Both are strong digital business cards with genuinely free plans, and for most people either one will do the job. The differences that actually decide it are the shape of the free tier, the price of the first paid tier, and the fact that both put a five-seat floor under their team plans. Every figure below was read off each vendor's own pricing page on 27 August 2026.
| HiHello | Blinq | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | “Free Forever” — 4 digital business cards, 1 user | “Free forever” — “Two free digital business cards”, unlimited sharing |
| Free-plan catch | Capped at “5 card & badge scans/month” | No monthly scan count published; the contact scanner is a Premium feature |
| Included free on both | Personal email signature, virtual backgrounds, Apple & Google wallet, QR/widget/email/SMS sharing | Personal email signature, virtual backgrounds, Apple & Google Wallet, QR/widget/email/SMS sharing |
| First paid tier | Professional — “$6 per month” or “$72 billed yearly” | Premium — “$9.99 / month” or “$7.33 / month” billed annually |
| Cards at that tier | 16 cards, 1 user | Up to 5 cards |
| What the paid tier adds | 20 scans/mo (unlimited add-on), contact enrichment, card analytics, full card customisation | Universal contact scanner, AI notetaker, AI contact enrichment, branded QR code, custom design, contact export |
| Team tier | Business — “$5 per user/month” or “$60 per user/year” | Business — “$6.99 / month” per user, or “$4.99 / month” billed annually |
| Team floor | Sold for “5-100 users” | “minimum of five” cards |
| How the team tier bills | Per user | “Billed per card, per month” — “Admins and team members who don't have a card assigned aren't billed” |
| Team features | Unlimited cards and scans, team email signatures, event lead capture, team analytics, sub-team templates, SSO & directory sync | Team management, CRM sync, lead capture, event campaigns, 20+ native CRM integrations |
| Enterprise | “Custom”, “101+ users” — SAML/SCIM, SOC 2, verified badges, dedicated account manager | “Custom” — SOC 2 Type II & GDPR, enforced SSO, volume pricing, dedicated CSM |
Read off hihello.com/pricing and blinq.me/pricing on 27 August 2026. Quoted strings are the vendors' own wording. Prices change — if you are reading this much later, check both pages before relying on it. Feature lists are what each vendor advertises; we have not tested either product's features and make no claim about how well they work.
The headline is that HiHello gives four free cards and Blinq gives two, and that is true. But the two free plans are metered on different things, and which one is more generous depends entirely on what you do.
HiHello's free plan is generous about having cards and stingy about scanning them: four cards, but “5 card & badge scans/month”. That limit is on HiHello's scanner — the feature that reads someone else's paper card or event badge into your contacts. Five a month is enough for ordinary week-to-week networking and runs out in the first hour of a trade show.
Blinq's free plan is the other way round: two cards, but its page emphasises unlimited sharing and unlimited contact creation, and it does not publish a monthly cap on the free tier. The scanner is what you pay for, not something you are rationed.
So the honest test is not “which free plan is bigger”. It is whether you are the person handing cards out or the person collecting them. Hand out: HiHello, more cards. Collect: Blinq, no scan meter. If you do both heavily, both free plans will push you to a paid tier sooner than you expect.
| HiHello | Blinq | CompanyCard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 4 cards, 5 scans/mo | 2 cards, unlimited sharing | 1 card, carries a small CompanyCard credit — the smallest free plan of the three |
| First paid tier | $6/mo (16 cards) | $9.99/mo (5 cards) | Pro $7.99/mo, or $5.99/mo billed annually — more than HiHello |
| Team tier | $5/user/mo | $6.99/card/mo | Business $12/user/mo, or $10/user/mo annually — the most expensive of the three |
| Team seat minimum | Sold for 5–100 users | Minimum of five cards | None |
| Can a team of two buy the team plan? | No | No | Yes on price, but not self-serve — the pricing page says “Talk to us about teams” |
CompanyCard figures from our own pricing page, re-read 27 August 2026. We are the publisher of this page and the comparison is stated plainly rather than framed to flatter us: HiHello and Blinq are both cheaper than CompanyCard at every paid tier, and both give a bigger free plan.
