A woman wearing glasses holding her phone in one hand and a folder of paperwork in the other
RefraCard · How it works

Three minutes to a lifelong record

Add the prescription in your pocket today. Everything after that — the chart, the sharing, the next twenty years of entries — builds on it.

1

Add a prescription

Photograph the paper and transcribe it with the image beside you, or just type the values straight in. It is one short form: sphere, cylinder, axis and — when they are on your paper — add, PD and prism, per eye.

  • Old prescriptions are welcome. Backdate freely. A 2014 entry is as useful as today's — often more, because it is where your curve starts.
  • The document stays attached. The photo or PDF you uploaded is kept with the entry, so the original is always one tap away.
  • Record who issued it. The optic center or clinic is part of the entry, which is what lets you go back and ask for a copy years later.
Not sure what the numbers mean? Decode a prescription first — it is free, needs no account, and you can save the result into your card afterwards.
The RefraCard form for adding a prescription: two entry paths — upload the paper, or type it in — above a per-eye grid of sphere, cylinder, axis and add values
Two ways in, one record. Upload the paper and transcribe it beside the image, or type the values directly. Optional boxes stay dashed until you need them — most people fill six numbers and stop.
2

We keep it, and chart it

Entries stack up into a history, and the history draws itself. Sphere, cylinder and axis per eye over time — so stability looks like stability and a change looks like a change, instead of both looking like a number on a slip of paper.

Per eye, over timeOD and OS tracked separately — the gap between them is often the interesting part.
Children's progressionAdd axial length alongside the prescription where you have it, for myopia control follow-up.
Whole family, one accountA card each for you and your children, kept separately but managed together.
A RefraCard record: the current prescription card beside a progression chart plotting both eyes from 2019 to 2025, with counters for prescriptions, change over two years, documents and time since the last exam
Your prescriptions, as a curve. Each eye is its own line, so “−0.25 D over two years, stabilising” is something you can see rather than work out. The current Rx stays one tap from sharing.
3

Use it anywhere

The point of holding the record is being able to produce it — at a counter abroad, at a new optician, at an appointment you booked this morning.

  • Show a QR. Your current prescription opens on their screen in seconds. Nothing to print, nothing to find.
  • Download a clean PDF when a shop wants a document rather than a screen.
  • Let your optic center write to it. If they use RefraCard, new prescriptions arrive in your card verified — issued by them, not typed by you.
You decide every time. Sharing is per-link and revocable; nothing is public, and nothing is sold. Export or delete everything whenever you want.
What the optician sees when a prescription is shared: the values for both eyes, a QR code, a secure read-only link that expires, and buttons to print or download the PDF
What the optician sees. A read-only page with the values, the original documents and an expiry date — no account, no app to install on their side.

Common questions

The things people ask before they start.

Is it really free?

For people, yes — free forever, for your whole family. RefraCard is paid for by the optic centers and clinics who use the professional side.

What if I only have one old prescription?

Start with it. One entry already solves the “where is that paper” problem, and every visit from now on adds a point to the curve.

Do I need my optician to take part?

No. You can build the whole record yourself from paper prescriptions. If your optic center does use RefraCard, their entries simply arrive already verified.

Can I get my prescription out again?

Always. Export the full history as PDF or data at any time — it is your record, and it stays portable.

What about contact lenses?

They are kept as their own entries, because a contact-lens prescription is not the same as a glasses one — here is why.