The Best URL Shorteners in 2026: 6 Free and Paid Tools Compared

The short answer: there is no single best URL shortener, because the free plans are built for different people. TinyURL is the quickest way to shorten a link without an account. Short.io gives the most on a free plan if you want your own domain. Dub suits developers. Rebrandly is a cheap way into branded links. Bitly is the big-company choice, but its free plan is small: 5 links a month on its US pricing page, with no click data. MiniSnip (that's us) is the pick if you care most about click counts that leave out bots.

The rest of this guide shows the numbers behind those picks, so you can check them against what you need.

Do you need a paid URL shortener?

A URL shortener turns a long address into a short one and sends visitors on to the original. Every tool in this guide does that for free. You start to need more when:

• You want to know if a link worked. Free plans at Bitly and TinyURL show no click data at all.
• You print the link. A QR code on a poster or a pack should point at a link you can edit later, so a changed web page doesn't mean a reprint.
• You want your own name on the link. A link like go.yourbrand.com/sale is trusted more in messages and email, and you can take it with you if you ever change tools.
• You make links every week. Monthly limits of 5 or 10 links run out quickly for a shop or a creator.

If none of those apply, any free shortener will do. If one does, the differences below matter.

The six tools at a glance

All figures come from each company's own pricing page on 6 November 2026, using monthly billing unless a plan is only sold yearly. Prices change, so the sources are linked at the end of this article.

Two things in that table are easy to miss. Some limits are per month and some are in total, which changes the picture completely over a year. And "tracked clicks" limits mean that once you pass them, the link still works but you stop seeing data. Both are explained below.

How we compared them

We looked at the questions people actually ask before they pick a link shortener:

1. How many links can I make for free, and does the limit reset each month?
2. Can I see who clicked, and for how long is that data kept?
3. When can I use my own domain, like go.yourbrand.com, and what does that cost?
4. Can I change where a link goes after I've shared it?
5. Are bots counted as clicks? Link previews and security scanners open links too, and most tools count them.

Prices were taken from each pricing page with monthly billing selected, except Bitly, which shows yearly prices. We didn't test hidden enterprise features or sales-only plans. MiniSnip is our own product, so we've tried to be clear about where other tools are the better choice.

MiniSnip

MiniSnip is a URL shortener built around one idea: a click should mean a person. Link previews from WhatsApp and Slack, social network crawlers and email security scanners are recognised (more than 140 bots by name) and kept out of your click counts.

• Free plan: 25 links in total, a QR code for every link, custom endings, 30 days of click data, a link-in-bio page and no ads.
• Pro, $19/month: unlimited links, 3 custom domains, 365 days of data, 5 team seats, the API, password protection, country and device rules, A/B tests and retargeting pixels.
• Enterprise, $99/month: 25 domains, 3 years of data and 25 team seats.

Good to know: the free plan's 25 links are a total, not a monthly allowance, and custom domains start on Pro. MiniSnip is newer and smaller than Bitly or TinyURL.

Best for: anyone who wants analytics they can trust, especially for links shared in chat apps, where previews inflate other tools' numbers.

TinyURL

TinyURL has been shortening links since 2002 and is still the fastest way to do it: paste a link on the homepage and you get a short one, no account needed.

• Free plan: 30 links a month on the tinyurl.com domain. Links never expire, but there is no analytics dashboard.
• Pro, $11/month ($9/month billed yearly): 125 links a month (more can be added for $1.50 per 10), unlimited tracked clicks, 3 branded domains and 2 years of click history.
• Bulk 50K, $83/month ($69 yearly): 50,000 links and 50,000 tracked clicks a month. Links on this plan expire after 90 days by default.

Good to know: you can't see any click data on the free plan, so you won't know if a link worked.

Best for: one-off links where you don't need stats. See MiniSnip vs TinyURL for a side-by-side view.

Bitly

Bitly is the best-known name in short links and the default choice at many large companies. Its paid plans add landing pages, many QR codes and enterprise controls.

• Free plan: 5 short links and 2 QR codes a month, 3 custom back-halves a month, with ads and no click data. Bitly shows limits by region: in some countries the same page lists 50 links a month.
• Core, $10/month, billed yearly only: 100 links a month and 30 days of click data.
• Growth, $29/month billed yearly ($35 monthly): 500 links a month, one custom domain and 4 months of click data.
• Premium, $199/month billed yearly ($300 monthly): 3,000 links a month and 1 year of data.

Bitly also counts how often you change where a link goes: it isn't included on Free, and Core allows 5 changes a month, Growth 20 and Premium 110.

Good to know: the free plan is now closer to a trial than a plan, and you need Growth for your own domain. Links on bit.ly belong to Bitly's domain, which matters if you ever switch (more on that in our guide to Bitly alternatives).

Best for: large teams that want a well-known vendor and enterprise support. See MiniSnip vs Bitly.

Rebrandly

Rebrandly focuses on branded links: short links on a domain you own.

