Free Bitly Alternatives in 2026: Free Plans Compared

The best free Bitly alternative depends on what made you leave. If it's the 5-link monthly cap and the ad page, TinyURL (30 links a month, no analytics) or SendURL (100 links, per-click analytics) are the simplest swaps; if you need a branded domain for free, look at Rebrandly, Short.io or Dub. The table below compares all six free plans on the same rows, checked on each vendor's pricing page on 15 October 2026.

What Bitly's free plan includes now

As of 15 October 2026, Bitly's pricing page lists the free plan as "Free" with a "With Ads" badge:

• 5 links a month, 2 QR codes a month and 3 custom back-halves a month.
• No click data history. The feature table shows a dash for data history, country data and referrer data on Free; Bitly's own free plan post (16 April 2026) says the plan doesn't include "click and scan analytics for short links and QR Codes".
• No destination changes. Redirects (changing where a link points) start on Core.
• 1,000 API requests a month.
• An ad page in front of your links. Bitly's support article "Why are there ads on my links?" (checked 15 October 2026) says free accounts get "an interstitial page that includes a preview of the link destination and an ad".
• An account is required. Bitly discontinued its anonymous shortener; its Anonymous Link FAQ says "Bitly now requires all users to create an account".

The first paid plan, Core, is $10 a month billed annually only ($120 a year) for 100 links a month and 30 days of click data. Growth ($29 a month billed annually, $348 a year, or $35 month to month) adds a custom domain and 4 months of data. Premium is $199 a month billed annually, or $300 month to month.

None of that makes Bitly a bad product. It's a large platform with landing pages, a UTM builder, bulk creation and mobile apps. It just isn't a generous free tool any more.

Free plans compared

Each vendor's free plan as listed on its own pricing page on 15 October 2026. "Monthly" limits reset every month; "total" limits don't.

Sources: Bitly, TinyURL and its free plan post (30 March 2026), Rebrandly, Short.io, Dub and its API docs, and SendURL's pricing.

Two rows need a footnote. Short.io's 1,000 links are a lifetime total: its page says limits "are issued once and can be used over the account lifetime". SendURL's 100 links are a total too, counted across your whole workspace, so a heavy user gets more links out of Dub (25 a month adds up to 300 in a year) or TinyURL than out of SendURL Free.

Pick by what you need

You hit 5 links a month and want something simple

TinyURL is the closest thing to old free Bitly: 30 links a month, a QR code for each, custom aliases, links that don't expire, and no account needed for a one-off link. Its free plan has no click analytics and you can't change a link's destination; both start on Pro, from $11 a month or $9 a month billed yearly. More in TinyURL vs SendURL.

SendURL gives you 100 links and counts every click. You can also shorten on the home page without an account and claim the link when you sign up. See the URL shortener with no sign-up.

You want click analytics without paying

This is where free plans differ most, and where SendURL is strongest. Every SendURL click is stored as its own record: time, country, device, browser, operating system, referrer when the browser sends one, IP address, user agent, and whether it came from the QR code. Free lists 7 days of analytics history, Pro 30. The free link tracker page shows what that looks like.

The other free plans count clicks differently:

• Dub lists 30 days of analytics retention on Free (longer than SendURL Free lists). Its changelog says clicks by bots such as Googlebot and Twitterbot aren't counted (29 October 2023). It tracks 1,000 events a month on Free; past that, its FAQ says links keep working and clicks are still tracked, but you need to upgrade to view them. Dub vs SendURL compares the two in detail.
• Short.io shows statistics for the first 50,000 clicks a month.
• Rebrandly gives country-level data, and detailed engagement data for 100 clicks a month.
• Bitly and TinyURL show no click history on free.

If you're choosing a shortener mainly for analytics, free URL shorteners with analytics goes field by field.

You need a branded domain

SendURL can't help here: every link is on snu.to, and there are no custom domains on any plan. Your options on a free plan:

• Short.io: 5 custom domains on Free, with 1,000 links in total (Short.io vs SendURL).
• Dub: 3 custom domains on Free, 25 new links a month.
• Rebrandly: one custom .bio domain plus its own rebrand.ly, 10 links a month (Rebrandly vs SendURL).

A domain you own is also the strongest protection against a shortener closing: if the service goes away, you point the domain at another one.

You need an API

All six list API access on free plans, but what you can read back differs. Bitly allows 1,000 requests a month. Dub's analytics endpoints "require a Pro plan subscription or higher" and its events list needs Business. SendURL's API is the same on every plan: create and edit links, and read every click record, 10 per page with a cursor.

curl "https://api.sendurl.to/api/v1/links" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENDURL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "destinationUrl": "https://example.com/menus/autumn-2026", "title": "Autumn menu" }'

The full reference is in the API docs.

You need passwords or expiring links on a free plan

SendURL is the only one of the six with both on Free. Rebrandly lists link expiration and password-protected links from Professional; Short.io from Pro ($18 a month); Dub from Pro ($30 a month); Bitly lists link expiration from Growth.

What SendURL doesn't do

Fair is fair. If any of these matter, one of the others will suit you better:

• No custom or branded domains.
• No UTM fields in the console. You add UTM parameters to the destination yourself, by hand or with the free UTM builder on our website.
• No bot filtering and no unique clicks.
• No city or region: location stops at the country.
• No CSV export; the API is the export.
• No team seats, bulk import, browser extension or mobile app.
• No QR styling (logo, colours, frame).
• Each Free link stops at 100,000 visits (it then answers 410); Bitly and Rebrandly list unlimited clicks, and Short.io unlimited redirects.
• Changing a link's destination is API-only.
• Pro ($5 a month for 1,000 links and 30 days of history) is set up by email at support@sendurl.to, not by self-serve checkout.

Paid plans, side by side

If a free plan won't do, the first paid step, as listed on 15 October 2026:

For a deeper look at one pair, see Bitly vs SendURL and Dub vs SendURL. For shorteners ranked overall, not only on free plans, see the best URL shorteners.

Switching from Bitly without breaking links

You can't move a bit.ly link. It lives on Bitly's domain, so only Bitly decides where it goes. What you can do:

1. 1.
   Leave old links alone. Links already printed or posted keep working as long as Bitly serves them; on the free plan they'll show Bitly's ad page.
2. 2.
   Make new links elsewhere for anything you share from now on.
3. 3.
   Replace links you control. For your bio, website buttons and email templates, create a new short link to the same destination and swap it in.
4. 4.
   Keep a list of every old bit.ly link and its destination. Bitly's free plan includes API access, so you can pull the list from there.
5. 5.
   Don't reuse a printed bit.ly link's slot. If a poster or package carries a bit.ly link, it stays on Bitly until that print run is gone.

Checklist: choosing a free Bitly alternative

• How many links a month will you make? Compare monthly caps with total caps.
• Do you need to know who clicked where (country, device, referrer), or just a total?
• How far back do you need to look? 7 days, 30 days, a year?
• Will links go on paper? Then you want QR codes and a way to change the destination.
• Do you need your own domain? Then it's Short.io, Dub or Rebrandly (Rebrandly: a yourbrand.bio address).
• Do you need an API, and what can it read back on your plan?
• What happens to your links if you stop paying, or if the service closes? What happened to goo.gl links is the recent example.

To try SendURL first, shorten a link on the home page; no account needed.