🏷️ What Happens to Your QR Code Stickers If the App Behind Them Goes Away?

You printed a few hundred QR stickers. They are on apartment doors, rooftop units, boiler rooms and inside your customers’ homes. Tenants scan them to ask for a repair. Vendors scan them to sign in. Your techs scan them to pull up a unit.

Then somebody asks a fair question. What happens to all of those stickers if the company behind them goes away? Or if you decide to move to a different app?

This post answers that in plain words. The short version: a sticker is only a printed web address, and on a Team plan you can make that address one your own company owns. Most people will never need this. If you have a lot of stickers out in the world, it is worth understanding.

A QR sticker is a printed web address

A QR code looks like a secret pattern, but a live sticker holds one thing: a web address. When a phone camera reads it, the phone opens that address, the same as if you had typed it. The sticker holds a link, not the information itself.

Today your live stickers open pages on equipment-tracker.com. That is our address. The stickers work for as long as we keep answering there.

Think of the phone number painted on the side of a work truck. If the number is yours, you can change phone companies and the paint is still right. If the number belongs to an answering service, every truck is wrong the day you leave that service. A sticker works the same way. Whoever owns the address decides where a scan goes.

One kind of code is different. A text code carries the details on the sticker itself, so it needs no website and keeps working whatever happens. This post is about live codes, the ones that open a page.

What it does

The feature is called Your stickers, your address. It lets your live stickers use a web address your company owns, like tags.yourcompany.com, instead of equipment-tracker.com.

Day to day, your address points at us. A scan opens the same page it always did, and nothing looks different to your tenants or customers.

The difference only shows on a bad day. If you ever leave us, or we ever close, you point your address somewhere else, put a saved copy of your sticker pages there, and every sticker you printed with your address keeps opening a page.

What it is for

It is for peace of mind. Stickers cost time and money to print and put up, and many of them are in buildings you do not own. This makes the address on them yours and not ours.

Who needs it, and who can ignore it

Most people can ignore it. If you have a handful of stickers, or you mostly use text codes, reprinting would be a small job and this is not worth your time.

It is worth setting up if:

• ▸ You have hundreds of live stickers out, or you are about to print that many.
• ▸ Your stickers are in your customers’ buildings or homes, where replacing them would mean a lot of trips.
• ▸ Your company already has its own domain, like yourcompany.com.

Who can turn it on

It is part of the Team plans. The team owner or a Manager can set the address and download the sticker pages. Techs and Viewers cannot change it, but the stickers they print use the team’s address too.

You also need your own domain, and the sign-in for the company you bought it from, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace or Cloudflare. If you do not have a domain, skip down to the two downloads. Neither one needs a domain.

Step 1: open QR Codes & Stickers

You can do this on the phone or on the web dashboard. The screen says the same things on both. A computer is handy, because you will be copying a few lines of text into another website.

On the phone, open Settings, tap QR Codes & Stickers, then tap Your stickers, your address. On the web dashboard, open Account Settings and find Your stickers, your address under QR CODES & STICKERS.

Step 2: read Before you start and tick the box

The screen shows a short list headed Before you start. It says four things: you need your own domain, you should pick a new address only for stickers, we will show you the records to add and email them to you, and nothing changes on your stickers until it says Working.

The second one matters most. Pick a new address such as tags.yourcompany.com. Do not use the address of your main website. The screen warns that it would stop your website from opening.

Then tick the box beside I have my own domain and I am ready to add records to it. The Save address button stays greyed out until you do.

Step 3: type the address and save

In the box labelled Web address for your stickers, type only the address. Leave off the https:// part, and put nothing after it. Then press Save address.

We set it up on our side straight away, and the screen then shows the records to add. If they are not there yet, it says they show within a minute or two, and you can press Check to fetch them.

Step 4: find the email with the records

We also email the records to the person who saved the address. The subject starts with Add these records to connect, followed by your address.

Inside is a small table. Each row starts with Add or Remove, then has a Type, a Name and a Value. The Type is a short code such as A or TXT. The Name is a web address. The Value is a set of numbers or a line of letters to copy exactly. Under the table is a button, Open QR Codes & Stickers, that takes you back to the same screen on the dashboard.

Step 5: add them where you bought your domain

These records go into the settings at the company where you bought your web address. Those settings are called DNS records: the list that tells the internet where each of your addresses leads.

Sign in there and open the DNS settings. They are often called DNS, DNS records or Manage DNS. The screen lists where to find them at GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare and Squarespace. Add each row marked Add, and take out any row marked Remove. The screen says adding them takes a few minutes.

Two things trip people up, and both the screen and the email cover them:

• ▸ Some domain companies want only the first part of the name, the part before your own domain. For tags.yourcompany.com that is often just tags.
• ▸ Using Cloudflare? Set each record to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied.

Step 6: wait for Working

That is all you do. We check every 30 minutes and email you when it is working. You can also press Check yourself.

While you wait, the screen tells you where things stand. First: Waiting for your records. Then: Records found. Setting up the secure lock, which can take up to a day. The secure lock is what lets a phone open your address safely, over https.

The email says it often takes under an hour and can take up to a day. Until then, new stickers keep using equipment-tracker.com, so nothing breaks while you wait.

You know it worked when the screen says Working and you get an email saying your sticker address is working. From then on, new stickers you print or share carry your address. Stickers you printed before still work, because both addresses show the same pages.

