Bitly Alternatives With Fairer Free Plans and Branded Links

Bitly is still the best-known link shortener, and it now sells QR codes and landing pages next to short links. The service works as usual. What pushes people away is the bottom of the Bitly pricing page: a free account gets 5 links a month, 2 QR codes and no click history at all. Bitly's help centre confirms that visitors to a free link first see a page with an ad and a preview of where the link goes.

Paying fixes the ads but not the limits. Core is US$10 a month, sold only on a yearly plan (US$120), and gives 100 links a month with 30 days of analytics. Growth at US$29 a month (US$348 a year) adds a complimentary custom domain and 4 months of history. Premium is US$199 a month (US$2,388 a year). Bitly advertises savings of up to 34% for yearly billing, so month to month costs more.

The seven picks below start with hosted shorteners that put your own domain on links for less, and end with one you run yourself.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Short.io

Short.io answers Bitly's two biggest complaints at once: no ad page and your own domain for free. Its free tier holds 1,000 branded links in total across up to 5 custom domains and tracks 50,000 clicks a month. API access, A/B tests and QR codes are on every plan, and commercial use is allowed on Free.

The step up is small. Hobby, from US$5 a month (yearly billing saves 17%), raises the cap to 2,500 links, 7 domains and 100,000 tracked clicks, and Pro, from US$18, removes the link limit and counts every click. Bitly's Growth plan, by comparison, stops at 500 links a month and one complimentary domain for US$29.

Best for: A founder or marketer who wants links on a branded domain without paying yet.

Pricing:

• Free: 1 user, up to 5 custom domains, 1,000 branded links in all and 50,000 tracked clicks a month.
• Hobby from US$5/month, Pro from US$18/month, Team from US$48/month, Enterprise from US$148/month.
• Yearly billing saves 17%.

Watch out for:

• Account bans are the recurring complaint. A Short.io Trustpilot review from September 2, 2026 describes a permanent ban with no warning, and the company's reply only points to support.
• Free stats cover the first 50,000 clicks a month. Links keep working past that, but the extra click data stays hidden until you upgrade.

Official site: Short.io.

Linkly

Ad-driven teams get more from Linkly than from Bitly's middle plans. Every link can fire retargeting pixels for Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn and Pinterest, and the same dashboard handles dynamic QR codes, redirects by country or device, a link rotator and A/B tests. Zapier, Make, n8n and GA4 connect to it.

Free is generous on links and tight on clicks: 100 new links and 500 clicks a month, with one custom domain and API access. Pro costs US$32 a month on yearly billing for 1,000 links, 10,000 clicks and 3 domains, and extra clicks come in packs of 25,000 for US$20.50 a month.

Best for: Marketers who run paid campaigns and want to retarget everyone who clicks a short link.

Pricing:

• Free: 1 custom domain, 100 new links and 500 clicks a month.
• Starter US$15/month (yearly billing only). Pro US$32/month, Business US$107/month, Unlimited US$833/month, all billed yearly. Yearly saves about 20% against monthly.
• Click pack (+25,000) or link pack (+1,000): US$20.50/month each, billed yearly.

Watch out for:

• Reach 500 clicks in a month on the free plan and your links stop redirecting until the quota resets, per the Linkly pricing FAQ. A post that takes off can break its own link.
• Starter cannot be paid month to month, so the cheapest monthly option is Pro.

Official site: Linkly.

Rebrandly

Branding is the whole point of Rebrandly, and even its free plan includes a custom domain next to the shared rebrand.ly one. That is the feature Bitly holds back until Growth. Free also covers 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, though the codes carry a watermark.

Essentials costs US$8 a month billed yearly or US$11 monthly, for 250 links, 10,000 tracked clicks and 2 domains. Professional at US$22 yearly adds teammates and 3 domains. Rebrandly also lists routing by city or hour, SSO, audit logs and an MCP server for AI assistants. For a closer look at its rivals, see our Rebrandly alternatives.

Best for: Brands that want every link on their own domain, including on a free account.

Pricing:

• Free: 10 links/month, 10 QR codes/month, click data on 100 clicks/month, 1 custom domain.
• Essentials US$8/month billed yearly or US$11 monthly. Professional US$22 or US$32. Growth US$104 or US$149.

Watch out for:

• Reliability reviews are mixed. The Rebrandly Trustpilot page scores 3.2, and a review dated August 27, 2026 says over 300 of the writer's links broke for the second time that week.
• Free click data stops at 100 clicks a month. Links keep redirecting, but the stats go blank.

