Linq now sells iMessage, RCS, SMS and voice APIs to teams building AI agents, and it raised $20M in February 2026 to do it. The card app still works under a new name, and its last update was a one-line fix. This page covers where Linq users go next: booth teams first, then individual networkers, then what to export before you leave.
Disclosure: I'm one of the people building Tendro. The criteria are below, so you can re-rank for your own calendar. This page sits on the event lead capture alternatives hub; for the basics, start with the event lead capture guide.
What is the best Linq alternative in 2026?
Pick by who used Linq. Booth teams get Tendro at $499 per event for the whole team, with a free card per rep. Individuals pick Blinq or Popl.
For booth teams, the table uses five criteria: a public price, buying one event at a time, the whole booth team under one price, native sync to both HubSpot and Salesforce, and a digital card for every rep. Tendro meets all five.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Commitment | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tendro | Booth teams, multi-show calendars | $499 per event, unlimited team members, digital cards free (public) | None. Pay per show | From the team behind Socio, the event platform Cisco acquired as Webex Events |
| BoothIQ | A monthly on/off switch | $999 per month Team (public) | Month to month | CRM sync only on quote-priced Enterprise |
| Popl | Teams that still tap NFC cards | Not published; quoted over a meeting | Quote | Plans cover unlimited users, events and leads |
| Blinq | Teams already rolling out Blinq cards | $9.99 per full-credit lead, plus seats at $6.99 a month or $4.99 a month billed annually, 5-card minimum (public) | Monthly or annual seats | Lead charges grow with your best show |
| Vendelux | HubSpot teams that want free | Free scanner | None | Salesforce sync "coming soon" |
| Mobly | Year-round programs on an annual agreement | Not published | Mostly annual, renews automatically | Fees non-refundable |
| iCapture (Cvent) | 15+ enterprise shows inside Cvent | $8,000 a year, Essentials (HubSpot listing) | Annual | Tied to Cvent's roadmap |
| Linq, for reference | Existing card users while the app still works | No card plan listed on linqapp.com | Linq One subscription | The company now sells messaging APIs |
Sourcing on that table. BoothIQ's price is public, "only pay during months you go to events" (https://getboothiq.com/pricing). Blinq's prices are public (https://blinq.me/pricing). Popl says "we quote pricing over a meeting instead of publishing it on our website" (https://popl.co/pages/pricing). Mobly publishes no price and says "Most packages are annual agreements, priced by the features your team needs." iCapture's HubSpot Marketplace listing shows Essentials at $8,000 a year, with pricing dated 2025; confirm current pricing with Cvent. The pricing models breakdown walks through each unit.
What happened to the Linq digital business card app?
Linq pivoted to iMessage and RCS APIs for AI agents and raised $20M in February 2026. The card app still ships as The Digital Business Card App.
The linqapp.com homepage now promotes messaging infrastructure for iMessage, RCS, SMS and voice. Nothing on the page, nav or footer mentions business cards, NFC or lead capture (https://linqapp.com/). TechCrunch reported the $20M Series A on 2 February 2026, led by TQ Ventures with Mucker Capital, and described the company's origin as "a digital business card that doubled as a lead capture tool for sales teams" that then "pivoted a few times" (https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/linq-raises-20m-to-enable-ai-assistants-to-live-within-messaging-apps/). TechCrunch says nothing about the card product being shut down.
The card app is still on the App Store under a new name. As of October 2026 the listing reads "The Digital Business Card App," seller Linq, LLC, version 12.0.0 released 26 August 2026, 12,308 ratings at 4.85 (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1492946255). The release note for that version is one line: "Fixed Contact Exchange Setting." The help center is still live and still refers to Linq One and Linq Blue plans.
Wave Connect, a competing card vendor, writes that Linq's "NFC cards, app, and digital profile platform have been effectively sunset" (https://wavecnct.com/blogs/best-linq-alternative). That is a competitor's reading, and the page cites no Linq statement. I could not find a first-party end-of-life notice. Treat the app as working today with no visible roadmap.
Why are Linq users looking for alternatives?
Three signals: the company now sells messaging APIs, the card app's last update was a one-line fix, and the Linq name is off the app title.
None of these is a complaint about the product. They are signals about where it is going.
The company first. Linq's homepage, pricing page and docs are about messaging infrastructure for AI agents. That is what the $20M was raised for. There is no card-side roadmap to point at.
The release notes second. The latest listed card app release, version 12.0.0 on 26 August 2026, describes a contact-exchange fix.
The name third. The App Store title no longer says Linq; the card app is listed as "The Digital Business Card App".