There is exactly one axis on this page where CompanyCard is not simply the more expensive option, and it is the seat floor. HiHello sells its Business plan for five to a hundred users. Blinq requires a minimum payment equal to five Team Cards. CompanyCard's Business plan has no seat minimum, so a two-person or three-person business can buy team features at the listed per-user rate instead of being told the smallest bill is five.
That is worth stating precisely, because the caveat matters as much as the claim. Our per-user rate is $12 a month, which is more than double HiHello's $5 — so two people on CompanyCard Business pay $24 a month against a five-user HiHello Business floor of $25. The advantage is real but it is narrow, and it disappears entirely the moment you have five people. And our team plans are not self-serve: you have to talk to us, which is friction neither HiHello nor Blinq puts in your way.
We are not going to tell you that email signatures or virtual backgrounds are a reason to choose us over these two, because both of them ship both, free. Nor is a wallet pass on the free plan — Blinq's free tier lists Apple and Google Wallet and HiHello's lists Apple and Google wallet, verified today. Those are category table stakes in 2026.
If you are one person who wants the most card for the least money, the answer on this page is HiHello, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
On published prices HiHello is cheaper at every tier and gives more cards: 4 free against Blinq's 2, 16 cards at $6 a month against 5 at $9.99, and $5 per user against $6.99 for teams. Blinq is the better choice if you scan a lot of paper cards and badges, because HiHello caps free users at 5 card and badge scans a month and Professional users at 20, while Blinq publishes no monthly scan count. Verified 27 August 2026 on each vendor's own pricing page.
It depends on what you do. HiHello's free plan gives 4 digital business cards but caps you at “5 card & badge scans/month”. Blinq's gives 2 cards with unlimited sharing and no published monthly cap, but keeps its contact scanner in the paid Premium tier. If you hand cards out, HiHello gives you more. If you collect other people's cards, Blinq does not meter you.
HiHello's Personal plan is free forever with 4 cards, 1 user and 5 card and badge scans a month. Professional is $6 per month or $72 billed yearly for 16 cards and 20 scans a month. Business is $5 per user per month or $60 per user per year with unlimited cards and scans, and is sold for 5 to 100 users. Enterprise is custom pricing for 101+ users. Verified 27 August 2026 on hihello.com/pricing.
Blinq's Free plan is free forever with two digital business cards. Premium is $9.99 a month, or $7.33 a month billed annually, for up to 5 cards. Business is $6.99 per month, or $4.99 billed annually, with a minimum of five cards and billing per card rather than per user. Enterprise is custom. Verified 27 August 2026 on blinq.me/pricing.
Yes, both effectively require five. HiHello sells its Business plan for “5-100 users”. Blinq's Business plan requires a “minimum of five” cards. A team of two, three or four cannot buy the team tier on either product at the per-user price shown, and would be on single-user plans without shared branding, team analytics or admin control.
Per card. Blinq's pricing page states that Business is “Billed per card, per month” and that “Admins and team members who don't have a card assigned aren't billed”. HiHello bills per user. The difference matters if some people in your organisation administer the account or need access but do not need a card of their own — on Blinq those people are free.
Yes. Both vendors list a personal email signature and virtual backgrounds on their free plans, along with Apple and Google wallet passes and sharing by QR code, widget, email and SMS. These are table stakes in this category rather than points of difference between the two products — or between them and CompanyCard, which is why this page does not present them as a reason to choose any of the three.
CompanyCard is more expensive than both and has a smaller free plan: 1 card carrying a small CompanyCard credit against HiHello's 4 and Blinq's 2, Pro at $7.99 a month against HiHello's $6, and Business at $12 per user against HiHello's $5 and Blinq's $6.99. The one axis where CompanyCard differs is the seat floor — it has no seat minimum on team plans, so a two-person or three-person business can buy team features that HiHello and Blinq both gate behind five seats. CompanyCard's team plans are not self-serve, though; the pricing page directs you to talk to us.
CompanyCard's free plan is one card and takes a couple of minutes. No credit card.