Free QR Menu Makers Compared: What the Free Plans Include

Marji publishes this guide and makes one of the tools compared, so read the table with that in mind. Every competitor fact below comes from that vendor's own page, read on October 4, 2026; where a page did not state a fact, the table says so rather than guessing.

What to check before you print

1. 1.Caps. How many dishes, categories and menus does the free plan allow? A 20-dish cap is fine for a truck and tight for a full dinner menu.
2. 2.Ads or a badge. Some free menus show ads; others show a small credit line. Decide which you can live with in front of guests.
3. 3.The link after a trial. Is the plan free for good, or a trial that ends? If it ends, does the printed code keep working?
4. 4.Ordering and payments. A menu guests read is a different product from a menu guests order and pay from.
5. 5.Languages. If guests need the menu in another language, check which plan includes translation.

The comparison

Checked October 4, 2026; vendors change plans, confirm on their pricing page. Square's page was read in its UK version because the US version returned an error that day. MENU TIGER's site showed no readable text to our fetch, so its free-tier limits are not stated on the pages we could read. Canva's QR page refused our fetch and is left out.

The dynamic QR code trap

A generator can give you one of two kinds of code. A static code holds your menu's web address directly. A dynamic code holds an address on the generator's own server, which forwards guests to your menu and lets the vendor change the destination, count scans and, if the account lapses, switch the forwarding off.

That second part is the trap. If a free trial ends and the forwarding stops, every printed table tent and window sticker points at nothing, and reprinting is the only fix. This is a general risk of redirect codes, not a charge against any tool above. Several pages in the table say outright that codes keep working after a downgrade, and that is the sentence to look for. Before you print, ask: if I stop paying, or the trial ends, does this exact printed code still open my menu? Then scan your own printed proof with a phone before ordering a hundred.

Which kind of tool fits which need

• —You just need guests to read the menu. Any plan with a dish cap above your menu size and a free-for-good promise fits. Compare caps first: 20 dishes, 50 dishes and no stated cap are very different menus.
• —You need ordering and payment. Look at tools built for it, such as Instalacarte, Menubly's Pro plan or Square, and read their fee lines. A reading menu does not take orders, and Marji does not either.
• —You need several languages. Check the plan that includes translation. In the table, translation sits on a paid plan at the vendors that state it.
• —You already have a PDF. A tool that wraps a file or link, as QRHut's page describes, is the fastest route. A dish-by-dish menu is easier to edit and read on a phone, but it means entering the dishes.

What Marji's free menu does and does not have

Marji's free plan covers one location with a hosted mobile menu at a marji.co address. There is no cap on dishes or sections, no ads, and a small Marji credit and link at the bottom. You can add dish names, prices, descriptions, sections and photos, plus the dietary tags V, VG, GF, DF and Spicy; a a Live / 86'd switch hides a sold-out dish; you can edit prices from a phone; and there are 36 menu designs. You download the code as a PNG and can print table tents from the browser's Print or Save as PDF. See the free QR menu page or the QR code generator.

Its code is static: it holds the menu address directly, with no redirect, so editing the menu never changes the code. The printed code still depends on Marji continuing to host that page. A free account is required to save and host a menu, and AI scanning of a photo or PDF inside the app is part of the 14-day trial, then paid. The no-account /try scan reads photos only, not PDFs, and shows the dishes and prices it finds; you sign up to save.

If any of those is a requirement, choose a tool built for it. If a plain, ad-free menu that you can change from a phone is the need, Marji's free plan covers it. Once the menu is live, add it to Google so people find it without scanning anything. For a use case with daily changes, see QR menus for food trucks; and when you update prices on the menu, how to raise menu prices covers the decision.