Engraved or sticker: which QR code to choose

Two ways to put a code on stone. They are not the same decision as they look.

Engraving

The code is cut into the granite, or into a metal plate fixed to it. It is done by a monumental mason, usually at the same time as other lettering.

For it: it lasts as long as the stone. It looks composed rather than added. It cannot peel, fade or be removed by someone else.

Against it: it costs several times what a sticker costs, it takes weeks, and it is permanent in a way that matters more than it first appears.

The permanence problem

A QR code is not an image. It is an address, and an address only works while someone is answering at the other end.

Engrave a code, and you have cut one company's address into granite for the lifetime of the monument. If that company closes, changes its domain, or is bought and migrated, the square is still there and leads nowhere. You cannot edit it. The only remedy is a new engraving over it, which on granite means a new plate.

This is not a hypothetical risk on a fifty-year horizon. It is the most likely thing to go wrong with any of this.

Stickers

An adhesive plaque, fixed to the stone, the plinth or the surround.

For it: a fraction of the cost, fitted in a minute, and replaceable. If the service changes, or the family wants a different page, you lift it and put another one on.

Against it: it is a fixed object exposed to weather, and a poor one fails. The material decides everything here — a UV-stable print with an adhesive rated for outdoor stone is a different product from a laminated label, and they look identical in a photograph.

Which to choose

If the service behind the code charges once, publishes an export, and will replace the sticker free for years, the sticker is the better choice on every axis that matters. Reversibility is the feature.

Engraving makes sense in one case: a monument being cut anyway, by a mason already on the job, where the family has decided the aesthetic matters more than the ability to change course. That is a legitimate choice — just make it knowingly.

Whichever you pick, ask the cemetery first. Some allow an adhesive plaque and refuse engraving on a shared monument, and some the other way around.