop or PNG for everything else.
Print it
Once. The QR carries a short permanent link, and it's generated with high error correction, so it survives a logo in the middle, a coffee ring, and a cheap printer.
Set the schedule
Rules say where it points and when. A window, a repeating time of day, certain days of the week. Higher priority wins when two overlap. Change them whenever you like; the ink doesn't care.
Rules
A schedule, not a setting.
Here's one code's week. Every bronze block is a rule; the gray is the fallback doing its job.
Where it goes
Anywhere a link gets printed and then forgotten.
Menus and table tents
Brunch on weekends, happy hour at four, the holiday closure notice in December, all on the one code that's already laminated.
Badges and lanyards
Agenda before the talk, slides during, feedback form after, the recording next week. Nobody reprints 400 badges.
Packaging
Registration while the return window's open, support docs after, the reorder page when the refills run out.
Signage and vehicle wraps
The seasonal offer changes four times a year. The wrap doesn't.
Event posters
Tickets until it sells out, then the waitlist, then the photos.
Your own domain
Optional. Print go.yourcompany.com/menu instead of ours. Nobody reads a QR code's domain, but scanner previews do show it.
Plainly
What it doesn't do.
It doesn't store anyone's IP address. Scans are counted by country, device and which rule was active, and the address used to work that out is thrown away.
It doesn't let a browser cache the destination. Every scan is a temporary redirect on purpose, because the whole point is that tomorrow's answer may be different.
It doesn't charge you yet. LinkShift is free while we find out what it's worth, and whatever we decide, a code you've already printed keeps resolving.