What happens to your QR codes if you cancel the subscription?

If you are reading this with a renewal notice open, here is the short version: a dynamic QR code only works while the company that generated it keeps serving the redirect. Cancel the plan and, depending on the vendor, every code you printed can stop resolving. Static codes are unaffected. Whether yours survive is a question about your specific vendor's terms, not about QR codes in general.

This page explains how to find that answer for your account, what to do in the two weeks before a renewal, and how to move providers without reprinting anything.

Why cancelling can break a printed code

A static QR code has the destination encoded in the black-and-white pattern itself. No server is involved after printing. It cannot be edited, it cannot be tracked, and nothing anyone does to your account can switch it off.

A dynamic QR code encodes a short redirect URL owned by the generator. When someone scans, their phone asks that company's servers where to go. That indirection is exactly what lets you re-point a printed code — and it is exactly what makes the code dependent on an active account.

So the question "what happens if I cancel" has three possible answers, and only your vendor's terms decide which one you get:

1. The code stops resolving. Scans hit an error page or a dead link. Your printed assets are now decoration.
2. The code keeps resolving but becomes uneditable. You lose the dashboard and the analytics, but scans still land.
3. The code keeps working entirely, because the plan was never what kept it alive.

How to find out which one applies to you

Do this before you cancel anything, and ideally before your next print run.

1. Read the cancellation section of the terms, not the marketing page. Search the vendor's help centre for "cancel", "downgrade", and "expire". The answer is usually there in one sentence.

2. Check the FAQ on their pricing page. Vendors that have been asked this a lot tend to answer it directly. It is worth noting when a pricing page carries a question like "if I cancel my subscription, will the codes still work" — that FAQ exists because customers keep asking.

3. Ask support in writing, and keep the reply. One email: *"If I cancel before renewal, will my existing dynamic QR codes continue to resolve? Yes or no."* A written answer is worth more than an inference, and if the answer is bad you want it on record before you commit a print run.

4. Check for a scan cap as well as an expiry. Some plans do not expire codes but do meter scans. A code that stops at a threshold fails the same way a cancelled one does, and it fails silently — the printed asset looks perfect.

5. Find out whether the codes are on your own domain. This one decides how much freedom you have, and almost nobody checks it. See below.

The thing that actually decides your options: whose domain is it?

If your codes point at the vendor's domain, you have no leverage. The pattern printed on 5,000 flyers encodes *their* hostname, and no other company on earth can serve it.

If your codes point at a custom domain you own — something like go.yourbrand.com — the situation is completely different. The DNS is yours. You can point that hostname at a different provider, recreate the same back-halves there, and every printed code keeps working, because the pattern only ever encoded your own domain plus a path.

That is the single most useful piece of insurance in this whole category, and it is worth setting up *before* you need it. A custom domain converts a hostage situation into a migration.

What to do in the two weeks before a renewal

• Export everything now. Get a CSV of every code, its destination, and its back-half. If you can't export, that itself is an answer about the vendor.
• List what is physically in the wild. Which codes are on printed material you cannot recall? Those are the ones with real stakes. Everything else is just data.
• Diarise the notice period, not the renewal date. Several vendors require notice 30 days before the billing cycle ends. Miss that window and you are paying for another full term regardless of when you cancel.
• Decide per code, not per account. It is completely reasonable to keep an old subscription running for the handful of codes that are on packaging, while making everything new somewhere else.

Moving providers without a reprint

You cannot migrate a printed code that points at a vendor's own domain. Nobody can. What you can do:

If you have a custom domain: move the DNS, import your back-halves at the new provider, and the printed codes keep resolving. Look for a bulk or CSV import that preserves custom endings exactly — recreating 400 codes by hand is where this plan usually dies. A migration fallback helps too: some providers let you set a destination for any code they don't have yet, so anything you haven't imported lands on your homepage instead of a 404 while you finish.

If you don't have a custom domain: accept that the old codes stay where they are. Keep that account alive until those specific printed pieces retire, and put new codes on a provider you have actually checked the cancellation terms for. The cost of running one cheap legacy plan for a few months is far below the cost of a reprint.

The question to ask before your next print run

Not "is this generator good". The generators are mostly fine. Ask:

*If I stop paying, does this specific code keep working — and is it on a domain I control?*

Get the answer in writing before the artwork goes to press. That is the whole lesson, and it costs nothing to apply.

Whooshly's own answer is published as a permanence pledge: the core is a one-time purchase, so there is no subscription to lapse, codes never deactivate for non-payment, scans are never metered, and you can export everything at any time. We also publish what happens if we ever wind down, because a promise about permanence that dodges that question is not worth much.