TinyURL alternatives: 7 tools compared on free limits, domains and price

The best TinyURL alternatives to try first are Short.io and Dub. Short.io's $0 plan allows 5 custom domains and 50,000 tracked clicks a month, and Dub's adds 3 custom domains, API access and 30 days of analytics.

TinyURL's free plan stops at 30 links a month with no analytics and no way to add your domain; those arrive with Pro at $9 a month billed annually.

Rebrandly, Bitly, Cuttly and the open-source Kutt fill out the list, and I run TrackRev, which is entry 7.

What TinyURL gives you on each plan

TinyURL's pricing page lists four plans. Free marks the analytics dashboard, tracked clicks, tags, destination edits and link deletion as paid.

Bringing your own domain is paid as well, starting on Pro; the page says only that users who downgrade to Free keep one domain active.

Pro treats tracked clicks as unlimited, sells extra links at $1.50 per 10 and includes a free first year on selected domains.

Bulk 50K caps tracked clicks at 50,000 a month and charges $0.60 per 1,000 beyond that, with extra links at $2.00 per 1,000.

In TinyURL's favor, a help article says Free plan users can use the API, and another says its links never expire.

The pricing page agrees for Free and Pro, where Never Expires is the default; Bulk 50K defaults to 90 days.

Links created while signed out belong to your browser session, so clearing the cache can end your ability to manage them, per its missing links article.

How the free plans compare

Seven TinyURL alternatives, one at a time

1. Short.io, for the most room on a free plan

Short.io's $0 plan includes 1 user, 5 custom domains, 1,000 branded links, 50,000 tracked clicks a month and 50 conversions a month.

The link allowance is issued once and lasts the life of the account, and its FAQ confirms you can delete links to stay under it.

API access, QR codes, a UTM builder, A/B testing and link import come with every plan.

One wrinkle: the plan table says 50,000 tracked clicks a month while the FAQ says detailed statistics cover the first 50,000 clicks, so confirm whether the cap resets before you plan around statistics at volume.

Hobby ($5 a month, $50 a year) adds country targeting and referrer hiding.

Pro ($18 a month, $180 a year) brings password protection, expiration, cloaking and unlimited tracked clicks, and Team ($48 a month, $480 a year) adds deep links and a 99.9% uptime SLA.

The Short.io and TrackRev comparison covers where a plain shortener stops.

2. Dub, for open source with API access on the free plan

Dub is the open-source pick: its core is AGPLv3, and about 1% of the codebase sits under a commercial license, per its GitHub README.

The free plan includes 3 custom domains, API access, QR codes, tags and 30 days of analytics, with room for 25 new links and 1,000 tracked events a month and a single user.

Pro costs $30 a month, or $27 a month on the yearly option, which the page labels a 10% discount with 12x usage upfront.

It lifts the allowances to 1,000 new links and 50,000 events a month, 10 domains and a year of analytics, adds a free .link domain and brings in deep links, cloaking, expiration, passwords and geo and device targeting.

A/B testing, conversion tracking and webhooks start at Business ($90 a month, or $81 a month yearly). Dub also sells an affiliate product, Dub Partners, from the same pricing page; the Dub and TrackRev comparison sets its attribution beside ours.

3. Rebrandly, for a cheap paid tier with conversion tracking

Rebrandly's catch is the edit allowance. The free plan has no destination edits, Essentials ($9 a month, $96 a year) allows 10 a month, Professional 50 and Growth 150, so a long campaign list can use them up.

What the free plan does include: 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, 1 custom domain, 5 tags, total clicks and country data (detail on 100 clicks a month) and a 100-calls-a-minute API.

Essentials adds a second domain, 250 links a month and device and time-of-day data. Professional ($27 a month, $264 a year) is the cheap way into conversion tracking, along with city-level data, password protection and link expiration.

Growth ($83 a month, $828 a year) brings mobile deep linking.

4. Bitly, for SSO and group permissions at enterprise scale

Bitly labels its free plan "With ads" and allows 5 links, 1 QR code and 3 custom back-halves a month, 1,000 API requests a month and no analytics history.

