HiHello is a solid digital business card app — clean profiles, decent team features, good for polished professional sharing. But if your goal is turning card shares into leads in your CRM, HiHello's core design is still built around contact sharing, not contact capture. The recipient gets your info; you don't automatically get theirs unless they choose to save you back.
If that gap is why you're looking elsewhere, here's an honest breakdown of the main alternatives — including where Cardlyx fits.
What "lead capture" actually means for a digital business card
Most digital business card apps work one direction: you share your card, the other person saves your contact. Lead capture flips that — when someone taps "save contact" on your card, they fill out a short form (name, email, phone) before they get your info. That form submission becomes a lead in your CRM, automatically. It's the difference between handing someone your card and getting their card back in return, every single time.
1. Cardlyx
Cardlyx is built around a lead capture gate baked directly into the card-sharing flow. When someone taps to save your contact, they hit a form first — you can set this to optional or mandatory. Every captured lead syncs automatically to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, or Zoho.
- Free plan available, no card required to start
- Professional: $4.99/month ($3.99/month billed yearly)
- Business:$12.99/month ($10.99/month with annual billing). 5 seats included; additional seats are billed separately.
- Best for: real estate agents, sales teams, freelancers, and founders who want every card share to also generate a lead
This is the main structural difference between Cardlyx and the rest of this list — the others treat lead capture as an add-on feature; Cardlyx treats it as the default flow.
2. Blinq
Blinq is one of the most established players, with a strong free tier and broad CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics). It's a good fit if you want a proven, feature-rich platform and don't mind team plans with per-seat minimums on higher tiers.
3. Popl
Popl's strength is NFC hardware — taps at booths and events, paired with lead retrieval tools built for trade shows. If your lead capture happens mostly at conferences and you want a hardware-first workflow, Popl is worth a look. It leans more event-focused than everyday networking.
4. Linq
Linq positions itself as lead-focused too, with workflow automation aimed at modern networking. Worth comparing directly if you're deciding between Linq's automation approach and Cardlyx's gate-based capture.
5. Wave
Wave is simpler and aimed at individuals and small teams who want easy sharing without heavy setup. Lead capture and CRM export exist but are less central to the product than in Blinq, Popl, or Cardlyx.
Which one should you pick?
- Want every card share to double as a lead, with a free plan to start? → Cardlyx
- Want the most established, broadest-feature platform? → Blinq
- Mostly capturing leads at in-person events with NFC hardware? → Popl
- Want lead-focused automation specifically? → Linq
- Want the simplest possible setup for individual use? → Wave
If you want to see the lead capture gate in action, try the free Cardlyx card — no credit card needed to start.