Paper or digital business card?

The paper business card is still the most familiar way to introduce yourself: it's cheap, everyone knows what it's for, and its battery never runs out. A digital card keeps most of that, and removes paper's one real weakness: the details printed on it can't change.

• Everyone knows it. Hand it over and nobody needs telling what to do.
• It needs nothing. It's read without a phone, a connection or a charge.
• Each card is cheap. Printed in quantity, the price per card falls.
• It stays in the hand. Good paper and careful printing are remembered.

• The details go out of date. When your number, title, address or company changes, every card you hold says the wrong thing. You either correct them by hand or print new ones.
• There's little room. A card holds a few lines; your website, portfolio or social accounts are often left off.
• The other person types you in. Whoever takes your card enters your details into their phone by hand. Typos, and cards set aside to "save later", are where contacts get lost.
• It runs out. When the box is empty, you wait for the next print run.

A digital card doesn't carry your details; it carries a way to them: an NFC chip and a QR code. So:

• You update the details whenever you like. Edit the profile, and the cards you've already handed out show the new details too.
• Room stops being a problem. Your links, your photo and your contact buttons sit together on the profile.
• Saving you is easy. The other person taps Save contact and your details go into their contacts.
• One card is enough. Anyone can tap or scan the same card; you don't have to give one away at every meeting.

Some things stay the same:

• The other person needs a phone and a connection for the profile to open.
• Someone seeing one for the first time may not know to hold their phone to it. That's why the QR code on the card, and a quick "hold your phone here", help.
• The card is still an object: it can be lost or left at home. At Avant, when you mark a lost card as lost in your Studio, its chip stops opening your profile; the QR code printed on it still opens your profile's public address.

• Paper

  • Everyone knows it; it needs no phone, connection or charge.
  • A change of details means a new print run.
  • The other person types your details into their phone.

• Digital

  • The other person needs a phone and a connection for the profile to open.
  • You edit the profile; the card stays the same.
  • The other person adds you to their contacts with Save contact, in one tap.

One paper card costs far less than one NFC card. But the comparison isn't card for card: on paper, every change of details means a new print run; a digital card stays the same.

On the digital side, what matters most is whether the profile needs an ongoing subscription. At Avant you pay for the card once, and the profile it opens has no set end date and no compulsory renewal fee. The other things that move the price are in What decides an NFC business card's price?

• Your details won't change for a long time and you hand out a lot of cards.
• You meet people where phones are rarely out.
• You want a short-lived card for a single event.

Paper is familiar and cheap; a digital card stays current. If your details change often, or there's more to you than a card can hold, a digital card lasts longer. How it works is in What is a digital business card?; the cards are in the Shop.