Free or paid QR menu: which should your restaurant choose?
Free QR generators, a scanned PDF or a real menu platform: what 'free' actually costs, and when a subscription pays for itself in the first month.
'Free QR menu' is one of the most common searches among restaurant owners. And it's true: generating a QR code costs nothing. The real question is what sits behind the scan. Here are the three options, with their hidden costs.
Option 1: a free QR pointing to a PDF
You scan your paper menu, host it as a PDF and point a free QR code at it. Cost: zero. But PDFs pinch and zoom poorly on phones, exist in one language only, and every price change means regenerating the file — and many free QR codes expire or start showing ads after a few months.
Option 2: a generic tool's free plan
Generic free tools display a basic web page, but with no photos, no allergens, no translations and no ordering — with the tool's brand front and centre before your guests. As soon as you want to remove the ads or add a language, you pay, often more than a restaurant-dedicated platform.
Option 3: a restaurant menu platform
A dedicated platform like qartine costs the price of two or three covers a month, and includes what actually sells: dish photos, automatic FR · NL · EN translation, allergens, per-table QR codes, table and takeaway ordering, analytics and Google review collection. The trial is free for 15 days, no credit card — judge for yourself.
The maths to do
- One menu reprint often costs more than a month's subscription.
- Good photos increase orders of the dishes that have them.
- A menu readable in the guest's language raises the average ticket of foreign visitors.
- A few extra Google reviews a week shows up directly in your local visibility.
In short: to test the idea, a free QR is fine. To serve guests every day, a paid menu pays for itself as soon as it saves you one reprint or sells a few extra desserts.