What happens to a printed QR code if you cancel (or the company disappears)
Canceling and shutting down are two different events. A printed QR is four layers. Mix them up and you get a slogan instead of an answer.
You printed a code. Then someone asks what happens if you cancel, or if we disappear. Those are two different events. Mix them up and you get a slogan instead of an answer.
A printed QR is four layers. Separate them.
1. The print
Ink on a label, a bottle, a menu. This layer does not know who you pay. Canceling does not un-print it. A shutdown does not un-print it. The pattern is physical. It scans for as long as the print lasts.
2. The encoded data
A QR code is not a website. It is a payload. In our case that payload is a URL, usually on uqr.page. On Pro or above it can be a hostname you own, with DNS pointed at us. That string is baked into the pattern. You cannot change the encoded URL without reprinting. You can change where that URL sends people. Print it once. Change it forever.
The encoded data does not expire. We do not stamp an end date into the pattern. Codes never expire. That sentence is about the payload and the redirect. It is not a claim that uqr.ai exists forever.
3. The destination
The page, file, form, or list the scan should open. You control this. Swap a menu. Point a campaign at a new page. None of that reprint.
If you cancel, your destinations stay yours. We do not inject ads on the scan path. Unlimited scans on every plan including Free. The destination is not what fails when billing stops.
4. The redirect service
This is the layer people mean when they ask if the code keeps working. A phone reads the pattern, opens the encoded URL, and that URL has to resolve. We look up the code and send the phone to the current destination.
If you cancel, or if a payment lapses, you go to Free. You are not suspended. Existing codes keep resolving. Custom domains stay live on downgrade. That is the public never-expire promise, and it is specific: it covers non-payment. Downgrade, never suspended. Last year's labels do not become a 404 because you stopped paying.
Free is $0. Lite is $8/mo ($64/yr). Pro is $20/mo ($160/yr). Business is $49/mo ($392/yr). Moving down that ladder does not kill codes.
Cancel is not shutdown
Cancel or lapse: you land on Free. Codes keep working. Custom domains keep working. No ads on scans. Unlimited scans still apply. That is the case we operate every day. That is the case "codes never expire" is written for.
Shutdown is the other case. If uqr.ai went away, the printed pattern would still scan. A camera would still decode a URL. Then that URL would fail. Default-host codes encode uqr.page. Custom-domain codes encode a hostname whose DNS still points at us. Either way, the name has to resolve to a service that knows the code. If we are gone, that lookup is gone. The ink is fine. The redirect is not.
We have not productized that case. We do not claim company-level immortality. We do not offer a frozen redirect map you could take to another host. OwnQR's marketing page at ownqrcode.com/do-qr-codes-expire describes a Sunset Pledge: at least 90 days of notice, and redirects kept for at least five years after wind-down. That is what they claim on that page. It is not a feature we match. We did not fetch their ToS.
If shutdown risk is the thing you care about, say so before a large print. The practical move is a custom domain on Pro, so the hostname on the pack is yours. DNS still points at us. That is not a portable export. It does not survive us disappearing. It does mean the printed string is a name you control.
Do not buy a QR product because a homepage said forever. Buy it because you can name which of the four layers you are trusting, what happens when billing stops, and what happens if the vendor does not.