An agency puts a QR code on a client's flyer, and something subtle happens: the agency now owns a piece of the client's infrastructure. Not the design — the redirect. Every one of those flyers depends on somebody, at your firm, keeping an account alive and a destination correct.
That works fine right up until it doesn't: the account manager leaves, the retainer ends, the client moves to another agency, or somebody needs a destination changed on a Sunday. What follows is a set of arrangements that make those moments boring.
The first decision: whose account owns the code
There are two defensible answers and one that causes trouble.
The agency owns the code, the client is a collaborator. Right for campaign work with a defined end — a launch, an event, a seasonal push. You keep operational control, the client sees the numbers. The obligation is that you must have a real plan for what happens at the end of the engagement.
The client owns the code, the agency is a collaborator. Right for anything printed on long-lived material — packaging, signage, vehicle livery, business cards. If the code will outlive the contract, it should live in the account that will outlive the contract. This is the choice most agencies should make more often than they do.
A shared login on a generic address. This is the one that causes trouble. It defeats every audit trail, cannot be revoked per-person, and breaks the moment someone changes the password. It is also the arrangement that quietly persists for years because nobody wants to untangle it.
If the print run outlives the retainer, the code belongs in the client's account.
Roles, and what each one should be given
Per-code sharing means access is granted per code rather than per account, which is what makes multi-client work manageable at all. Three levels:
| Role | Can do | Give it to |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Change destinations, manage who else has access | Account lead, senior producer |
| Editor | Change destinations | Campaign manager, the person on shift |
| Viewer | See scan analytics only | The client, the media buyer, the vendor |
Two working rules make this hold up.
Viewer for clients, by default. Clients almost always want to see whether the print run is working, and almost never want to change a redirect. View-only gives them the numbers with no route to breaking a live campaign. Upgrade individuals to editor on request, not as standard.
Admin for at least two people, never one. A single admin is a single point of failure, and the failure mode is somebody being on a plane while a destination is wrong.
Business includes up to ten collaborators with per-code roles; Enterprise extends that considerably. Pro is a single-operator plan — fine for a freelancer, wrong the moment there are two of you.
Naming, before you have forty codes
Nothing degrades faster than a code list with forty entries called "QR code (1)". Set a convention on day one:
CLIENT — Asset — Campaign — Month
Northfield — A5 flyer — Spring menu — Mar
Northfield — Table tent — Spring menu — Mar
Ravensworth — Yard sign — 14 Mill Ln — Apr
Client first, so sorting groups by account. Asset second, because "which surface" is the question you ask most. This is the difference between finding a code in five seconds and finding it in five minutes while a client is on the phone.
And use one code per surface, always — a flyer code, a poster code, a table tent code, all pointing at the same destination. Same cost, and it turns scan counts into a per-placement comparison you can put in a report. Tracking Print Campaigns with QR Codes and UTM Parameters covers pairing that with UTM tags so print shows up in the client's web analytics too.
Reporting that says something
Scan data is the only measurement print has ever offered, which makes it disproportionately valuable in a client report — and disproportionately easy to over-claim.
What holds up:
- Placement comparison. Two codes, same destination, different surfaces. Which one earned its print cost.
- Unique versus repeat. Reach versus engagement. A poster with high repeats near an office is being scanned by the same twelve people.
- Time-of-day and day-of-week. When the audience is actually in front of the material — directly useful for timing the next drop.
- Decay curve. How long a print run keeps producing scans. This is the number that justifies reprint frequency.
What does not: treating scans as conversions. A scan is an opened door, not a sale. Pair it with what happened on the landing page.
Analytics history depth is the plan-level constraint that bites agencies: 7 days on Free, 30 on Pro, 90 on Business, a full year on Enterprise. A quarterly client report needs 90 days minimum, and a year-on-year comparison needs Enterprise. QR Code Analytics: What Scan Data Actually Tells You goes deeper on reading the figures honestly.
The handover, planned in advance
Every engagement ends. The professional version of that ending is decided at the start:
- Write it into the contract. Who owns the codes, what happens at termination, how long you keep serving destinations afterward.
- If the client will take the codes over, create them in the client's account from the beginning and take editor access yourself. Transferring later is possible but it is a conversation nobody wants during an offboarding.
- If you keep them, state the term explicitly. "We maintain these redirects for twelve months after termination" is a fair, chargeable service. Silence is a liability that surfaces two years later as a client phoning about dead codes on their packaging.
- Hand over the destination list. A spreadsheet of code name, short link, and current destination. It takes ten minutes and it is the thing that gets remembered.
- Revoke access when people leave. Per-code roles make this a checklist item rather than a password reset.
The worst outcome — an agency shutting down or losing an account while client codes still resolve through it — is entirely avoidable by making step one a habit.
Which plan an agency needs
Pro, from $6 a month billed annually, covers a freelancer: 20 codes, 30 days of history, custom design, link protection, and the REST API. No collaborators, which is the ceiling.
Business, from $20 a month annually, is the real agency plan: 100 codes, 90 days of history, ten collaborators with per-code roles, scheduled redirects, and unlimited custom domains — so client codes can resolve through a client-branded domain rather than a shared one. Enterprise takes it to 500 codes, a year of history, and a much larger team.
Paid plans include a 14-day trial. If you are still working out whether the model fits, a free account gives you five codes and seven days of history with no card — enough to run one small campaign end to end before committing.
The QR code you put on a client's print run is the most durable thing you will make for them. Decide whose it is before it is printed, and the handover takes ten minutes instead of a year of loose ends.
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