Official site: Rebrandly.

TinyURL

TinyURL keeps its free tier free of ads, which makes it the plain choice for people who mostly paste a long link and share it. The free plan makes 30 links a month, counts unlimited clicks, shows basic analytics and promises that links never expire.

Pro is US$9 a month billed yearly (US$108) or US$11 month to month. It brings 3 branded domains, referrer, location and device reports, and two years of history, which beats the 30 days on Bitly Core at a similar price.

Best for: Individuals who want free, ad-free short links and do not need their own domain.

Pricing:

• Free: no ads and every click counted, but only 30 new links a month and no custom domain.
• Pro US$9/month billed yearly or US$11 monthly. Bulk 50K US$69/month yearly or US$83 monthly. Enterprise from US$3,999/year. Taxes extra.

Watch out for:

• Pro includes only 125 links a month and charges US$1.50 for each extra 10, per the TinyURL plans page.
• A branded domain needs a paid plan.

Official site: TinyURL.

Dub

Dub is the developer's pick: a modern shortener whose code is about 99% open source under AGPLv3, with a hosted version for people who would rather not run it. The free plan allows 25 new links and 1,000 tracked events a month on 3 custom domains.

Pro costs US$27 a month billed yearly (10% off monthly billing) and includes 3 users, 10 domains and a year of analytics. Bitly charges US$199 a month before its plans list a full year of history.

Best for: Startups that want team seats, an API and the option to self-host later.

Pricing:

• Free: 1 user and 3 custom domains, with 25 new links, 1,000 tracked events a month and 30 days of data.
• Pro US$27 a month billed yearly (10% off monthly billing). Business US$81/month and Advanced US$270/month, billed yearly.

Watch out for:

• Self-hosting is a project of its own. The Dub README lists Vercel, PlanetScale, Tinybird and Upstash in the stack.
• Billing changes the quota. On a yearly plan Pro allots 12,000 links for the whole year at once; month-to-month Pro gives 1,000 a month.

Official site: Dub.

Cuttly

For creators, Cuttly bundles extras that Bitly charges for: a link-in-bio page, surveys, Action Pages and campaign tracking sit in the same account as the shortener. Without paying you get one branded domain, unlimited clicks, a month of click history and 30 new links each month.

Every plan has a monthly and a yearly price. Starter is US$12 a month or US$132 a year for 300 links, and Single at US$25 a month or US$275 a year jumps to 5,000 links, 5 domains and a full year of analytics.

Best for: Solo creators who want a bio page and a survey next to their short links.

Pricing:

• Free: 30 new links a month on 1 branded domain; history kept for 30 days.
• Starter US$12/month or US$132/year. Single US$25/month or US$275/year. Team US$99/month or US$1,089/year. Team Enterprise US$149/month or US$1,639/year.

Watch out for:

• The cutt.ly domain has a spam problem. Several reviews on Cuttly's Trustpilot page describe scam texts carrying cutt.ly links, which can make people wary of clicking.
• Free API access is limited to 3 calls a minute and cannot shorten onto your own domain.

Official site: Cuttly.

YOURLS

YOURLS (Your Own URL Shortener) is MIT-licensed PHP software that runs on a short domain you own. There is no monthly cap and no vendor between you and your click data. It records click history, referrers and visitor location, and has a developer API, bookmarklets and a plugin system.

The project is maintained. Release 1.10.6 shipped in August 2026, and the 1.10 line needs PHP 8.1 or newer. Hosting a small instance costs whatever your web host charges.

Best for: Developers and agencies who want unlimited links and full ownership of the data.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (MIT). Hosting and the domain are your own costs.

Watch out for:

• Security fixes are your job. The YOURLS release notes show that 1.10.4, in May 2026, closed a cross-site scripting hole that reached the stats pages through referrer data.
• Out of the box there are no QR codes, team roles or landing pages. Plugins or custom code have to fill those gaps.

Official site: YOURLS.

How to choose

When to stay with Bitly

Stay with Bitly if QR codes are the main job: Premium includes 200 QR codes a month plus landing pages, and Enterprise keeps two years of analytics. Growth also includes custom domain registration with the subscription, so you do not need a separate registrar. If Bitly links already sit in print, changing tools means reprinting them. Teams weighing Short.io against Bitly can compare more options on our Short.io alternatives page.

Frequently asked questions