Do you need a card app or a lead capture app to replace Linq?
If you used Linq to share your own contact info, you need a card app. If your team scanned badges at a booth, you need event lead capture.
Linq sold two things under one login. The card side: a profile page, a QR code, an NFC card or badge, your details shared with a tap. The capture side: a scanner for badges and business cards, contact notes, CSV export, HubSpot and Salesforce sync, and an admin dashboard for the team.
Booth teams don't have to give up the card to get the scanner. Tendro includes a free digital card for every rep alongside badge scanning, and Popl and Blinq pair their cards with scanning too. Individual networkers can skip to the card-app section further down.
Tendro vs Linq for event teams: how do they compare?
Tendro is $499 per event for the whole team, with a free digital card for every rep. Linq's site lists no card plan at all today.
| Tendro | Linq card app | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $499 per event, unlimited team members, on the pricing page | No card plan listed on linqapp.com |
| Digital card | Free for every rep: QR code, booking link, and share-backs that land as leads (how the card works) | NFC and QR cards with a profile page |
| Scanning | Printed badge face, business cards and notes with OCR, then enrichment; open QR codes parse | Badges and business cards |
| CRM | Native HubSpot and Salesforce, under 10 seconds on a live connection | HubSpot, Salesforce and GoHighLevel, per its help center |
Tendro comes from the team behind Socio, the event platform Cisco acquired and renamed Webex Events.
The difference starts with the unit. Tendro bills per event: $499 covers unlimited team members at the booth for that show, on their own phones, with nothing owed in the months between shows. Checkout is self-serve, with no sales call. Calendars of 10 or more shows get volume pricing on a short call, and the per-event vs annual math runs the crossover.
At the booth, every rep scans badges and business cards offline if the hall Wi-Fi dies, and Tendro syncs on reconnect. Each lead lands on one HubSpot or Salesforce record with the rep's answers to your qualifying questions and their voice note. Then the rep previews a short recap email with their digital card and sends it now, in ten minutes, or never. Marketo, Pardot, Pipedrive or Zoho connect on request.
On the sharing side, the rep's card works by QR code: a visitor scans it to save the contact or book time through the rep's Calendly or HubSpot meeting link, and a visitor who shares their details back lands as a lead. The same card rides along in every booth recap and in each rep's email signature.
Moving over is a data job. Linq's card app synced to HubSpot, Salesforce and GoHighLevel per its help center, so a HubSpot or Salesforce team keeps the same destination. The scan business cards to CRM post covers the card half of that workflow.
Pick Tendro if the booth is the job, the calendar is lumpy, and you want a price you can paste into a budget line.
Is BoothIQ a good Linq alternative for booth teams?
BoothIQ Team is $999 a month and can be paused up to three months or canceled. CRM sync needs its quote-priced Enterprise tier.
BoothIQ's pitch is "only pay during months you go to events" (https://getboothiq.com/pricing). A four-month season runs $3,996 on Team, with unlimited users and scans and a free Individual tier. BoothIQ says it built its first proof of concept in June 2025. Full read at BoothIQ alternatives.
Pick BoothIQ if a monthly toggle is the whole job and CRM sync can wait for an Enterprise quote.
Should Linq teams move to Popl or Blinq instead?
Yes, if reps still tap cards in hallways. Both pair cards with scanning. Blinq bills per card plus per lead; Popl quotes over a meeting.
Popl is the closest like-for-like for a team: NFC cards, profile pages, a badge scanner, a certified HubSpot app, and Salesforce and Marketo sync. It publishes no team price. Its pricing page says "we quote pricing over a meeting instead of publishing it on our website," for plans with "unlimited users, unlimited events, unlimited leads" (https://popl.co/pages/pricing). Full read at Popl alternatives.
Blinq Business bills per card: $6.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed annually, with a five-card minimum, plus $9.99 per full-credit lead, or 0.75 of a credit when Blinq adds no email or phone (https://blinq.me/pricing). The Business tier is where event campaigns and CRM integrations sit. At pay-as-you-go prices, five monthly seats ($34.95) plus 47 full-credit leads ($469.53) come to $504.48, past Tendro's $499 for the whole team at one show. On annual seats, the same five reps pay $299.40 a year before a single lead credit.
Pick Popl if tap cards are part of how your team meets people. Pick Blinq if your company already runs on Blinq cards and your booths see a few dozen leads a show.
Is Vendelux's free scanner a Linq alternative?
For HubSpot teams. The scanner is free with HubSpot sync, but its Salesforce connection is still "coming soon".
