Best QR Code Menu for Restaurants: Complete Analysis for an Informed Decision

QR Code technology has been around for nearly three decades now. From inventory management to restaurant menus—they are omnipresent today.

And you have also decided to use QR Codes for restaurant menus. It’ll help your customers access all your menus with a simple scan. No need for you to have paper-based printouts of the menus.

To start, you need to find a QR Code generator. To find one, you will head to Google and search for the best one.

You’ll then see pages of results to go through and choose from. And the best way to do that would be to go through each one to see which fits your needs the best.

But is that really practical? While you may do that, it’ll take a lot of your time and effort.

To make it easier for you to pick the best one out there, this article describes the features that the best QR Code menu for restaurants should have.

At the end of this article, you will also find a detailed comparison of the top players based on their features. Let’s get started.

A. Spot the right QR Code generator for restaurant menus

While choosing a service provider, you will obviously have some requirements in mind.

These could be editability, trackability, lead generation, and more. And a good tool should offer you all the features you need in one place.

So, while choosing the best QR Code menu provider for restaurants, look out for the following features:

1. Multiple files per QR Code

It is common for restaurants to have multiple menus. These may include bar menu, buffet menu, happy hour menu, or normal lunch/dinner menu. It’s popular in restaurant management.

So make sure your QR Code service provider helps you add all the menus to a single QR Code. Having a separate QR Code for each menu wouldn’t really be practical, right?

Some players such as Scanova allow you to add up to 20 menu files per QR Code. This helps to provide all the menus via a single QR Code.

Check if your QR Code menu generator offers this feature.

2. Flexibility of editing encoded content

Say you create a QR Code that takes the end-users to your restaurant menu(s). And you add it to table tents. A year later, you introduce a couple of new dishes, stop serving a few, or you simply want to update the prices.

Such changes are very common in the restaurant industry. And to keep your customers updated, you needn’t create new QR Codes from the scratch each time you want to update the menu.

This is where a dynamic QR Code helps you out. It allows you to update the encoded menu files (by replacing, adding, or deleting them) without creating a new QR Code altogether.

So make sure the menu QR Codes you create are dynamic in nature.

3. Create custom-designed QR Codes

Since your QR Codes have a customer-facing role, it makes sense to customize their design.

After all, custom-designed QR Codes attract more scans than black-and-white ones. Moreover, they also help you build brand recognition among your audience.

You can customize your QR Code design in two ways. First is by adding your brand colors, logo, and background color to QR Codes. The second is by adding a background image to it.

So, ensure that your QR Code provider offers this feature.

4. Add error correction to QR Codes

Food spillage is a common issue in restaurant premises. And they put your menus at the risk of getting soiled. However, QR Code-based menus are damage resistant.

They can scan well even after being damaged, dirty, or distorted by up to 30%. This is possible due to their error-correction feature.

There are four levels of error correction that you simply can choose from:

• L: up to 7% error correction
• M: up to 15% error correction
• H: up to 15% error correction
• V: up to 30% error correction

Depending on your use case, you can select the appropriate level of error correction. So choose a QR Code menu provider that helps you add an appropriate level of error correction.

5. Export QR Codes in high-resolution format

Since you’ll probably add the QR Code menus to print creatives, such as tent cards, you must export them in vector formats. For example, SVG, EPS, and PDF. They ensure that the QR Codes doesn’t get pixelated no matter how much the designer zooms in or out.

So, ensure that your preferred service provider helps you export QR Codes in high-resolution formats.

6.​​ Track scanning activity

If you’re a serious marketer, you understand the importance of audience behavior monitoring. It helps you understand the characteristics of your audience and how your campaign is performing.

So, you need to make sure you can track your QR Code menu’s activity. This can be anything such as:

• How many people have scanned the QR Code
• Which browser did they use to scan the QR Code
• What’s the operating of the scanning device

You can leverage this data while planning any campaigns in the future.

Also, see if QR Codes can help you monitor how your customers interact with the encoded content after scanning it. This could be an interaction with the button to download the menus.

This feature isn’t available with all the QR Code generators. Some service providers such as Scanova help you access this data easily.

7. Capture the target audience’s contact information

As a restaurant, you have to offer hot deals, offers, or send information about an upcoming event to customers. And in this case, personalized targeting is usually preferred. That’s because it helps to cultivate relationships with your customers.

And when businesses do that, it simply translates to better footfall and more sales.

And to send such communications and notifications, you’d need the contact information of your customers.

This could include name, email address, and mobile number of the user scanning the QR Code.

To gain this information, you need the Lead Generation feature. It helps you capture the contact details of the end-users. You can then leverage it for various marketing campaigns.

