You hand someone a card. They hold it near their phone. Your details appear on their screen. No app, no typing, no photographing a QR code.
That is an NFC business card. This guide explains what is actually happening, what these cards can and cannot do, and how to judge whether one is worth buying.
What NFC means
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. It is the same technology your phone already uses to pay at a shop counter.
Inside the card sits a small chip and a thin loop of wire. The chip has no battery. Hold the card close to a phone, and the phone's own NFC reader produces a small magnetic field that powers the chip for the moment it needs. The chip sends back one short piece of information: a web address.
The phone then offers to open that address. The whole exchange takes under a second, and it works from about four centimetres away.
Two things follow from this that people often get wrong.
The card holds no personal information. It stores a web address, nothing more. Your phone number is not on the card. It is on the page the address points to.
The card cannot run out of battery. There is nothing to charge. The chip wakes only when a phone powers it.
Does the other person need an app?
No, and this is the part worth checking before you buy any card.
Every iPhone from the XR onwards, and nearly every Android phone made in the last several years, reads NFC tags with no app installed. On modern iPhones the reader is always listening. Older iPhones need a moment with the screen on.
Some card sellers ship cards that only work with their own app. Avoid those. The whole point is that the person you just met does nothing except hold up the phone they already own.
What about phones that do not support NFC
A small number of budget phones have no NFC reader. This is why a well made card also carries a printed QR code. If the tap does not work, the other person opens their camera, points it at the code, and lands in exactly the same place.
Tap and scan should always lead to the same page. If a seller gives you one and not the other, you will be the one apologising when it fails.
What happens after the tap
The phone opens a web page. What is on that page is the actual product. The card is only the doorway.
A good page holds your name, what you do, your phone number and email, and links to whatever matters: your work, your shop, your booking form. It should offer a Save contact button, so the person adds you to their phone in one tap rather than typing your number.
This is where the real advantage over paper shows up. A paper card is fixed on the day it is printed. Change your number, move companies, or launch something new, and every card you ever handed out is now wrong.
With an NFC card you change the page. Every card you have ever given anyone now points at the new version. You never reprint.
What to look for before buying
Five questions separate a card worth owning from one that will annoy you.
- Does it need an app to read? It should not.
- Is there a printed QR code as well as the chip? There should be.
- Can you change where the card points, later, yourself? Some sellers charge for this, or do it for you on request. You want to control it.
- Is there a yearly fee to keep the card working? There should not be. You bought the card. It should keep working.
- What happens to your page if you stop paying for extras? Your basic page and your card should keep working. Only the extras should stop.
That last one matters more than people expect. A card that stops working because a subscription lapsed is a card you cannot trust to hand to anyone.
What they cost
These are the rates other sellers charge across the Indian market, not ours.
| Type | Typical market price |
|---|---|
| Plain chip card | ₹700 to ₹1,000 |
| Card printed with your design | ₹900 to ₹1,200 |
| Metal card | ₹1,800 to ₹3,000 |
Metal cards cost more because they are harder to make. Metal interferes with the signal, so the chip needs careful placement. Keychains and tags sit below a plain card, because there is less of them.
Compare any of that against printing 500 paper cards, which lands in a similar range and cannot be changed once printed.
Where Cardless Club is with this
We are making these cards. They are not ready yet, so you cannot buy one.
When they are, they will follow every rule above: no app needed, a printed code on every card, you control where it points, and no yearly fee. The price will be an introductory one that goes up when we launch, and you can ask us what it is before then.
What you can do today is make the page a card would open. That page costs nothing while we are in pre-release, and it works on its own, in your Instagram bio, in your messages, in your email signature. When cards arrive, yours will already be built.
Make your page · See the cards
Questions
Is an NFC card safe?
The chip holds a web address and nothing else. It cannot read anything from the phone that taps it, and it cannot be used to charge you money. Someone would need to physically hold your card to read it.
Can someone copy my card?
They could copy the web address on it, which is public anyway. It is the same address you share in your bio. They cannot get your account or change your page.
Does it work with iPhones?
Yes. iPhone XR and newer read NFC tags without an app.
What if I lose the card?
The card holds no personal information, so a stranger who finds it sees the page you already share publicly. You point a new card at the same page.
How long does the chip last?
There is no battery, so nothing runs down. The chip outlasts the card it sits in. Physical wear is what eventually kills a card, which is why metal ones last longer.
Do I need a card to use a page?
No. The page works entirely on its own, and always has. A card is one extra way to hand it over in person.