Customizing your code

Yes, extensively. The editor has dedicated tabs for the logo, dot style (13 shapes from squares to hearts and stars), eye style (12 corner designs, individually configurable per corner), colors (solid or linear/radial gradients for code and background), and frames (5 layouts with editable label text). You can also add a call-to-action text overlay and a background image. An undo/redo history covers every change.

Yes. You can set a solid color for the code and background, or apply a linear or radial gradient with your choice of start and end colors and rotation angle. Eight color presets and six style presets give quick starting points. Keep the code noticeably darker than its background. The editor warns you when contrast falls below safe levels.

Yes. Upload any image as a logo, or pick one of nine built-in icons matched to your content type. You control the logo size (10–50% of the code), padding and corner radius. Your logo is processed entirely in the browser, and it is not uploaded to a server for static codes. When you add a logo, error correction is automatically raised to the highest level so the modules hidden behind the logo stay recoverable.

Yes, if it is too large. A QR code tolerates obscured modules only up to its error-correction budget: at the highest level about 30% of the code can be recovered. The editor caps logo size at 50%, automatically switches to high error correction when a logo is added, and factors logo size into the scan reliability score. Keep logos near the smaller end of the slider and always test-scan before printing.

When you upload a custom logo, ScanMe Online extracts its dominant colors in your browser and suggests matching, contrast-checked color palettes for the code. Each suggestion shows a safety rating so you can pick a branded look without silently breaking scannability.

Error correction adds redundant data so a QR code still scans when partially damaged or obscured. Four levels exist: L (~7% recoverable), M (~15%), Q (~25%) and H (~30%). Higher levels are more robust but denser. ScanMe Online defaults to M, lets you change the level in the download dialog, and forces H automatically whenever a logo is present. Choose Q or H for codes that will live on packaging, outdoors or other demanding surfaces.

Because low contrast is the most common reason customized QR codes fail to scan. Scanners need the dark modules to stand out clearly from the background. The editor computes the contrast ratio of your chosen colors and flags anything below a safe threshold as part of the scan reliability score — which also test-decodes your actual rendered design to confirm a scanner can really read it. Avoid light-on-light, dark-on-dark, and inverted (light code on dark background) combinations.

Not currently. The QR background is always a solid color or gradient, and transparency is only available for the area directly behind your logo. If you need the code to sit on colored material, set the QR background color to match the material instead, and check the contrast warning to make sure the code stays clearly darker than the background.

Yes. Five frame styles are available (box, bottom label, top or bottom banner), each with editable text (for example "Scan me"), color, padding and corner radius. Separately, a text overlay can be placed above, below, centered or at a custom position, with its own font size, weight and colors. A short call to action measurably increases scan rates on printed material.

They can. Decorative shapes like hearts, stars and leaves reduce the crisp module edges scanners rely on, especially at small print sizes. The scan reliability score in the editor accounts for your chosen dot and eye styles and warns when a combination becomes risky. Rounded and classy styles are close to squares in reliability; heavily decorative shapes deserve a test scan at the actual print size before mass production.

Always. Print one sample at the real size on the real material, then scan it with at least one iPhone and one Android phone, at the distance your audience will scan from, in realistic lighting. The editor’s reliability score catches most digital problems, but printing introduces its own — ink spread, glossy reflections, color shifts — that only a physical test reveals. Five minutes of testing protects an entire print run.