What belongs on a business card
The card is not there to describe your business. It is there to be findable in a drawer in four months.
The short version
Put four things on the front: your name, your trade, one phone number and one web address. Make it readable without glasses, on matte card. Use the back for something the customer actually wants, like a QR code to your reviews or the date of their next appointment.
People keep saying business cards are dead. Then a plumber finishes a job, hands one over, and gets called eight months later about a different bathroom.
Cards are not a marketing channel. They are a way of being found later by someone who has already met you. That makes the job narrow, and most cards fail it by trying to do more.
What goes on the front of a business card
The front of a business card needs four things and nothing else:
- Your name and your business name. Both. The customer met a person, and they’ll remember a face before a company.
- What you do, if the business name doesn’t say it.
- One phone number. The one you answer.
- Your web address, if you have a site worth visiting. If you’re not sure, the ten-minute homepage check will tell you.
Add an email address only if you genuinely take work by email. Many local trades don’t. And that is where the list stops.
Use the same business name here that customers see on your sign, your van and your Google listing. Google asks for a name that matches the one “used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery” (Google Business Profile Help, 2026). A card that says something slightly different makes you harder to look up.
Type size: readable without glasses
Small type is the most common business card mistake. Your card will often be read by someone over 45, in poor light, without their glasses. Close-up focus gets worse with age for everyone: the US National Eye Institute says “everyone gets presbyopia as they get older - usually after age 45” (National Eye Institute, 2026).
Guidance written for readers with sight loss recommends print “preferably between 12 and 18 points” (CNIB, 2018). A card can’t fit that at every line, which is the best argument for four lines instead of ten. Give the name and phone number the most room. Anything under about 8pt is decoration.
Try this now
Print one card and hand it to somebody older than you, somewhere dim. If they bring it closer to their face or tilt it towards the light, make the type bigger before you order five hundred.
The back is the useful half
The back of a business card is where it stops being a contact detail and starts doing a job. Most cards leave it blank or print the logo again, larger. Both waste it.
- A QR code to your reviews. The card is already in their hand as the job finishes. Google lets you create a QR code that opens your review form, and suggests putting it on receipts and displaying it in your shop (Google Business Profile Help, 2026). See how to ask for reviews for the words to say when you hand it over.
- Space for the next appointment. A hairdresser, a dentist or a garage writing a date on the back turns the card into something the customer keeps on purpose. The loyalty and appointment card article covers that version.
- A short list of what you do, if your trade is broader than your name suggests.
- Your opening hours, for a shop.
One rule on the review code: don’t offer anything in return for a review. Google treats a discount or freebie in exchange for a review as fake engagement and says it is “strictly prohibited”.
Printing both sides costs very little more than one. Leaving the back empty to save that difference is the false economy in this whole subject.
What to leave off a business card
Anything that doesn’t help someone call you later can come off the card. The usual extras each cost space that the phone number needs.
One phone number you answer
A landline, a mobile and an office number
The town or area you cover
Your home address, unless customers come to you
Your web address
Five social media icons
What you do, in a few words
A slogan or a mission statement
A QR code on the back
A QR code on the front, next to the logo
Social links are the one people argue for. If you get most of your work through one platform, put that one handle on the back. Otherwise your website should link to them, and the card should link to your website.
Card stock, finish and proofing
A business card is one of the few parts of your business a customer holds, and thin card feels exactly as cheap as it is. You don’t need anything exotic. A heavier uncoated stock, matte rather than gloss, is noticeably better in the hand for little extra across a full box.
Matte also reads better. Clear-print guidance advises a “matte or non-glossy finish to cut down on glare” (CNIB, 2018). And gloss is hard to write on, which for appointment cards is the entire point.
Keep anything important well away from the edges. Trimming can move by a millimetre or two, and a phone number cropped in half is a box of waste.
Try this now
Before approving a proof, ring the phone number from the proof itself. Reading a number you already know is the easiest way in the world to miss a swapped digit.
If your card, sign and van were designed at different times, they probably don’t match. A simple identity - one logo, a few colours, two fonts - fixes that before you print anything else.
A few common questions.
What should be on a business card?
Your name, your business name, what you do if the name doesn't say it, one phone number you answer, and your web address. Use the back for a QR code to your reviews, a space for the next appointment, or your opening hours.
How many business cards should I order?
Fewer than the price break tempts you into. A box of two hundred and fifty used over a year is better than a thousand that become wrong when your number, your website or your services change. The unit price on a large run is only a saving if you use them all.
Should I put my home address on it?
No, unless customers come to you. An area, such as the town you work in, answers the question people are actually asking, which is whether you cover them.
Single or double sided?
Double, almost always. The cost difference is small and the back is the most useful surface on the card. A QR code, an appointment space or your hours all earn more than a blank.
What size should it be?
Whatever is standard where you are, because that is what fits wallets, cardholders and the slots in other people's card boxes. A square or oversized card is memorable right up until it will not go in a wallet and is left on the counter.
