QR Code Labels: Create, Print & Track for Free

Label selection guide

How to Choose the Right Labels for Your QR Codes

The right label size, material, and printer combination ensures your QR codes scan reliably and last as long as you need them.

Label Size Guide

Minimum recommended size is 1" × 1" (25mm) for reliable scanning at arm's length. Standard sizes include 1.5" × 1.5", 2" × 2", and 2.625" × 1" (Avery 5160 format). For asset tags, 1.75" × 0.5" or 2" × 1" work well with sequential numbering. See our QR code size guide for detailed scanning distance guidelines.

Label Material Options

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Printer Compatibility

QR code printer labels work with all major printer types. Choose based on your volume, material, and finish requirements.

Engraving & durable marking

Laser-Engraved and Etched QR Codes: Why They Come Off the Bed Unreadable

Adhesive labels do not survive heat, solvents, or years of handling. Marking the code straight into wood, acrylic, or coated metal does — but an engraved code scans on different rules than a printed one, and plenty of first attempts come off the bed unreadable. QRKIT is software: we generate the file you send to your own laser or your own engraving supplier. We do not sell, ship, engrave, or fulfil anything physical.

1. Export a file your laser can actually drive

Which formats you get depends on where you download from, and the difference matters more for engraving than for printing:

Vector matters because it lets your software drive the beam along real geometry instead of tracing a bitmap, so module edges stay square at any plaque size. Note that downloading a file requires a free QRKIT account on every path — you can build and preview a code without one, but the file itself comes after sign-up. The free account covers PNG; the vector formats (SVG, and the dashboard's PDF and EPS) come with any paid plan.

2. You cannot raise error correction, so buy tolerance elsewhere

Every QR code QRKIT generates is fixed at error-correction level Q — roughly 25% redundancy. There is no level selector, and it is not raised when you add a logo. That is a deliberately generous default, and it means a code that already scans cleanly has real damage tolerance built in. But it also means you cannot compensate for a marginal burn by turning error correction up. If your etch is not reading, the fix has to come from module size, contrast, or the quiet zone instead.

3. Module size is what breaks, not code size

The unit that has to survive the burn is the module — the smallest square in the pattern — not the plaque. A long destination URL packs more modules into the same physical square, shrinking each one until it drops below what your beam kerf and your material's edge quality can resolve. There are two levers, and shortening the payload is usually the cheaper one:

• Encode less. A dynamic QR code encodes a short redirect rather than a long tracking URL, so the same physical square carries far fewer modules and each one comes out bigger. On an engraved plaque that is often the whole difference between reading and not.
• Mark bigger. Scanning distance sets the minimum width. Our QR code size guide has the full distance table.

4. Contrast is what the camera sees — not depth

A phone camera reads brightness, not topography. An etch that cuts a groove without changing the surface tone produces a code that only resolves under raking light and vanishes under the phone's own flash. The substrates that engrave into reliably scannable codes are the ones where the beam changes colour, not just height:

Polarity matters too. The QR specification assumes dark modules on a light background. Many phone cameras now read an inverted code, but not all of them do. If your mark comes out lighter than the substrate, test on both an iPhone and an Android before you commit to a batch.

5. Quiet zone, kerf, and the test tile

Engraved plaques tend to be laid out edge to edge, which is exactly where the quiet zone gets eaten. Keep the clear margin around the code free of bezels, chamfers, borders, and engraved text — a scanner treats anything in there as data. Keep it the same tone as the light modules, too. Then account for kerf: the beam removes material slightly wider than the vector path, so dark modules come out marginally fat and light gaps marginally thin, which on a dense code is enough to close the gaps altogether. Cut one test tile in the real material at the real size before you run a sheet. Our QR code printing guide and size guide cover the quiet-zone and resolution numbers in full.

6. Laser-cut QR codes: cutting all the way through is a different job

If what you want is a durable, reliably scannable code on wood, acrylic, or coated metal, engrave it — everything above applies, and engraving is the default answer. A laser-cut QR code, where the beam goes all the way through the sheet, is for decorative and architectural pieces, where the QR is a physical opening rather than a mark: backlit signage, panel inserts, standoff-mounted plaques. Be clear-eyed before you start — a cut code is meaningfully harder to make scan than an engraved one, and four things change the moment the modules become holes.

• The code falls apart into loose pieces. Always. This is geometry, not bad luck. Each of the three finder patterns is a 7×7 block: a one-module dark ring, a one-module light ring inside it, and a dark 3×3 core at the centre. Cut the dark modules as through-holes and that light ring becomes a closed loop of material with holes on both sides — it drops out of the sheet. Invert it and cut the light modules instead, and the dark 3×3 core drops out. No polarity avoids this, and the data region throws off further islands wherever an enclosed region happens to appear. Send an unmodified QR SVG to a cutter and you get a pile of parts. Engraving never has this problem, which is exactly why the advice above does not transfer.
• Bridges are the fix, and level Q is what pays for them. A bridge — or tab — is a sliver of material left spanning a hole so an island stays attached to the sheet. To a scanner, every bridge is deliberate damage: material sitting where an opening belongs, read as the wrong tone. The only reason bridges work at all is the roughly 25% redundancy in the fixed level-Q encoding described above, which absorbs a certain amount of wrong tone before the read fails. That budget is fixed and cannot be topped up, so keep bridges thin, keep them few, and keep them out of the finder patterns and the timing rows — those are structural, and error correction does not protect them at all.
• Kerf takes material from both sides of every hole. On an engraved line, kerf simply makes dark modules marginally fat. On a through-cut the same effect stops being cosmetic and becomes structural: the beam removes material around the entire perimeter of each hole, so every hole comes out oversized by about a kerf width while every rib of material between two holes comes out undersized by the same amount. On a dense code the ribs between adjacent holes go to zero and the piece disintegrates as you lift it off the bed. That puts a hard floor under module size — far coarser than the smallest dot you could engrave — which is why a cut code carrying the same payload has to be physically much larger than an engraved one. Kerf varies with material, thickness, and machine, so measure yours on a test cut rather than trusting a published number.
• A hole has no tone of its own. An engraved code generates its own contrast, because the beam changes the surface. A cut code generates none — it is an opening, and it reads only against whatever sits behind it, so it needs a contrasting backing board to work at all. Backlighting looks superb and inverts the polarity, giving you bright modules on a dark field; that is the inverted-code risk described in the contrast section above, and it is worth testing on more than one phone before you commit to a piece.

The payload lever from point 3 above matters more here than anywhere else on this page: the kerf floor already forces modules to be coarse, so shortening the encoded string is often the only way to keep the panel a sane size at all. Weigh the plan before you commit, though, because a cut piece cannot be re-cut. The free plan includes one dynamic code with 100 scans a month and 30 days of scan history, and past 100 scans in a month a free code stops redirecting until the monthly reset — an installed panel goes dead until then. Export the vector file as described in the export note above, then do the island and bridge work yourself in CAD or a vector editor — QRKIT generates the file, it does not add bridges, and it does not cut, engrave, or ship anything physical. Building a code is free; a PNG download needs a free account, and the vector formats come with any paid plan.

Business applications

QR Code Labels for Business

QR code labels are a cost-effective alternative to expensive asset management systems and pre-printed specialty tags. Whether you manage IT assets, warehouse inventory, retail shelves, or equipment maintenance, QRKIT gives you enterprise-grade functionality at zero cost. Because QRKIT uses dynamic QR codes, you can update the information behind every label without reprinting — critical for environments where asset details or URLs change frequently.