Digital Business Cards for a Small Team | Beeps Card
Five to twenty people

Digital business cards for a small team

The arithmetic is simple and most companies get it wrong in the same direction. The part that actually matters is not the price.

By Jithu Jayaraj, Managing PartnerPublished

For fewer than about 17 people, individual Pro profiles at ₹299/year each cost less than a team plan and you should buy those. Past that, the Enterprise plan at ₹5,000/year covers up to 20 profiles and is cheaper per head. The stronger argument for a team plan is not cost: it is one brand template instead of four, one invoice instead of 20 expense claims, and the ability to switch off a leaver's card the day they go.

The arithmetic

Which plan a team of your size should be on

Including the sizes where we are not the cheaper option, because that is the half people usually have to work out for themselves.

Which subscription suits a team, by headcount
Team sizeWhat to buyWhy
1-4 peopleIndividual Pro profilesAt ₹299/year each, four people cost ₹1,196. There is no administrative benefit to a team plan at this size and no reason to pay for seats you will not fill.
5-16 peopleStill individual ProIndividual profiles remain cheaper right up to about 17 people, which is where ₹299/year each meets the ₹5,000/year team plan. Below that line, buying seats you are not using costs more than it saves.
17+ peopleEnterprisePast roughly 17 people the team plan is cheaper per head, and it stays flat up to 20 profiles. You also get the template and the central control, which is the part that matters more than the money.

If you are under 17 people and buying purely on price, individual profiles are the right answer and the team plan is not worth it yet. The reason to move earlier is control, not cost - and control only starts mattering once more than one person is handing cards out on the company's behalf.

What goes wrong

Three failures that only show up in year two

Each of these is cheap to prevent at setup and awkward to unpick once it has happened.

What usually happens

Everyone expenses their own

Nobody notices for about a year. Then you have people on different plans, three card designs in circulation, two ex-employees still holding live profiles, and no single place to change the logo.

Instead

One subscription, one invoice

Enterprise covers 20 profiles billed once to the company with a GST invoice, which is also the version your finance team will actually approve.

What usually happens

No plan for people leaving

This is the one nobody thinks about at purchase and everybody hits eventually. A departed employee's printed cards keep pointing at a live page with your company name on it, and there is no way to recall them.

Instead

Unlink on the last day

Add it to the offboarding checklist next to laptop return. The profile stops resolving that afternoon, and the card in a stranger's drawer goes quiet with it.

What usually happens

Letting each person design their own

Well-meaning, and it produces a team where every profile has a different section order, a different photo style and a slightly different version of the logo.

Instead

Lock the frame, free the content

Fix the logo, colours and section order centrally. Let people manage their own photo, direct line and calendar. People keep a profile current when part of it is genuinely theirs.

A three-week rollout

How to introduce this without creating a mess

The order matters more than the speed. Doing step one late is what produces the problems above.

Week 1

Build the template first

Before creating a single profile. Retrofitting a brand standard onto profiles people have already customised is far harder than starting with one.

Week 1

Decide who controls which field

Logo, colours and section order are the company's. Photo, direct line, languages and calendar link are the individual's. Write it down once and stop relitigating it.

Week 2

Start with links and QR, not cards

Put profile links in email signatures and QR codes on lanyards. You will learn within a fortnight who actually meets people face to face and needs a physical card.

Week 3

Order cards for that shorter list

Cards are ₹1,699 each one-time and entirely optional. In most companies the number of people who genuinely need one is well under half the headcount.

Ongoing

Put it in joining and leaving

Profile creation into onboarding, profile deactivation into offboarding. Both take a minute and both are invisible failures if skipped.

FAQ

Team and billing questions

At what team size does a team plan become cheaper?

Around 17 people. Individual Pro profiles are ₹299/year each, and the Enterprise plan is ₹5,000/year for up to 20 profiles, so the crossover sits at roughly 17 people. Below that, individual profiles cost less and you should buy those. Above it, Enterprise is cheaper per head and stays flat as you grow toward 20.

What happens when an employee leaves?

You unlink or reassign their profile and the card stops resolving. This is the main reason companies choose a hosted profile over printed cards: a printed card cannot be recalled, so every card a leaver ever handed out keeps pointing at your company with their details on it, indefinitely.

Can we stop people from changing the design?

Yes - profiles are created from a template you control, so layout, colours, logo placement and section order are set centrally. In practice the arrangement that works is locking the brand frame and leaving people their own photo, direct line and calendar link, because a profile nobody feels ownership of is a profile nobody updates.

Do we have to buy a physical card for every employee?

No, and most companies should not. Every profile has a link and a QR code that work without any card at all, which is enough for email signatures and lanyards. Order cards only for people who meet others face to face - they are ₹1,699 each, one-time, and can be added at any point.

Is there a GST invoice for the company?

Yes. Beeps Venture Technologies LLP is a registered LLP and invoices the company directly for the team subscription, so it goes through procurement as a normal annual software line rather than as 20 individual expense claims.

What happens if we grow past the seat limit?

The Enterprise plan covers 20 profiles. If you need more than that, talk to us rather than buying a second subscription and splitting the team across two accounts - that gets you two templates and two places to forget to deactivate a leaver, which is exactly what this is meant to avoid.

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