Core costs $120 a year with no monthly option and adds 100 links a month, 30 days of click data and a UTM builder, yet still has no branded links.

Those start at Growth ($35 a month, $348 a year), along with a complimentary custom domain, 500 links a month, 120 days of data and bulk creation.

Premium ($300 a month, $2,388 a year) brings 3,000 links, a year of data, city and device data and mobile deep linking, and only Enterprise allows more than one custom domain.

Enterprise also adds SSO, group permissions and 2 years of data. Growth runs $240 a year above TinyURL Pro, $348 against $108, which makes Bitly the expensive route to a branded link.

The Bitly alternatives guide goes deeper on that switch.

5. Cuttly, for TinyURL's 30 links plus 30 days of analytics

Cuttly's free plan mirrors TinyURL's 30 links a month, then adds 1 branded domain, 3 custom back-halves and 30 days of analytics, with API calls capped at 3 every 60 seconds.

It shares TinyURL's other limit too: no destination edits on free. Starter ($12 a month, $132 a year) allows 300 links a month and edits within the same domain.

Single ($25 a month, $275 a year) brings 5,000 links, 5 branded domains, a year of analytics, password links, expiration and retargeting pixels.

Team ($99 a month, $1,089 a year) permits edits to any URL, 730 days of history, 3 teams and 5 members. Yearly billing charges 11 months for 12.

6. Kutt, for running the shortener yourself

Kutt is an MIT-licensed shortener you can host. Its README lists custom domains, link passwords and expiration times, private statistics, an admin page, a REST API and OpenID Connect login.

Setup needs Node.js 20 or newer, with SQLite by default or Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB, and Redis if you want a cache. Self-hosting has no subscription fee, and you run the server, apply updates and keep backups yourself.

The hosted version at kutt.to has a free Stone plan with 10 links a month, 100 tracked stats, 1 custom domain and API access.

Silver ($9 a month, $99 a year) allows 2,500 links a month, 20,000 tracked stats and 3 domains. The README warns that kutt.it is not run by the project and could be a phishing site, so use kutt.to.

7. TrackRev, for links that need to show revenue

I run TrackRev, so weigh this entry accordingly. The link tracking product logs every click server-side with its geo, device and referrer.

The free plan allows 50 links in total and 1,000 tracked events a month with no card, on the shared trackrev.io short domain, and custom domains are listed with the paid plans.

Links can expire by date or click count, take a password, import from a CSV and carry a QR code.

Starter ($39 a month, $351 a year, since annual billing pays for 9 months of 12) removes the link and event caps, connects your domain with one CNAME record and automatic SSL, and opens the REST API's analytics endpoints, which free workspaces cannot read.

See pricing and custom tracking domains for the detail. What the price adds is revenue matching: each click is joined to the Stripe, Paddle, Polar or Lemon Squeezy payment it produced, and the affiliate program runs on the same data.

If you only need branded short links with click statistics, Short.io or Dub costs far less. TrackRev earns its price when the links point at something you sell and you want to know which one earned the money.

What a year costs with your own domain

Each figure is a monthly price times 12: $9 and $11 for TinyURL Pro on annual and monthly billing, $29 and $35 for Bitly Growth, and $39 for TrackRev Starter, whose 25% annual discount takes $117 off the $468.

A domain name costs extra unless the plan includes one, and Short.io's page says registration fees are not in its plan prices.

Which one to pick

Moving your links off TinyURL

Links on tinyurl.com stay on tinyurl.com, so the move covers the links you create from now on.

Old ones keep working under the never-expire default, which makes the editing limit the thing to plan around: treat any Free-plan TinyURL that is printed, embedded or posted as permanent.

For new material, choose a plan that lets you change a destination. Short.io lists destination updating on every plan, free included.

Rebrandly's Essentials allows 10 edits a month, and Cuttly's Starter edits only to URLs on the same domain until Team lifts that.

Put the links on a domain you own, as the branded short link guide explains, so printed links survive a later change of tool once you recreate the slugs there and update DNS.

Tag each destination with UTM parameters first; the free UTM builder does that.