Vendelux's main business is an event intelligence platform. Its lead scanner is new (the iOS app first shipped on September 8, 2026), and the scanner page says "The scanner is completely free and always will be" (https://vendelux.com/lead-scanner). The store listing reads "HubSpot live, Salesforce coming soon" (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vendelux-lead-scanner/id6798884802).
Pick Vendelux if you're on HubSpot and free outweighs everything else.
What are the best Linq alternatives for individual networkers?
Blinq and Popl are the direct replacements. Both are free to start, both share by QR or NFC, and each has far more App Store ratings than Linq.
This section is short, because for one person a card app is the whole answer.
Blinq's iOS app carries about 132,000 ratings at 4.87, roughly ten times Linq's count. The free tier gives you up to two cards. Premium runs $9.99 a month, or $7.33 a month billed annually, and CSV export of your contacts starts there (https://blinq.me/pricing). Bulk CSV export needs Premium; single contacts can still be saved to your phone.
Popl's iOS app lists about 103,000 ratings at 4.8 under the name "Popl: AI Lead Capture," and Pro is $7.99 a month as an in-app purchase (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/popl-ai-lead-capture/id1503939262). Popl is pushing hard into B2B, so an individual gets a busier app with the same core card flow.
Pick Blinq if you want the larger installed base and a free tier. Pick Popl if you want to keep tapping NFC cards. Either one is a quick move once your contacts are exported, and the export steps are next.
What should you export from Linq before you leave?
Export contacts to CSV first. Cancel Apple-billed Linq One in Apple Subscriptions; direct plans cancel under Manage Subscription.
Linq's help center is still live and the export path is documented, so do this while it works.
Individual contacts: open the Contacts tab at the bottom of the app, choose contacts or tap Select All Contacts, tap Choose an Action, then Export, then send by email. Linq delivers a .CSV "ready to upload or import into your preferred CRM" (https://help.linqapp.com/en/articles/7260478-export-contacts-to-a-csv-file). The article does not say which plan the export requires or which fields, notes or tags come with it, so open the file and check before you cancel anything.
Team contacts: the admin dashboard's Contacts tab has an "Export (.CSV)" action for selected contacts, with search and filters, and it includes contacts synced from HubSpot, Salesforce or GoHighLevel (https://help.linqapp.com/contacts-tab-overview-linq-admin-dashboard). The same page notes that some actions are unavailable when personal and team contacts are combined, so export the two sets separately if the button greys out.
If you already synced to a CRM, confirm the records are there first. The CRM copy is the one that survives.
Cancelling: Linq One is managed through Apple Subscriptions on the device, through Menu, then Manage Subscription in the app, or by logging in at linqapp.com/welcome on the web (https://help.linqapp.com/en/articles/7925450-how-do-i-cancel-manage-my-linq-one-subscription). Linq says it cannot cancel, change or refund Apple-billed subscriptions. The article lists what you lose on cancel (Linq Phone and Linq One-only features) and says nothing about your contact data afterward. Export first, cancel second.
How do you pick the right Linq alternative?
Answer two questions: who used Linq, an individual or a booth team, and what unit you pay in, seat, month, or event. That leaves one or two tools.
- Who. If Linq was your personal card, go to Blinq or Popl. If it was your booth scanner, keep going.
- Unit. Per card (Blinq Business) scales with headcount, runs year-round and adds lead credits. Per month (BoothIQ) scales with active months. Per event (Tendro) scales with your calendar. A quoted plan (Popl) arrives after a meeting.
- The rental anchor. Organizer rental scanners run $400 to $700 per device per event, up to about $735 onsite, on 2025-26 exhibitor order forms (https://www.aaos.org/globalassets/aaos-annual-meeting/exhibit-and-sponsor/exhibitor-service-manual/lead_retrieval_order_form.pdf). Renting one device for each of five reps at ten shows comes to $20,000 to $35,000. A Linq team that skipped rentals should not walk back into them.
- Card. If reps tap NFC cards in hallways, Popl and Blinq both sell the hardware. If a QR code on the rep's phone does the job, Tendro gives every rep a card at no extra cost.
- CRM. Test any candidate in your own CRM instance before you sign. Scan a contact that already exists and watch whether it merges or forks. The best event lead capture apps roundup has the full test protocol.
The desk test costs nothing. Tendro's free trial lets you scan the business cards and old badges still in your drawer, no credit card, no show, and judge the enrichment on your own leads. Your first event switches on live HubSpot or Salesforce sync for the whole team. Start the free trial.