> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.utmkit.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Scans vs clicks

> A scan of a printed code is counted apart from a click on the same link, so a poster and an email can be compared.

The same short link can be on a poster and in an email. Both send visitors to the same place
with the same UTMs, and both count. What you want to know afterwards is how many came by
camera and how many by click. UTMKit keeps the two apart without making them two links.

## What the report shows

Open [the report](/en/analytics/the-report) at
[Analytics](https://app.utmkit.co/analytics). Beside the clicks total is a tile named
**Of which scanned** — the visits that arrived from a QR code, with the same comparison to the
previous period as the other totals. It reads "of which" on purpose: a scan is part of the
clicks total, not a number to add to it. One camera, one visit, one row.

To see scans and clicks side by side, group the report by **trigger (QR or link)**. The same
grouping is offered in the shareable client report, in the API and in the MCP, under the same
filters and the same exclusions.

A scanned code still routes by device: on a link with [deep links](/en/links/deep-links), a
scan from an Android phone is one visit, counted as a scan and as a visitor sent to Play.

## Why they are counted apart

A scan is an ordinary visit to the short link; nothing about the phone's request says a camera
was involved. What tells the two apart is the code itself: the code the console produces is
recognisable as a scan when it is used, and a plain click is not.

<Note>
  Use the code UTMKit gives you. A QR code you generate elsewhere from the short link's plain
  address still works — the link is the link — but its scans are counted as ordinary clicks,
  because there is nothing in it for us to recognise. There is nothing to add by hand, and nothing
  in the address to rely on or copy around.
</Note>

A scan is metered once, exactly as a click is; it does not count twice.

## What is not counted

Two kinds of visit are kept out of every number, scans included. See
[the report](/en/analytics/the-report) for the full description.

* **Automated visits.** Link expanders, crawlers and the previews chat apps fetch when a
  link is pasted are excluded, and the report says how many were.
* **Checking your own link.** Opening a link from the console — the address on its row, or
  the **Test link** button that copies an address you can send to your phone — does not spoil
  its numbers. The visit reaches the destination exactly as any visitor would, and is not
  counted. Opening the plain short address does count; the exclusion is for the console's
  checking control, not for the link.

Neither exclusion needs anything from you, and neither removes visits already counted before
it existed.