QR Codes for Google Reviews
The number of reviews a business collects is mostly decided by how many taps sit between a happy customer and the star rating. A code on the counter removes about four of them.
Getting the right link
There are several URLs that look like they should work and do not. The one you want opens the review dialogue directly, with the star selector already on screen.
The easy route. In your Google Business Profile, there is a "Ask for reviews" or "Get more reviews" option that produces a short link of the form g.page/r/<id>/review. That is the correct link. Copy it exactly.
The manual route, if the profile interface is not cooperating: find your Place ID with Google's Place ID Finder tool, then build the URL:
https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=YOUR_PLACE_IDBoth work. The short g.page form is preferable for one concrete reason: it is far shorter, so the resulting QR code is much coarser and easier to scan. A Place ID URL is around 90 characters, which at level M needs a version 7 symbol; the short link needs about version 4. On a small counter card that is a real difference — the arithmetic is in how much data fits in a QR code.
Making the code
Nothing exotic is needed. Paste the review link into the URL generator, download SVG for print or PNG for a screen.
- Level M is right for anything indoors. Level H would only add modules and shrink each one.
- Counter card, read from 30 cm: 30–40 mm. Window sticker read from a metre: 100 mm.
- Matt finish. Counters are under downlights.
- Static, not dynamic. The review link will not change; there is nothing to gain from a subscription and something to lose.
Where to put it
Placement is worth more than design here. The moment to ask is when the experience has just finished and is still positive.
| Business | Where the code goes | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant | On the bill folder or receipt | Immediately after a good meal |
| Café | Counter card by the till | While waiting for the coffee |
| Hairdresser | At the mirror and on the payment desk | The result is literally in front of them |
| Workshop or garage | On the invoice and the key fob tag | At handover, with the job just done |
| Hotel | Checkout desk and inside the room folder | Departure, and the evening before |
| Trades and home visits | On the printed job sheet | The customer is at home, unhurried |
A card on the till that nobody mentions produces very few reviews. A card that a member of staff points at while saying one sentence produces many.
How to ask
- Ask at the peak, not at the end of the transaction. Right after the compliment, not while the card machine is thinking.
- Say what the code is. "Scan that if you have thirty seconds" outperforms a silent card by a wide margin.
- Print the short link too. Some people prefer to type it later.
- Do not chase. One clear ask, once.
The rules that get businesses penalised
Two things are worth being careful about, because both are against Google's policies and both are commonly done by accident.
Do not offer anything in exchange for a review. No discount, no free coffee, no prize draw. This includes softer versions — "leave us a review and show us for 10% off" is the same thing. Incentivised reviews can be removed and the profile can be penalised.
Do not filter who gets asked. "Review gating" — surveying customers first and only sending the happy ones to the review link — is explicitly prohibited. A single code, shown to everyone, is both compliant and simpler.
The legitimate version of the same instinct is to fix the unhappy path separately: a visible way to complain directly, staffed and answered quickly, so that people with a problem have somewhere better to go than a public review. That is allowed, and it works.
Written by Manuel Llovet, who builds and maintains QR Code Free Forever. Published 2026-08-31, last checked 2026-09-08. Figures and measurements on this page were produced for this site; the method is described in each caption.