If you get a record wrong

Nothing breaks. Until the check says Working, new stickers keep using equipment-tracker.com.

If a record is missing or mistyped, the screen says Not pointed at Equipment Tracker yet. Check that the records are added exactly as shown, give it a little time and press Check again. We keep checking on our own for 14 days after you save the address or press Check.

If something could not be finished on our side, the screen says so. It tells you we have been told and will finish it for you, usually within a day, and that you can add your records in the meantime.

If you stop using it

The button is Stop using this address. Before anything happens, the app warns you: new stickers will go back to equipment-tracker.com, we will disconnect your address on our side, and any stickers already printed with your address will stop opening their pages.

That last part is the one to think about. Stickers that carry your address only work while your address points at something that answers them. If you stop, they stop, unless you point the address somewhere else that serves the pages.

We then email you. The subject says your sticker address is disconnected. The email says new stickers use equipment-tracker.com again, and that stickers already printed with your address will not open their pages until you point that address somewhere that serves them. It lists the records you added, so you can remove them where you bought your domain. It also says that leaving them in place is safe, but the address will only show an error page.

Changing to a different address does the same thing to the old one. Ending your subscription does not disconnect your address by itself. You can stop using it at any time, and you can save an address again later.

No domain? Two downloads, and what each one really holds

Your own address is half of the protection. The other half is a copy of what your stickers show. There are two downloads, and they are different things.

Download my sticker pages saves a copy of every live sticker page in one file, with its photos. That covers equipment, parts, tools, locations, tenant door tags, vendor sign-in pages and the visit reports you have shared. Each page sits in the file at the same address its sticker uses, so any website host that serves plain files can answer your stickers from it. The file also has a page listing everything, a spreadsheet with one row per sticker, and a short note on putting it on a web host. It opens on any computer with no app and no internet.

It is on the same screen as the address. On the dashboard the button is Download my sticker pages. On the phone it is Share my sticker pages. Like the address, it is part of the Team plans, for the owner or a Manager. The screen says a big account can take a few minutes.

The backup ZIP is a full copy of your own records: the whole database on your phone and every photo saved on it. It is free on every plan. On the phone, open Settings, then Backup & Restore, and under EXPORT & IMPORT tap CREATE BACKUP ZIP. RESTORE FROM ZIP BACKUP, on the same screen, puts one back. On a Team, the backup of everything the team shares belongs to the team owner.

The backup ZIP keeps your records. The sticker pages download is the one a scan can open.

What it does not do

Here are the limits, plainly:

• ▸ Stickers you already printed carry equipment-tracker.com. Only stickers printed or shared after the screen says Working carry your address.
• ▸ The saved pages are copies. They show each page as it was on the day you downloaded it. They cannot take new repair requests, vendor sign-ins or service reports.
• ▸ The copy is only as fresh as your last download, so download a new one now and then.
• ▸ The download carries only what the public pages already show. It never holds your tenants’ names or contact details, and never your costs.
• ▸ A very large download leaves photos out once the file reaches its size limit. The spreadsheet lists which.
• ▸ Putting the saved pages on another web host is your job, or a job for whoever looks after your website. The file includes numbered steps: upload the folder, add your sticker address at the new host, and swap the records at your domain company.
• ▸ After a move, nothing updates the saved pages by itself. Whoever runs the new site edits them, or a new system replaces them at the same addresses. The spreadsheet in the file lists every sticker, which is the map a new system needs.
• ▸ The domain is yours to look after: its registration, its renewal and its DNS records. Stickers that carry it depend on it.
• ▸ It does not give you the app or its code. What you keep is your own records, your own web address and a copy of your own pages.

For every kind of QR code the app makes and what a scan of each one shows, see the QR code guide for landlords and property managers or for technicians and service companies. The short reference for everything on this page is Your data and stickers.

Does my own sticker address cost extra?

It is part of the Team plans, and there is nothing separate to buy in the app. You do need a domain of your own, which you register and renew with your domain company.

Do I have to reprint my stickers?

Not to keep them working today. Stickers you printed before still work, because both addresses show the same pages. But only stickers printed after the screen says Working carry your address, so older ones still carry equipment-tracker.com.

Does it change what my tenants or customers see?

No. Day to day your address points at us and nothing looks different to them. The difference is the web address the code carries.

What if I get a record wrong?

Nothing breaks. Until the check says Working, new stickers keep using equipment-tracker.com. The screen says Not pointed at Equipment Tracker yet. Check the records are added exactly as shown, give it a little time and press Check again.

Can I undo it?

Yes. Press Stop using this address. New stickers go back to equipment-tracker.com and we email you the records you can remove. Stickers already printed with your address stop opening their pages unless you point the address somewhere that serves them.

How long does it take?

The screen says adding the records takes a few minutes. After that, the email says it often takes under an hour and can take up to a day. We check every 30 minutes and email you when it is working.

Who can set it up?

The team owner or a Manager, on a Team plan.

What if I do not have a domain?

You can still keep copies. Download my sticker pages, on Team plans, saves a copy of every live sticker page. The backup ZIP, free on every plan, saves your records and photos.

Jonathan Curtis

HVAC Technician & Founder · Equipment Tracker Pro

Jonathan Curtis is an HVAC technician and the founder of Equipment Tracker Pro. He built the app to solve real problems he encountered in the field, including the daily frustration of faded nameplates and administrative double-entry.