Google review QR codes: how they work and where to put them

A Google review QR code turns your review link into something a customer can scan with their phone camera. No app, nothing to type. Its whole value is timing. It lets you ask while someone is still standing in front of you and still pleased, which is when people actually say yes.

How to make one

Two steps. Get your Google review link, then encode it as a QR code. Any generator will do this; what matters is what you do next, because a code sitting in a downloads folder collects nothing.

Print it at a size that can be scanned from where the customer will stand. A table tent works small, a window poster does not. Include a short line of text telling people what it is. An unlabelled QR code gets ignored; “Scan to leave us a review” does not.

Where to put it

The rule is simple: wherever someone is already stationary, already holding a phone, and has just had a good experience.

• At the payment point. The single best position in most businesses: people are stopped, waiting, and phone already in hand.
• On the receipt. Costs nothing to add and travels home with them.
• Table tents in restaurants and cafés, where the code is in front of someone for the length of a meal.
• On packaging for anything delivered or taken away.
• On the paperwork a tradesperson leaves behind after a job.

Where it does not work: anywhere people are moving. A poster by the exit sounds sensible and performs badly, because by then they are leaving.

Is asking this way allowed?

Yes. Google encourages businesses to ask customers for reviews. What it prohibits is gating (only asking the customers you expect to be positive) along with incentivising or buying reviews. A QR code that sends every customer to the same review page is exactly the kind of asking Google supports.

The compliance failure to avoid is not the code, it is what sits behind it. Some tools point a QR code at a satisfaction survey and only forward the happy ones to Google. That is gating whatever it is called, and the risk sits with your listing.

QR or NFC?

They solve the same problem in different places. A QR code prints on anything and costs nothing to reproduce. An NFC card or stand is tapped rather than scanned, with no camera and no aiming, but needs a physical object at each point of contact. Most businesses that do this well run both: NFC at the counter, QR on everything printed.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a Google review QR code?

Take your Google review link and encode it as a QR code, then print it with a short instruction line. The link comes from “Ask for reviews” in your Google Business Profile.

Do QR codes for reviews expire?

The code points at your review page, so it keeps working as long as that page exists. You can reprint the same artwork indefinitely.

Do customers need an app to scan it?

No. Current iPhone and Android cameras read QR codes without any app.

Is it against Google’s policy to use a QR code for reviews?

No. Asking is encouraged. What breaches policy is gating, incentivising or buying reviews. None of which is inherent to a QR code, but all of which some tools build behind one.

Where is the best place to put a review QR code?

At the payment point, where customers are already stopped with a phone in hand. Receipts and table tents work well; anywhere people are walking does not.

Can I track how many reviews a QR code brings in?

Scan tracking lets you compare placements, such as a counter card against a receipt footer or one location against another, so you can move codes to where they earn something.