The on-device business card scanner that drops contacts straight into iOS — shipping before Apple bakes it into iOS 27.
| Name | .com | .io | App Store Clear? | Trademark Risk | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CardSnap | ⚠️ Parked (landing page) | ⚠️ Taken (SaaS redirect) | ✅ No active iOS app | Low–Medium (generic combo) | 8/10 |
| CardVault | ⚠️ Taken (fintech) | ✅ Available | ⚠️ Crypto wallet clashes | Medium | 6/10 |
| ScanCard | ⚠️ Taken | ⚠️ Taken | ⚠️ Generic – several clones | Medium | 5/10 |
| ContactSnap | ✅ Available | ✅ Available | ✅ Clear | Low | 7/10 |
| CardPocket | ⚠️ Taken (dev tool) | ✅ Available | ✅ Clear | Low | 6/10 |
Note: "CardSnap" has no current top-ranking iOS app on US App Store search (as of April 2026) — the name is memorable, short, and instantly conveys the gesture. .com is parked and would need outreach. Recommended launch domain: cardsnap.app (available) with the same handle on X and TikTok. Backup pick: ContactSnap if trademark concerns surface during Apple review.
Business cards are stubbornly alive. 2026 saw a rebound in in-person events — Dreamforce, CES, SaaStr, every regional chamber breakfast — and sales teams are again coming home with 40-card stacks and no clean way to capture them. The incumbents have all decayed: CamCard (still #1 by downloads globally) was bought by Intsig and pushed into a $5.99/mo Premium model with aggressive cloud-upload defaults that triggered EU privacy headlines in 2024; ABBYY Business Card Reader was discontinued for consumers in 2022 and lives on as a zombie listing; Evernote Scannable was quietly pulled from the App Store in September 2023 and has never been replaced — leaving a massive orphaned user base searching "Scannable alternative" every week. Apple's rumored iOS 27 Visual Intelligence expansion (April 2026 code leaks) explicitly references "capture contact card from image," confirmed to ship with iPhone 18 in September 2026 — meaning CardSnap has a 5-month pre-GA window to own the "business card scanner" and "scan to contacts" keywords during peak Apple PR. Monetization tailwind: the #1 complaint across every competitor is "charges $5–10/mo for something I use twice a month" — a one-time $2.99 unlock is a straight-up refugee magnet.
Monetization model, marketing strategy, and the #1 complaint from users for each.
$1.8M/mo
$5.99/mo Premium, $35.99/yr. Free tier capped at 200 cards and forces cloud upload. Enterprise plan $69/user/yr.
Legacy SEO from 2011 launch, Intsig (parent) bundles across Asia-Pacific, LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration push, app-store search ads on "business card".
"Forces cloud upload by default — cards go to China-hosted servers." US/EU reviewers repeatedly cite the 2024 privacy flap, slow OCR on latency-sensitive phones, and paywalled CSV export.
$180K/mo
Free with 10-card limit. Premium $9.99/mo or $59.99/yr unlocks Salesforce/HubSpot sync and unlimited cards. Human verification add-on.
CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho) are the hook. Positioned at inside-sales teams, heavy content marketing about "card to CRM", LinkedIn ads to SDRs.
"Price jumped to $9.99/mo in 2024." OCR often gets titles wrong, needs human verification (paid add-on) to be reliable, and iPad layout is broken on latest iPadOS.
$120K/mo
Free for personal. Teams $6/user/mo. Enterprise custom. Revenue is seat-based SaaS, not consumer IAP.
Pitch is the opposite — create your own digital card, share NFC/QR. Scanning inbound cards is a secondary feature. Strong LinkedIn posts, B2B sales motion.
"Scanner is an afterthought — it's really a digital-card app." Inbound-card OCR is mediocre, and the free tier heavily pushes company billing ("Ask admin to upgrade").
~$15K/mo (residual)
Consumer app pulled in 2022; ABBYY pivoted to enterprise "Vantage" OCR. Old paid license holders still open it, but no updates since iOS 16.
Zero. Orphaned listing ranks on residual "abbyy business card" searches. Zombie brand trust from pre-2022 reviewers.
"Crashes on iOS 18+. Cloud backend was killed — my card library is inaccessible." Classic abandoned-software refugee base searching for an heir.
N/A (bundled)
LinkedIn has a QR-code "Scan Code" for connecting — does NOT read paper cards. Evernote Scannable was free, pulled Sept 2023 and never replaced.
LinkedIn pushes its scan feature in-product at networking events. Evernote killed Scannable quietly; millions of orphaned users still Google "Scannable replacement".
LinkedIn: "only scans LinkedIn QR, not real business cards." Evernote Scannable: "best scanner ever made and they killed it — I still can't find a replacement." Massive unmet demand signal.
