In brief
- A digital business card opens your profile when it is held to a phone or scanned.
- The details live on the profile, not the card: you edit the profile and the card stays the same.
- At Avant you buy the card once; the profile it opens is free.
A business card has always done one job: it lets someone you have just met find you later. A digital business card keeps that job and changes where the details live. They aren't printed on the card; the card opens a profile page that you keep up to date.
What is a digital business card?
A digital business card is a card that opens its owner's profile page when it is held to a phone or scanned with the camera. The profile carries your name, title, phone, email, website and social accounts, and the person you met can save them to their phone in one tap.
"Digital business card" is sometimes used for a plain link or a QR code on a phone screen too. At Avant it is two things together: a physical card you can hand over, and the profile page it opens.
How does it work?
The card has a small chip inside and a on its face. Both lead to the same place: your profile's address.
- By NFC: the other person holds their phone near your card. The phone reads it from a few centimetres away and opens your profile in its browser. The chip has no battery; it takes the little power it needs from the phone.
- By QR code: on a phone without NFC, or with NFC switched off, they point the camera at the code on the card and the same profile opens.
Either way there is no app to install; the profile opens in the phone's own browser. How the two compare is in NFC or QR code on a business card?
What goes on the profile?
The profile is a page you put together. Most profiles have:
- Your name, your title and a photo
- Buttons to call, email or message you
- Your website, your social accounts and any other links
- A button that adds your details to the other person's contacts
How is it different from a paper card?
Above all, the details can change. When your number or title changes, a box of paper cards goes out of date and you print new ones. With a digital card you edit the profile; the card keeps opening the same address, so nothing is reprinted.
It also spares the other person retyping you. Instead of copying a number from a card into their contacts, they open your profile and save it.
There is a fuller comparison in Paper or digital business card?
What if the card is lost?
The card only opens your profile; the profile doesn't live on the card. At Avant, when you mark a lost card as in your Studio, its chip stops opening your profile; if the card turns up again, you can usually switch it back on. The QR code printed on it leads to your profile's own address, so it keeps working: whoever finds the card sees what your profile shows to everyone.
What does a digital business card cost?
It depends on the card's material and print, and on whether the profile needs a subscription. Some services charge once for the card and then every month or year for the profile.
At Avant you buy the card once. The profile it opens is free: basic profile access has no set end date and no compulsory renewal fee. An optional Pro plan adds more designs and tools for those who want them. Current prices are on the Shop and Pricing pages, and what drives the price is in What decides an NFC business card's price?
In short
A digital business card joins the card in your hand to a profile that opens on a phone. The card stays the same; the profile stays current. You design your Avant card yourself in after you order; the cards are in the Shop.