Questions Worth Asking

No. They point their camera at the code and their phone opens its own contact screen. There is nothing to download, nothing to sign up for, and no account on their side.

No, and no product can do that. Once a contact is saved it is a copy on that person's phone, and only they can change it. This is how contacts work everywhere, not something Herald is missing.

What does update is every future scan. Your printed cards, your NFC tags and the code in your email signature all serve current details forever, so they never go stale. Every card we produce also carries a link back to its own page, so even an old saved copy still points at the live version.

Android downloads the contact file instead of opening a contact sheet, which is easy to miss. So a scan on Android lands on a short page that starts the download itself and then says what is left: open the file, from the download your browser just showed or from your Downloads, and opening it is what saves it. Some phones ask which account to keep it in first; others save it and say so.

If nothing downloaded, Download It Again on that page hands it over again. On iPhone the contact preview opens by itself, and Create New Contact inside it, then the tick at the top right, saves. That is a platform difference we work around rather than pretend away.

A scan needs the scanner's phone to have a connection, because the code is a link and the contact file comes from Herald. That trade is deliberate: a code with the details baked into it works offline but can never be edited, never carries a photo, and goes stale on every card it was printed on.

With no signal at all, nothing stalls. The camera simply will not offer the link, so show your card again when there is one, or send them the link by text and it arrives when they reconnect. Your own side never needs a connection: the card on your screen, a printed card and a Wallet pass all show the code with nothing to load.

The other direction is covered too. If you are handed a paper card somewhere with no signal, photograph it on the scan page anyway. The photo is kept on your phone, and nowhere else, until you press Read It Now with a connection.

Yes, properly. Build a card without an account, then make a free test card and scan it with your own phone. It saves a real contact through exactly the same code path a paid card uses.

Test cards last one hour and their scans are never counted. Testing your own card should not look like a connection.

Yes, at /scan, free and without an account. Photograph the card and we read it, then your phone opens its own contact screen with the details filled in and still editable. It works from the camera in your browser, so there is nothing to install.

Digital cards work too. If someone holds up their phone with a code on screen, photograph that. A code carries their own details rather than our reading of the print, so we use it whenever one is in the frame, on a screen or on the back of a paper card.

The contact does not stay with us. Nothing is stored, there is no list to come back to, and no record of who you met. It goes into your address book, which is where it belongs. If you would rather keep a copy here with a note about where you met, signing in gives you that separately.

Your phone showed you a preview rather than saving straight away, and the button that saves is below the details. Scroll down inside that preview and tap Create New Contact, then the blue tick at the top right of the next screen (older iPhones label it Done).

The tick at the top left of the preview only closes it; the one that saves is at the top right, on the screen after Create New Contact. It looks like a save button and it is not one, which catches almost everybody the first time. This is how iPhones handle every contact file, from any service, and nothing in the card itself can change it. We say so on the screen before we hand the contact over.

No. On a new card the builder starts with an import step. Paste the link to your current card, upload a contact file, or photograph the card, and your details come across. You check them before anything is filled in, and nothing is ever guessed at: a field your old card left blank stays blank.

Only the details come over, not the design. The point is a card that looks like yours rather than a copy of the one you are leaving. Importing does not change the price either. It saves you the typing, and publishing is still $30 once.

Yes. Set It Up For You is $50 once, or $55 with your logo as the whole card, and the card itself is included. Send your details and pay on the Set It Up For You page. Within two business days we call or email you, whichever you choose, and build the card with you.

If you are new to Herald, you set your own password from an email we send. We never set it or see it.

Changes after that are free, forever. Email them from the address on your account and we make them within two business days, or sign in and edit the card yourself. We take changes only from that address, so nobody else can change your card.

Yes. $30 publishes a card and editing it is free from then on, without limit. There is no subscription and no plan to add one.

We will not put a card you already paid for behind a recurring charge later. That promise is in the terms, not just in the marketing.

You get at least ninety days notice by email and an export of your card data before any code stops resolving. That commitment is written into the terms.

It is a fair thing to ask of a product that charges once, and you should ask it of the subscription ones too.

No. We record that a scan happened, when, and roughly which area it came from: a city, a region and a country at best, any of which can be missing. There is no identity attached and no cookie set on the scanner's phone.

So your dashboard can tell you four people saved you on Tuesday and can never tell you which four. That is a deliberate limit.

Yes. Additional cards are $15 each, half the first, and each one is separate: its own details, its own look, its own code and its own scan count.

Refer someone and you both get a card free once they publish their first one at full price.

The code is the card. Hold it up, they point their camera at it, and you land in their contacts. The fastest place is the app: every block on its home screen carries your code, the same card your widgets show, so opening Herald is enough. For the whole card with the code full size, open Manage Your Cards and tap View Card in a card's corner. Share shows the same code and adds Copy Link.

For the lock screen, tap Wallet beside Share on a published card and it goes into Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. For the home screen, press and hold an empty spot, tap add, search for Herald, and pick Your Card or Your Code. Show My Code opens the card in one press from Control Center or the Action Button on an iPhone, and from Quick Settings or a long press of the icon on Android. On an Apple Watch, Herald shows the card on your wrist. Print puts the code on paper, Save As A Picture makes it your wallpaper, and with no signal the Herald app on iPhone and Android, and the installed web app, still show every code you own on their offline screen. Wallet and the widgets show it with no signal too. The Show Your Card tour, on this site's Tour page and behind the app's Tour button, walks each one.

Write to hello@heraldcards.com within 30 days and we refund it in full. We would rather fix the problem, so tell us what went wrong either way.