Is there a QR code with a one-time fee?

A static QR code puts your destination inside the pattern itself. Any renderer can produce one, nothing has to keep running, and it works until the destination stops existing — which is why static codes are free here and everywhere else. Nobody can sell you one for a meaningful price, because there is nothing to sell.

A dynamic QR code is different: the pattern contains a short link, and a server decides where that link points. That server, the database behind it and the people maintaining it cost money every month, however few scans there are.

When a provider offers a dynamic code for a single payment, the money goes somewhere specific: a pool of prepaid years, a fee to transfer the code to another provider, or a promise that the service will keep running out of revenue earned elsewhere.

None of that is dishonest by itself. The trouble is that a one-time fee and an ongoing cost meet in the middle, and something has to give: either the code expires, scans get limited, or editing the destination stops being free.

Ask these before any one-off payment, and ask for the answers where you can keep them. They are the difference between a code that lasts and an expensive static code.

For a destination that will never change, the honest answer is a static code, which is free and belongs to nobody. A Wi-Fi password, a page you control for years, a business card address: encode them directly and you have a code that outlives any provider.

For anything that will change — a menu, a campaign, packaging with a long shelf life — the code has to be dynamic, and a dynamic code has to be paid for by someone every year. A subscription you can cancel is often a smaller risk than a one-time fee whose terms stop being honored.