GS1 Digital Link · Sunrise 2027
A conformant GS1 resolver, without the enterprise contract
GS1 has asked every retail point-of-sale system to accept 2D barcodes by 31 December 2027. The linear EAN/UPC gives way to GS1 DataMatrix and Digital Link QR codes carrying batch, expiry, serial and a web address alongside the GTIN — and that address needs something to answer it.
A resolver maps a GTIN to its destinations and answers shoppers, cashiers and machines correctly. The going rate for one is an enterprise contract. Ours is on the same $19.99 Enterprise plan as everything else, with no GTIN banding.
GS1 Digital Link is on the Enterprise plan — $19.99 a month with a 7-day trial. Register one GTIN and query it four ways before any artwork is committed.
What actually changes at Sunrise 2027
The stripes become a square
EAN/UPC linear barcodes give way to 2D — GS1 DataMatrix and Digital Link QR codes — carrying batch, expiry, serial and a web address alongside the GTIN.
The pack becomes a channel
The same code a cashier scans at the till is the one a shopper scans in the aisle. 57% of consumers already scan food packaging for ingredients and sourcing.
You need something to answer it
A resolver maps a GTIN to its destinations and answers both audiences correctly. Without one, a Digital Link code on your pack points nowhere.
A conformant resolver, not a GS1-shaped URL
Several vendors sell GS1-formatted URLs as GS1 support. A conformant resolver answers a structured GTIN query four ways — you can tell the difference by asking for the linkset.
Plain scan
A shopper or cashier scans the code and lands on the right destination for that GTIN — product page, allergens, instructions, or a recall notice you swapped in this morning.
Link-type query
Ask for a specific link type and get that destination. Product information, safety data, a reorder page — as many link types as you need, changed whenever you like.
RFC 9264 linkset
Send Accept: application/linkset+json and get every destination for the GTIN in one machine-readable answer. This is the request a URL generator cannot serve.
Resolver description file
A description document at /.well-known/gs1resolver, so GS1 tooling can discover what this resolver supports without guessing.
Getting there, in three moves
1. Claim your GS1 company prefix
The prefix you already license from GS1. It is globally unique in our system, so nobody can register GTINs underneath it but you.
2. Register GTINs and their links
Product information, allergens, instructions, recall notices, a reorder page. As many link types as you need, changed whenever you like.
3. Print the dual barcode
Both codes on pack during the transition, as GS1 recommends, until POS coverage is high enough to drop the linear one.
What a resolver costs
Specialist resolver vendors publish corporate tiers that run to $3,000 a year and entry tiers that band pricing by GTIN count; others sell it only behind a sales call.
$19.99 a month, on Enterprise
The resolver is part of the standard Enterprise plan, next to custom domains, the REST API and MCP server, and unlimited team workspaces. There is no separate GS1 product to buy.
Unlimited GTINs
Register your whole catalogue. Pricing does not change with the size of it — no banding at 100, 250 or 600 GTINs.
Your domain, if you want it
Codes resolve on rrte.link or on a custom domain you control, so the address printed on the pack is yours to keep.
The wire format
- resolverRoot
- https://rrte.link, or your own custom domain
- supportedPrimaryKeys
- 01 (GTIN-8, GTIN-12, GTIN-13, GTIN-14)
- linkset
- RFC 9264, via Accept: application/linkset+json
- description
- /.well-known/gs1resolver
What we do not do
Packaging decisions are expensive to reverse. You should know the edges of this before a print run, not after one.
- Primary key
- GTIN (AI 01) only. We do not resolve GLN, SSCC or GMN.
- Prefix verification
- Claims are self-asserted. The Verified-by-GS1 hook exists but has never been run against a live GS1 API, so we do not describe prefixes as verified.
- Digital Product Passport
- Not implemented. If your requirement is DPP today, we are not your vendor yet.
- Uptime
- Point-in-time health checks on the redirect path, published at /status. No contractual SLA is offered or implied.
Questions, answered
Your next print run is probably your 2027 print run
Packaging artwork moves slowly and the date does not. Register a GTIN, query the resolver, and find out whether this works for you while changing it is still free.