Why cafés are different
A café visit can be over in ninety seconds. There is no bill fold, often no table service and frequently no seat at all. That rules out most of the restaurant playbook and puts the weight on three surfaces: the payment counter, the collection point and the cup itself.
Regulars change the maths too. Someone who visits four times a week will walk past a poster hundreds of times without reading it, so a café programme benefits from rotating placement and refreshing artwork rather than printing once and forgetting. Scan analytics by placement show when a sticker has gone invisible.
Small independents also tend to print in-house or in short runs. Every GuestReview Pro export is a real print-ready file at true physical dimensions, so a 60 mm circular sticker is genuinely 60 mm whether it goes to a trade printer or a desktop sheet of labels.
Where to put the code
Placements ordered roughly by how well they perform in this trade.
| Placement | Format | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Payment counter | 80 mm circular sticker | Eyes are already down at the card terminal. The single highest-scanning café placement. |
| Collection point | A6 counter card | Customers wait here with a free hand and nothing to do for thirty seconds. |
| Cup sleeve or lid | 60 mm circular sticker | Reaches takeaway customers who never stop moving inside the shop. |
| Front window | 150 × 150 mm decal | Works on the queue outside and on passers-by comparing two cafés. |
| Loyalty card | 86 × 54 mm card back | Regulars carry it, and it is the one thing they look at repeatedly. |
| Community board | A5 poster | Good for seated customers with laptops and long dwell times. |
Café pack
Counter and cup stickers plus a collection-point card and window decal, all sized for short-range scanning under 400 mm.
Circular sticker 80 mm
80 × 80 mm · min QR 40 mm
Vinyl, matte laminate
A6 portrait counter card
105 × 148 mm · min QR 40 mm
350 gsm silk card
Circular sticker 60 mm
60 × 60 mm · min QR 30 mm
Vinyl, matte laminate
Window decal 150 × 150 mm
150 × 150 mm · min QR 70 mm
Static-cling window vinyl
Key-card wallet insert
86 × 54 mm · min QR 25 mm
300 gsm insert card
A5 portrait poster
148 × 210 mm · min QR 55 mm
170 gsm silk poster
When to ask
At payment
The one guaranteed pause in a café visit, and the moment the service quality is already known.
While waiting for the order
Thirty idle seconds at the collection point is more than enough time to scan and start typing.
Refresh quarterly
Regulars stop seeing familiar artwork. Rotating the design keeps scan rates from decaying.
Get the placement guide
Frequently asked questions
What is the best QR code size for a counter sticker?
30–45 mm. Café scanning distance is short — usually 200–400 mm — so a smaller code reads fine as long as the quiet zone is intact.
Do cup-sleeve codes actually get scanned?
They convert modestly but reach takeaway customers you have no other way of asking. Treat them as reach, not as your main placement.
Can I print stickers myself?
Yes. Exports are print-ready at true size with bleed, so a sheet of blank circular labels works as well as a trade printer.
How do I know which placement is working?
Create a separate code per surface. All of them point at the same review form, but scan counts are tracked separately.