The chip only holds a URL

144 bytes. That's the whole chip.

The NTAG213 in a typical NFC business card has 144 bytes of user memory. Not kilobytes. Bytes.

A real vCard needs 390

Name, title, city, email, site, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon. That's 390 bytes — 246 over what the chip holds.

So it writes a link instead

An NDEF URI record costs about 20 bytes. It fits with 124 to spare — which is why almost every card uses one.

Paying more buys memory, not magic

NTAG213 holds 144 bytes, NTAG215 holds 504, NTAG216 holds 888. Only the bigger two fit a contact file on the chip itself.

The chip is a pointer. The URL is the product.

Card stock and finish are commodity choices. What loads after the tap is the thing you're actually buying.

One question decides it

If you stopped paying, would the cards in your wallet still work? If the URL is on the vendor's domain, no.

Read the tag before you order 500

NFC Tools shows the record type, the chip model, the exact URL, and whether the tag is locked. Two minutes, one sample card.

Print the cards once

Put a handle you control on the chip, then serve a fresh vCard and QR from the same URL.