Comparison

Business Card Reader vs Appleton

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Business Card Reader

This app quickly scans and stores contact information from business cards in 25 languages. It automatically corrects and normalizes data, offers an Apple Watch app, and allows for easy export and sharing of contacts.

Highlights
  • Quick and accurate business card scanning
  • Auto-click photo feature
  • Automatic phone number normalization
  • Address autocompletion
  • Apple Watch app integration
  • Export contacts to Excel and Salesforce
  • Multilingual card recognition
Features
Read full description

ABBYY Business Card Reader –The World’s Fastest Business Card Scanner & Contact Management App for iPhone and iPad! Recommended by The New York Times, CNN, The Telegraph, Computer Business Review, Macworld. Winner of the RISING STAR Award in the Mobile Star Awards ABBYY Business Card Reader easily & simply captures & stores contact from business cards in 25 languages to your iPhone and iPad. The recognized data can be saved in either your device contacts or the app digital storage. KEY FEATURES • QUICK AND ACCURATE SCANNING ABBYYs optical character recognition technology provides quick & accurate recognition of all contact information: names, organizations, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. • AUTO-CLICK PHOTO FEATURE Automatically focuses on the business card, detects its edges, crops any extraneous background & captures an image of the card all by itself. • EASY CHECK OF RECOGNIZED DATA The app highlights “unusual” characters with blue color and displays the original image so that you can quickly confirm the output of the app. • APPLE WATCH APP. You won’t need to reach for your iPhone or iPad to remember somebody’s name. View contacts and make phone calls right from BCR on your Apple Watch! • AUTOMATIC NORMALIZATION OF PHONE AND EXTENTION NUMBERS BCR will automatically put in all the missing parts so that you can reach the contact even if the country code was omitted in print. • AUTOCOMPLETION OF ADDRESSES BCR corrects any typos and fills in the missing address fields so you can easily find it on the map. • MANUAL BACKUPS. Manual backups to archive and restore to another device. • Export contacts to Salesforce Leads (premium account required). BCR can export business cards to Enterprise, Unlimited, and Performance Editions of SF license. Professional Edition does not allow BCR export. • Set up voice commands in Siri Shortcuts app to open business cards by voicing the name of the owner. • Spotlight Search to find business cards from BCR • Export business cards to MS Excel in .CSV format. • Smart Facebook and LinkedIn search: connect social media account to the business card and auto upload photo of contact from Facebook. • Search in iPhone Maps for the address of your contacts. • Exchange digitally and forward recognized contacts via e-mail as VCard or JPEG files or via SMS as a plain text. • Share your contacts using QR code. • Support 25 languages including recognition of multilingual cards. - French - German - Greek - Japanese - Indonesian - Italian - Korean - Norwegian (both Bokmal and Nynorsk) - Polish - Portuguese (Portugal) - Portuguese (Brazil) - Russian - Spanish - Swedish - Turkish - Ukrainian The free version provides 10 card recognition. Enable Premium to get unlimited functionality: • Unlimited business card recognition • Export to Excel • No ads Premium Account auto-renewable subscription allows using all functions of this app. Subscription length periods: 1 month with 7 days free trial, and 1 year. The subscription is automatically renewed at the end of the period unless you choose to cancel the subscription at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. You can manage your subscription and switch off the auto-renewal by accessing your Account Settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription to that publication. Read us: abbyy.com/blog/mobile Facebook.com/ABBYYsoft Twitter @ABBYY_Software YouTube.com/ABBYYvideos Privacy Policy abbyy.com/privacy Terms of Use abbyybcr.com/en/eula Looking forward to your feedback on the App Store!

About

Appleton

This business app provides sales professionals with product information, installation guides, and troubleshooting resources for Appleton Group offerings. It requires a login and automatically updates content when connected, allowing for offline use after syncing.

Highlights
  • Product and service information
  • Installation guides
  • Troubleshooting assistance
  • Sales presentations
  • Automatic content updates
  • Offline access after sync
Read full description

This app is for Appleton Group sales professionals and requires a login to be provided by Appleton Group. The Appleton Group Sales Net app is the perfect reference tool for learning, installing, troubleshooting, applying and presenting information about the products and services offered by Appleton Group . The app is easy to set up and use, with a simple log-in for your security. The Appleton Group Sales Net app is automatically updated with literature, image and video content when connected. Once sync’d the app does not require a connection for regular use.

Screenshots

Business Card Reader4 screens
Appleton4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Appleton at none against Business Card Reader's 10. Appleton also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 70%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Business Card Reader's advantage is ratings volume (21K vs 2) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 9 months). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Business Card Reader sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Appleton asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Appleton holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Business Card Reader has 21K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of Business Card Reader's written reviews are positive against 100% of Appleton's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Business Card Reader ships an update every 2 months, Appleton every 9 months. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and June 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Business Card Reader versus Appleton: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBusiness Card ReaderAppleton
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (21K ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews70.3% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings21K — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 9 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size82 MB71 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperABBYY USA Software House IncEmerson Process Management

Customer experience

Business Card Reader

All ratings20,550 ratings
Positive90.5%
Neutral4.9%
Negative4.6%
Written reviews1,264 reviews
Positive70.3%
Neutral8.9%
Negative20.7%

Appleton

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Business Card Reader

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Scanning sometimes assigns text to wrong fields
  • App crashes when trying to export contacts
  • Location data incorrectly attached to business cards
  • Syncing issues between mobile and desktop versions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Allow scanning of both sides of business cards
  • Improve OCR accuracy, especially for international cards
  • Provide more flexible export options (CSV, vCard, etc.)
  • Offer a one-time purchase option instead of subscription
  • Add ability to sort and organize contacts into groups

Appleton

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Business Card Reader

Subscriptions6
  • BCR Premium monthly promo7 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • BCR Premium monthly7 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • BCR Premium monthly$7.991 Month
Show 3 more
  • BCR Premium yearly$14.991 Year
  • BCR Premium yearly$29.991 Year
  • BCR Premium yearly14 Days trial$29.991 Year
One-time4
  • [ARCHIVE] No Ads$2.99
  • [ARCHIVE] 50 business cards$3.99
  • [ARCHIVE] Export to Excel$5.99
Show 1 more
  • BCR Premium no time limitation$59.99
None

Appleton

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Business Card Reader free?
Business Card Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Appleton free?
Appleton is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Business Card Reader or Appleton?
Appleton is rated higher. Business Card Reader averages 4.6 out of 5 from 21K ratings, while Appleton averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Business Card Reader or Appleton have ads?
Neither Business Card Reader nor Appleton shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Business Card Reader or Appleton?
Business Card Reader ships an update every 2 months, and Appleton every 9 months. Most recently, Business Card Reader was updated on September 26, 2026 and Appleton on June 1, 2026.

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