• Free plan: 10 links and 100 tracked clicks a month, plus one custom domain.
• Essentials, $9/month ($8 yearly): 250 links a month, 2 custom domains and 10 destination edits a month.
• Professional, $27/month ($22 yearly): 1,500 links a month, 3 custom domains, 50 destination edits a month and conversion tracking.

Good to know: paid plans limit how many times a month you can change where links go. The free plan stops tracking after 100 clicks a month.

Best for: a small business that wants a few branded links on its own domain without paying much. See MiniSnip vs Rebrandly.

Short.io

Short.io has the most generous free plan for custom domains.

• Free plan: 1,000 links in total, 50,000 tracked clicks a month, 5 custom domains and 1 user.
• Hobby, $5/month: 2,500 links, 7 domains and country targeting.
• Pro, $18/month: unlimited links and clicks, 10 domains, password protection and link expiry.
• Team, $48/month: unlimited users, 50 domains and city and region targeting.

Good to know: the free plan's 1,000 links are a total. Targeting by country starts on Hobby, and password protection on Pro.

Best for: people who want their own domain without paying, or who run many brands.

Dub

Dub is a newer link platform with open-source code, a full API and a strong focus on developers and marketing attribution.

• Free plan: 25 new links and 1,000 tracked events a month, 30 days of analytics and 3 custom domains.
• Pro, $30/month ($27 yearly): 1,000 new links and 50,000 events a month, 1 year of analytics and a free .link domain.
• Business, $90/month ($81 yearly): 10,000 links and 250,000 events a month, 3 years of analytics, conversion tracking and A/B tests.

Good to know: conversion tracking and A/B tests start on Business, which also includes Dub's affiliate product, Dub Partners.

Best for: developers who want to build links into their own product.

Monthly limits vs total limits

Free plans count links in two different ways:

• Per month: Bitly (5), Rebrandly (10), Dub (25) and TinyURL (30) reset every month. Over a year, TinyURL's free plan allows up to 360 links.
• In total: MiniSnip (25) and Short.io (1,000) count every link you keep. Delete one and you can make another.

If you make a few links a week, a monthly allowance goes further. If you make a handful of links and keep using them for months, a total allowance with full click data is usually the better deal.

Here is what each free plan adds up to over a year:

Features that matter more than the price

Two tools with the same price can be very different to live with. These are the things people usually notice only after a few months:

• How long click data is kept. Bitly's Core plan keeps 30 days and Growth 4 months. TinyURL Pro and MiniSnip Pro keep one year or more. If you compare campaigns over a season, short history hurts.
• Limits on editing links. Some plans count destination changes: Bitly Core allows 5 a month and Rebrandly Essentials 10. If you print QR codes, you want to change destinations freely.
• Monthly link caps on paid plans. Bitly Growth allows 500 new links a month and TinyURL Pro 125. Unlimited plans (MiniSnip Pro, Short.io Pro) remove that worry.
• What happens to the domain. Links on a shortener's own domain stay with that company. Google closed its goo.gl shortener to new links in 2019, which left many people with links they couldn't move. Links on your own domain can always be pointed at a new tool.
• Whether bots are counted. This decides whether your numbers mean anything, as the next section explains.

Common mistakes when choosing a link shortener

1. Picking the best-known name by default. A famous brand is a safe choice for an enterprise, but free and low-cost plans vary much more than the names suggest.
2. Ignoring how limits reset. "1,000 links" and "30 links a month" sound very different, but over a year they are closer than they look.
3. Building on someone else's domain. If the links will be printed or shared widely, put them on a domain you own from the start.
4. Trusting raw click counts. A link shared in group chats can show clicks from previews before anyone taps it. Check whether the tool separates bots.
5. Forgetting the team. If more than one person will create links, check how many users the plan includes before you build your workflow on it.

Why the same link shows different click counts

Put the same link in two shorteners and their click counts will rarely match. The difference is mostly machines. When you paste a link into WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram or Slack, the app opens it within a second to build the preview card. Email security tools open every link in a message to check it. Search and AI crawlers come back later.

Tools that count every request report all of these as clicks. MiniSnip recognises them and lists them separately, so a link shared in five group chats doesn't show five clicks before anyone has tapped it. Our guide to who opens your link before any person does lists what each app sends.

How to choose in two minutes

Ask yourself three questions:

1. Do I need click data? If not, TinyURL's free plan is enough. If yes, skip Bitly's and TinyURL's free plans.
2. Do I need my own domain now? Short.io, Dub and Rebrandly include one for free; MiniSnip and TinyURL from about $11–19 a month; Bitly from $29 a month billed yearly.
3. Will I share links in chat apps or email? Then bot filtering matters, because previews and scanners can easily double the numbers.

For a longer list of things to check before you commit, see our 10-point checklist for comparing link shorteners.

Sources

Prices and limits were checked on each company's pricing page on 6 November 2026: Bitly, TinyURL, Rebrandly, Short.io, Dub and MiniSnip.