To help you understand it better, here’s how it works:

• Login to your QR Code generator and create a leads form (with details you would like to capture)
• Create the QR Code and enable lead generation
• Next, add this QR Code to the required marketing creatives

When customers scan it, they’ll be taken to a webpage where they’ll see the lead form to be filled out.

After submitting it, they will see the content you have encoded in the QR Code.

8. Keep QR Codes and landing pages ad-free

While some basic QR Code Generators help you create QR Codes for free, they add mobile ads to the landing pages. After all, that’s how they sustain their business.

But let’s be honest—no customer likes seeing these ads. They make the user experience pretty bad for them.

So, choose a QR Code Menu Generator that offers an ad-free experience to the customers.

Note that sometimes third-party QR Code scanners also include advertisements. Now, this isn’t something your QR Code service provider controls. However, the ads run by QR Code scanning apps don’t affect the landing page experience (which is controlled by your QR Code generator).

9. Provide multi-factor authentication

It is important for every business to safeguard its processes and the data shared by customers.

And if you’re looking for the best QR Code service provider, then why not look for enhanced security too?

That means you need a QR Code generator that provides multi-factor authentication. It is an additional layer of protection to your account.

Here’s how it works—say while creating an account with your QR Code generator, you added a password for login and security purposes. But somehow your password gets stolen. it’ll put your account’s safety at risk.

This can lead to data breaches and even unauthorized QR Code edits. But multi-factor authentication can help you avoid this.

It ensures that no unauthorized user can access or hack your account. It does so by asking you to not only enter the password while logging in but also additional information. It is usually OTP and push notifications.

You can log in once you verify your identity via both the means. Hence, your QR Codes, data, and campaigns remain safe.

10. Add password protection to QR Codes

This feature comes in handy when you want to restrict access to content in the QR Code. With password protection, end-users can see the data (such as menus) only after entering the required password.

Here’s how it works:

• You create a QR Code with the required data
• Next, you enable password protection and set a password
• When the end-user scans the QR Code, she is prompted to enter the password. Once entered, she gets access to the encoded content

This prevents your data from unauthorized access by the end-users. And if needed, make sure your QR Code provider offers this feature.
10. Help restore deleted QR Codes

Say while working on your account,, you accidentally deleted the QR Code having menu files. What will you do? Is your QR Code gone forever?

Well, no. You can actually get it back. You just need a QR Code generator that allows you to restore a QR Code even after deletion.

This feature will help you relax even if you delete a QR Code by mistake.

11. 24×7 customer Support

Say you run into a technical issue or need help from your QR Code menu provider. In such cases, your service provider must be up for the duty, providing you help whenever required.

Most service providers offer customer support. It may be via restaurant email marketing, phone, or live chat. Hence, choose one that helps you connect via your desired mode of communication.

12. White label feature

Say you’ve created the QR Code. And as end-users scan it, they see a short URL that takes them to target content (menu files). This URL will have the name of your service provider together.

As a serious marketer, you may want customers to rather see your name in the short URL. After all, brand building is very important in every industry.

So, choose a QR Code generator that offers a white label or custom domain/URL hash feature. Using it, you can add your own name to the redirecting URL.

13. Allow flexible payment options

The biggest advantage of a web-based app over licensed software is flexibility. With a web app, you can subscribe to the software as per your needs.

But some services don’t offer you this flexibility and need you to subscribe for a year.

Hence, that does away with the whole point of flexibility, right? So, make sure your service provider offers you flexible payments as per your needs.

14. Not put a limit on the number of scans

When you use a QR Code menu, you don’t really know how many scans your QR Code will get.

And often, some QR Code generators limit the number of scans based on the subscription plan.

But how do you choose the right plan if you’re unsure of the number of scans you’ll get? What happens if you exceed the limit? Does the QR Code stop working?

Well, you need not worry about that if you go with the right service provider. Make sure the one you choose offers unlimited scans irrespective of the subscription plan.

15. Keep your data secured

Whenever you use a tool or a service, you share some personal data. And ensuring that your data is in safe hands is paramount.

Hence, your QR Code generator must safeguard the data you share. To ensure that, the tool must be GDPR compliant and ISO 27001:2013 Certified.

Not know what it means?

Well, The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is data protection and privacy regulation. It ensures that the EU residents have control over their personal data. Hence, they can decide organizations store and process their data.

On the other hand, ISO 27001:2013 certification is offered to organizations that meet quality standards for information security management system. These include requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving its system.

Such certifications imply that the company knows how to manage the data with utmost security.

B. Best QR Code Generator—Comparison Chart

Now you know what features to look out for while finding the best QR Code generator for restaurant menus.

And as we promised in the beginning, here’s a detailed infographic showing you the comparison of the top players. We hope that it’ll help you make an informed decision.