Digital business card apps compared: Blinq, Popl, HiHello — and what your bio page already does

There is a good chance you are paying for something you already have.

Digital business cards became a category of their own — apps with hardware, CRM integrations and per-seat pricing. Meanwhile link-in-bio pages quietly grew a card, a QR code and a shortener. Most people now carry both, and almost nobody has checked whether the second one is earning its money.

This is that check. Prices below were read off each company's own pricing page on 13 September 2026; the App Store figures were measured the same day.

The three apps

They are not three versions of one product. Blinq sells a card platform to a company. Popl sells a trade-show stand a lead-capture system — its App Store listing is now titled Popl: AI Lead Capture, while its store address still reads popl-digital-business-card, which tells you exactly where the product went. HiHello is the closest to a single person's tool.

What the free plans hold

HiHello's free plan beats ours on cards, four against two. If a stack of cards is all you want, that is the honest place to start, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

What the table shows is that the comparison is not really about cards. Blinq's free tier is two cards and the things immediately around them. Linkhiver's free tier is a page — the card is one block on it, next to your links, your QR codes and your shop.

What one subscription buys

HiHello and Linkhiver Pro are the same headline price, which makes them the cleanest pair on this page: $6 buys sixteen cards at one and twenty cards plus an entire public page at the other.

Popl publishes no price at all. Checked on 13 September 2026, its pricing page lists no tier, no per-seat figure and no annual figure — it describes uncapped usage and invites you to book a demo. That is a legitimate way to sell to enterprises, and it is a real cost to a single person who just wants to know what a card costs.

Where they beat us, plainly

A comparison that never concedes anything is not worth reading, so here are the four rows we lose:

• NFC cards. All three sell physical cards and tags you tap against a phone. Linkhiver has no hardware and none planned; we share by QR code, by link, and by Apple Wallet and Google Wallet pass.
• CRM integrations. Blinq lists 20+ native integrations; Popl names Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Dynamics, Zoho, Monday and Slack. Linkhiver has none. You can export subscribers to CSV on Pro, and webhooks fire when someone subscribes — that is not the same thing.
• Scanning paper cards. HiHello photographs a paper card into a contact, five times a month free. Popl scans event badges. Linkhiver has no scanner and no OCR.
• Teams. Admin dashboards, shared templates, company directories, SSO. Linkhiver is one account per person, full stop.

If any of those four is what you are buying, buy it. None of the rest of this article changes that.

Where the question changes

Here is the part the three apps do not compete on, because it is not what they are for.

A business card answers "who are you?". A bio page answers "where do I go next?". You hand out the second one far more often — in an Instagram bio, in a WhatsApp message, on a printed QR code, at the bottom of an email. And when the card lives on that page, the person who scans it lands somewhere with your links, your shop and your booking form, instead of on a contact sheet with a phone number.

That is why the free plans in the second table look so different. You are not choosing between two cards and four cards. You are choosing between a card, and a card that sits on something.

Setting up the free one

If you want to try the version you may already be paying for:

1. Create a free Linkhiver page and claim your username — that address is what the card points at.
2. Open Business card and fill in name, role, company, phone, email and socials. Two cards are free.
3. Add a QR code for anything printed — business cards, a shop window, a menu, a van.
4. Add your links, so the card lands on a page rather than a contact record.
5. On Pro, save the card into Apple Wallet or Google Wallet so it travels with your phone.

It takes about a minute, and it costs nothing to find out whether the second subscription is still worth it.

If you want the row-by-row version for one app in particular, each has its own page: Linkhiver vs Blinq, Linkhiver vs Popl and Linkhiver vs HiHello.

Frequently asked questions

Which digital business card app has the best free plan?

For cards alone, HiHello — four free digital cards plus five paper-card scans a month, against Blinq's two and Linkhiver's two. For anything beyond cards, Linkhiver's free plan is a public page: ten links, five QR codes, ten short links, a shop with five products and 30 days of per-link click statistics. They answer different questions, and the best free plan is the one whose question is yours.

How much does Popl cost?

Popl does not publish a price. Checked on 13 September 2026, its pricing page lists no tier, no per-user figure and no annual figure — it describes uncapped usage and invites you to book a demo for a quote. The individual app is a free download on the App Store. If you need a number before a sales call, that is worth knowing before you start.

Do I need a digital business card app if I already have a link-in-bio page?

Often not. If your page already carries a card, a QR code and your links, a second subscription may be buying you NFC hardware and CRM sync you will never use. The exception is real: if you collect paper cards, work trade shows, or need contacts to land in Salesforce or HubSpot by themselves, a dedicated card platform does a job a bio page does not.

Can a digital business card work without NFC?

Yes, and most sharing already happens without it. A QR code someone scans, a link you send in WhatsApp, or a pass saved into Apple Wallet or Google Wallet all deliver the same card. NFC is faster when you are standing in front of someone with a card in your hand; it does nothing in a message, an email signature or a printed flyer.

Is a digital business card free?

Every app here has a free tier: Blinq gives two cards, HiHello four, and Linkhiver two alongside a whole bio page. What is usually paid is volume and control — more cards, branded QR codes, team templates, CRM sync — and on Popl the price is not published at all.