What each one actually does, when you want which, and why they work best paired together.
A digital business card and a link in bio page get mentioned in the same breath a lot — both are often just a single QR code or a single link — but they solve two different problems. Knowing which one you actually need (or whether it's both) comes down to what you want the person on the other end to walk away with.
A link in bio page is a page: a set of links and content someone browses, usually from a social profile, deciding what to click next — your shop, your latest release, your other socials. A digital business card is narrower on purpose — it exists to get one thing into someone's phone: your contact details, saved directly to their contacts, the same way handing over a paper business card would.
The contexts barely overlap. A link in bio address gets shared online — in a social bio, a caption, a video description — where a visitor arrives already scrolling and picks a destination. A business card gets scanned in person or off something printed — a booth, a badge, a physical card — where the person scanning it isn't there to browse, they're there to leave with your contact info before you're out of the room.
In practice, the two complement each other rather than compete. The business card gets you into someone's contacts right away, while you're still standing in front of them; the link in bio page is where you send them afterward, for everything a saved contact card can't hold — your shop, your booking link, your latest work. One QR code can even do both jobs at once, if the tool behind it supports it: scan it, save the contact, and land on the fuller page right alongside the prompt to do so.
On strands, a business card lives attached to your existing profile, not as a separate product — its own QR code, editable from the Business card page in your profile menu. Scanning it opens your actual link in bio page with an "Add to Contacts" button layered on top; tapping it saves your name and whatever contact details you've filled in (organization, phone, email, address — all optional) straight to the scanner's phone. The card refreshes automatically whenever you save a change, so there's nothing to reprint after an edit, and the page shows how many times it's been scanned. See Your digital business card for the full rundown of what you can customize.
Whichever one prompted the search, the page a business card or a bio link ultimately sends someone to is the same kind of thing either way — see What Is a Link in Bio? if you're starting from scratch, or What to Put in Your Link in Bio for how to decide what belongs on it.
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