What happens if you stop paying for a digital business card?
We sell one of these. The honest answer is not flattering to us, which is exactly why it is worth writing down.
If a digital business card subscription lapses, the hosted profile goes offline after the grace period and every card you have already handed out stops resolving to it. You keep the physical card and the chip, which never expire, and anyone who already saved your contact keeps those details. What you lose is the page at the end of the link. If a guaranteed fixed lifetime cost matters more to you than enquiry forms, booking and payments, a one-time card is the better buy.
What actually happens when the plan lapses
The sequence is the same across most subscription-backed cards. The details differ by vendor, and the details are where you should be asking questions.
The plan lapses
Nothing breaks immediately on most platforms. There is normally a grace period, and yours should be stated in writing rather than assumed.
The hosted profile goes offline
This is the part that matters. The page your card opens stops resolving, so a tap leads to an error rather than to you. On Beeps, this is what happens, and we would rather say so plainly than bury it.
Every card you handed out stops working
Not just new ones. Every card already in someone's wallet points at the same dead link, and there is no way to reach those people to tell them.
The profile usually comes back
Ask specifically whether your content and your URL are retained during a lapse, and for how long. "You can resubscribe" and "your old link still works" are different promises.
What you keep, and what goes away
People usually assume they lose more than they do, and lose the one thing they had not thought about.
The pricing model decides the risk you are taking
All three are legitimate. They fail in different ways, and the failure mode is what you are really choosing between.
A card sold with "no subscription, ever"
Genuinely appealing, and worth understanding rather than dismissing. The hosting still costs the vendor something, so it has been paid for another way.
Either some years of hosting were bundled into the purchase price, or the destination is a very simple page that is cheap to serve. Both are legitimate. Ask which, and ask what happens in year five.
A card with a yearly plan, like ours
You pay every year, and if you stop, the profile goes offline. That is a real ongoing commitment and a real risk if your circumstances change.
The page stays hosted and maintained, and it carries things a static page cannot - enquiry forms, booking, payments, analytics. If you will never use those, you are paying for capability you do not need.
A chip you buy and point yourself
A blank NFC tag costs very little, and you can write your own URL to it and host whatever you like at the other end.
If you already run a website and are comfortable managing it, this is cheaper than any product on the market and nothing here beats it. It is the option we would pick for ourselves in that situation.
We charge yearly for the hosted profile and we do not claim otherwise. If a fixed lifetime cost is what you need, one of the other two models above is a better fit for you than we are — and we would rather you read that here than discover it at your first renewal.
Five things to get in writing
These apply to us as much as to any competitor. A vendor who answers them straight is worth more than one who is slightly cheaper.
- Ask what the grace period is, in days, before you buy. A vendor who cannot answer that in writing is telling you something.
- Ask whether your URL is reserved during a lapse. If it is released and reissued, your printed cards can eventually point at a stranger.
- Ask whether your content is retained, and for how long. Resubscribing to an empty profile means rebuilding it from scratch.
- Export or screenshot your profile content once you are happy with it, so a rebuild is a copy-paste rather than a rewrite.
- If you want a guaranteed fixed lifetime cost, buy a one-time card instead. That is a legitimate choice and this is the honest reason to make it.
Questions about lapsing and renewal
What happens to my Beeps profile if I stop paying?
After the renewal date passes and the grace period ends, the hosted profile goes offline and the card stops resolving to it. Every card you have already handed out is affected, not just new ones. We state this plainly rather than in a footnote, because it is the single most important thing to understand before buying a subscription product.
Do I lose the physical card as well?
No. The card is bought outright and the chip inside it is passive - it stores a URL and will keep transmitting that URL indefinitely, with no battery and nothing to expire. What lapses is the page at the other end of the link, not the object in your pocket.
Do the contacts people already saved disappear?
No. If someone tapped your card and saved your contact to their phone, that data is in their phone and has nothing further to do with us. A lapsed profile does not reach into anyone's address book. What stops is new people being able to reach your page.
Can I get my profile back if I resubscribe later?
In normal circumstances yes, and the URL is intended to stay yours. That said, this is exactly the kind of promise you should get in writing from any vendor rather than infer - ask specifically whether the URL is reserved and whether content is retained during a lapse, and for how long.
Is a one-time card safer than a subscription, then?
For the specific risk of a page going offline because you stopped paying, yes - and if that risk is what worries you most, a one-time card is the better buy and you should take it. The trade is capability: a one-time card generally points at a simpler page that cannot take an enquiry, a booking or a payment.
What does the yearly fee actually pay for?
Hosting the profile and keeping the tools on it running - enquiry forms, booking, catalogue, UPI collection on Pro, and analytics. The chip is inexpensive in every card on the market, including ours; the recurring cost is the page, not the plastic. Basic is ₹199/year and Pro is ₹299/year.