Every current player either (a) charges $6–10/mo with forced cloud upload (CamCard, ScanBizCards), (b) uses scanning as a side-feature to sell B2B seats (Haystack), or (c) no longer exists (ABBYY consumer, Evernote Scannable). None ship an on-device, privacy-first, $2.99 one-time unlock for the "capture 3 cards at a conference, stop thinking about it" job. CardSnap uses iOS Vision (VNRecognizeTextRequest) + Apple's Foundation Models to parse name/title/company/email/phone/URL on-device, writes directly to CNContactStore with a single tap, and optionally auto-matches to a LinkedIn URL. Zero backend, zero $/scan, zero recurring charge unless the user wants Pro extras (bulk batch scan, CSV/CRM export, custom fields). When Apple ships native Contacts capture in iOS 27 GA (Sept), CardSnap is already ranking on every related keyword and differentiates on batch mode, LinkedIn enrichment, CRM export, and card library search — all things Apple's first-party feature is unlikely to ship.
| Element | Recommended Copy | Char Count |
|---|---|---|
| App Store Title | CardSnap: Business Card Scan | 28/30 |
| Subtitle | Snap cards → iPhone Contacts | 28/30 |
| Primary Category | Business | — |
| Secondary Category | Productivity | — |
Weighted score: (7×1.5 + 8×1.5 + 7×1.0 + 7×1.5 + 8×1.0 + 9×1.0 + 5×1.0 + 8×0.5 − 6×1.0) ÷ 9.0 = 6.9. The migration moment (CamCard privacy fatigue + Scannable orphans + iOS 27 Visual Intelligence leak) is real and time-boxed. Tech is trivial for a solo dev — Vision + Foundation Models + CNContactStore, zero backend. But viral hook is weak (business cards are not inherently shareable content), and the risk deduction is heavy: Apple itself will ship native business-card-to-Contacts in iOS 27 GA in September, which kneecaps the ASO moat within 6 months of release. Ship ONLY if you can hit TestFlight by mid-May and App Store by late-May to ride WWDC (June 8) news cycle. Miss that window and this drops to a PASS.
| Biggest Risk | Biggest Opportunity |
|---|---|
| Apple ships native "scan card to Contacts" in iOS 27 GA (Sept 2026) via Visual Intelligence — it's free, system-level, and marketed in the iPhone 18 keynote. CardSnap has ~6 months of keyword dominance before Apple's feature commoditizes the core flow. Must offer a real Pro layer (batch mode, LinkedIn enrichment, CRM export, card library search with notes) or it collapses to a $2.99 utility with declining rank. | 5-month pre-GA window during peak Apple PR (April leaks → June WWDC → Sept launch). Evernote Scannable orphans are a still-untapped search base. CamCard's China-hosted-servers privacy narrative creates a clear "on-device, no login" positioning. One-time $2.99 unlock undercuts CamCard's $35.99/yr by 92% — conversion-optimized for the refugee flow. Solo-buildable in 8–9 sessions. |
Bundle ID and IAP product IDs must be created in App Store Connect first. Mismatches are the #1 cause of upload failures.
com.dreamseeds.cardsnapRegister in Apple Developer Portal → Certificates, IDs & Profiles → Identifiers
3 scans/day free. $2.99 one-time unlock for unlimited scans. $1.99/mo (or $14.99/yr) Pro: batch mode, CRM/CSV export, LinkedIn enrichment, card library search with notes.
25–55, attends 4+ events a year, has a stack of cards on their desk, already a CamCard or Scannable refugee, cares about "no login, no cloud, no sub".
| # | Feature | Why It Matters | Session |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | On-Device Card OCR | Point camera at card → Vision detects text blocks, Foundation Models classifies each as name / title / company / email / phone / URL. Zero cloud, zero login, zero $/scan. | S2 |
| 2 | One-Tap Save to Contacts | CNContactStore write with all fields pre-populated and an optional "Notes: met at [event]" field. Fixes the #1 annoyance from every competitor's reviews. | S3 |
| 3 | Local Card Library + Search | SwiftData-backed searchable library with photo thumbnails, tags, and note field. Find "the person from SaaStr booth 42" in 2 seconds. Key differentiator vs Apple's eventual system feature. | S4 |
| 4 | Batch / Conference Mode (Pro) | Scan 30 cards in 90 seconds without tapping Save between each — queue, then approve-all. Sales-rep killer feature; justifies $1.99/mo. | S5 |
| 5 | LinkedIn + CRM Export (Pro) | Auto-construct LinkedIn URL from name+company, CSV export, Salesforce/HubSpot one-click push via shortcuts. Defensible Pro layer vs Apple native. | S7 |