Short.io vs TrackRev: what each one measures after the click

Short.io vs TrackRev comes down to what you need counted after the click. Short.io is a dedicated link tool: Pro costs $18 a month for unlimited links and clicks, and country routing starts at $5.

TrackRev is SaaS affiliate software with link tracking built in. It starts at $29 a month and reads your payment processor, so each link shows the revenue it earned, renewals included.

Choose Short.io when a click count is enough, and TrackRev when you need to know which link paid for the subscription.

I built TrackRev for SaaS teams that need each link to show the revenue it earned, with an affiliate program included on every paid plan. Short.io's figures come from its pricing page, integrations page and documentation in October 2026.

The Short.io alternative guide covers switching, and TrackRev vs Short.io has the feature rows.

Sources: short.io/pricing · short.io/integrations

Short.io vs TrackRev at a glance

Where Short.io is the better tool

Short.io costs less at every step below $29, and its Free plan alone has 5 custom domains and 50,000 tracked clicks a month. Country targeting starts on Hobby at $5, while city and region targeting wait for Team at $48.

A/B testing is included on every plan, takes up to 10 variations, and the percentages you set must total 100.

• Short.io became a Google certified click tracker on December 11, 2024, so its branded links can go into Google Ads campaigns.
• Its integrations page lists Zapier, Make, Segment, Slack, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel and AdRoll. Click webhooks start on Pro and carry the referrer, user agent, path and the UTM parameters on the clicked URL.
• A 99.9% uptime SLA and unlimited users arrive on Team at $48. Single sign-on and a daily raw click export to Amazon S3 come with Enterprise at $148.

Sources: docs.short.io/articles · docs.short.io/changelog · docs.short.io/articles

How Short.io tracks conversions

Switch on conversion tracking for a domain and Short.io appends a clid parameter to every destination URL. Your page sends it back through the browser SDK, which calls navigator.sendBeacon(), and results appear per link and in the Conversion Stream.

import { trackConversion, getClickId, observeConversions } from '@short.io/client-browser';

<button data-shortio-conversion="signup">signup</button>
<button data-shortio-conversion="purchase" data-shortio-conversion-value="45.99">purchase</button>

Sources: docs.short.io/articles · docs.short.io/articles

The event fires while a visitor sits on a page, and Stripe collects renewals without one: its subscription docs say Stripe automatically generates invoices and attempts payment collection.

A success page can fire the event for the first payment, and the docs I read cover nothing after it.

Conversions are also metered, at 50 a month on Free and 200 on Hobby, so 300 signups through one launch link, one event each, overrun Hobby by 100. Pro at $18 lifts the cap.

How TrackRev tracks conversions

Link tracking is built into TrackRev's affiliate software. A TrackRev link redirects through its own server, which records the click first.

A pixel sets a first-party cookie on your domain, and an email given at signup or checkout binds the visitor to that address.

Every hour TrackRev reads Stripe with a read-only restricted key on 4 resources, finds new paid charges and walks back from the customer's email to the click. The Stripe integration page shows the setup.

Orders from the other 5 supported processors, Paddle Billing among them, are credited to channels too. A renewal credits the original click, and a refunded charge leaves the channel's total on the next sync.

The email join misses any buyer who never enters an email on a page with the pixel.

Pricing from $0 to $148 a month

Between the two entry plans with unlimited links, the gap is $11 a month on monthly billing and $168 a year against Short.io's annual rate. Indie earns it only if revenue per link would change where you spend.

TrackRev Growth at $299 a year sits $119 above Short.io Pro's $180 annual rate and covers up to 10 workspaces and 10 tracked domains.

When TrackRev is the better pick

Choose TrackRev if you sell subscriptions through any of those 6 processors and your budget question is which channel pays. Each link shows revenue beside its clicks, under last-touch, first-touch or linear credit.

It also suits products that create links in volume. Short.io's Pro plan allows 10,000 links a year through the API or bulk create, about 27 a day, and Team allows 100,000, about 274 a day.

TrackRev's paid plans cap neither links nor events, and its bulk endpoint takes 500 per call.

Links and affiliates can share one record. Every paid plan includes the affiliate program, with commissions calculated from the same charges and reversed on refunds, and TrackRev takes 0% of the revenue tracked.

I found no partner portal, commission rules or payouts on Short.io's pricing or features pages.

Link features TrackRev leaves to dedicated shorteners

• Device routing only: 1 destination for mobile, 1 for desktop, and no country, region or city targeting.
• No A/B or split testing.
• No Zapier app. Automation runs through webhooks, the REST API and the CLI.
• Revenue from 6 processors only, so a business billing through PayPal alone gets the link layer and none of the revenue side.
• A free plan that hides revenue figures and the affiliate program, which start on Indie (see pricing).

Moving links from Short.io to TrackRev

Short.io's pricing FAQ says you can export all your links for free by contacting support, so the move is a CSV and 1 DNS change.

• Pull any click history you want to keep first. Its storage policy keeps click-stream data for 1 year and aggregated statistics for 26 months, and the clickstream API is documented as a Team feature.
• Build a CSV with a destination URL, a channel and your existing slug on each row. TrackRev keeps slugs as written, flags duplicates before creating anything, and bulk import takes up to 500 rows per upload. Indie at $29 a month is enough for a trial run.
• Point your domain's CNAME at cname.trackrev.io and click Verify, and TrackRev issues and renews the SSL certificate (custom tracking domains has the DNS details). A slug missing from the import stops resolving once the record moves.
• Upgrade to Indie at $29 a month for revenue figures, or to Growth at $299 a year if the links span up to 10 workspaces, install the pixel, paste a restricted Stripe key, then cancel the Short.io plan.

Sources: docs.short.io/articles · docs.short.io/articles