Dub Alternative: Dub vs SendURL on Free Plans and Price

If you want a Dub alternative because you only need short links and click data, not attribution or a partner program, SendURL covers that for less: 100 links on Free (Dub: 25 a month), passwords and expiry on Free, and Pro at $5 a month against Dub's $30. If you need custom domains, a UTM builder, conversion tracking, bot filtering or a team, Dub is the stronger product and SendURL can't replace it. Everything below comes from Dub's pricing page and docs as of 15 October 2026.

Key takeaways

• Dub is a link attribution platform. Conversions, partner payouts, A/B tests, geo and device targeting, deep links, custom domains, teams. It's open source (AGPLv3 for most of the code).
• SendURL is a shortener with per-click records. One shared domain (snu.to), a QR code per link, and every click stored with its country, device, browser, OS, referrer, IP address and user agent.
• On free plans: Dub gives you 25 new links a month, 3 custom domains and 30 days of analytics. SendURL gives you 100 links in total, no custom domain and a listed 7 days of analytics history, plus passwords and expiry.
• On price: Dub Pro is $30 a month. SendURL Pro is $5 a month.
• Through the API: SendURL returns raw click rows on every plan. Dub's analytics endpoints need Pro and its events list needs Business.

Dub vs SendURL at a glance

Dub's figures: pricing page and API reference, checked 15 October 2026. SendURL's: pricing and API docs.

Who each one is for

Choose Dub if you run paid campaigns or an affiliate program and need to tie clicks to sign-ups and sales; you want links on your own domain; you work in a team; or you want to self-host, since the code is public.

Choose SendURL if you want to see every click on a link without paying, you share links where a password or an end date matters, you'd rather read raw click records through an API than dashboards, or $30 a month is more than a link shortener is worth to you.

Where Dub is stronger

Dub does more, and most of it SendURL doesn't do at all:

• Custom domains on the free plan. Three of them, plus a free .link domain on paid plans. SendURL has no custom domains on any plan.
• UTM tools. Templates on Free, a builder from Pro. SendURL has no UTM templates and no UTM fields in the console, only a free UTM builder on its website.
• Conversion tracking and Dub Partners. Dub lists conversion tracking, customer insights and partner payouts on its higher plans. SendURL stops at the click.
• Cleaner counts. Dub's changelog says clicks by bots such as Googlebot and Twitterbot aren't counted (29 October 2023), and since October 2023 repeat clicks from the same IP address and user agent within an hour count once (26 October 2023). SendURL counts every redirect, link previews and security scanners included.
• Location detail. Dub's analytics filter by city and region as well as country. SendURL records the country only.
• Routing. Geo targeting, device targeting, deep links and A/B testing. SendURL sends every visitor to the same destination.
• Teams. 3 users on Pro, 10 on Business. SendURL has one person per workspace.
• Open source. The repository is AGPLv3 apart from its enterprise directories (LICENSE).
• Longer history. Dub lists 30 days of retention on Free and a year on Pro; SendURL's plans list 7 and 30 days of analytics history.

Where SendURL is stronger

• More links on the free plan, up front. 100 links you can make today, against Dub's 25 a month. Over a full year Dub's monthly allowance adds up to more (300), so if you make a few links every month and never need more than 25 at once, Dub's free plan goes further.
• Passwords and expiry on Free. Dub starts both on Pro. On SendURL a password-protected link and an expiring link are on every plan.
• No monthly click cap for viewing data. Dub 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 their analytics". SendURL records every click on Free, lists 7 days of analytics history, and has no monthly tracking cap (each Free link has a visit limit of 100,000).
• Raw clicks through the API on every plan. Dub's analytics endpoints "require a Pro plan subscription or higher", and its events list needs a Business plan. SendURL's GET /links/:id/clicks returns each click record, on Free.
• No account to start. Shorten a link on the SendURL home page and claim it when you sign up.
• Price. Pro is $5 a month for 1,000 links and lists 30 days of analytics history.

Analytics compared

Both record a click when someone opens the link, then show it in charts. The difference is in what you can get back.

Dub aggregates: its analytics API returns counts grouped by country, city, device, browser, OS, referrer, UTM values and more, which is what you want for dashboards. SendURL stores each click as a row and gives you the row:

curl "https://api.sendurl.to/api/v1/links/$LINK_ID/clicks?limit=1" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENDURL_API_KEY"

{
  "clicks": [
    {
      "id": "a4c6e8f0-1b3d-4e5f-9a7b-2c4d6e8f0a1b",
      "clickedAt": "2026-10-14T08:03:11.482Z",
      "source": "qr",
      "country": "DE",
      "city": null,
      "device": "mobile",
      "browser": "Mobile Safari",
      "os": "iOS",
      "referer": null,
      "ip": "203.0.113.24",
      "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 18_6 like Mac OS X) …"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": { "limit": 1, "nextCursor": "WyIyMDI2LTEw…", "hasMore": true }
}

source: "qr" marks a scan of the link's QR code, so the same link can tell scans from taps. city is always null: SendURL doesn't record it. Pages hold up to 10 clicks; pass nextCursor back as cursor for the next page (pagination docs). For a full script that pulls clicks into a spreadsheet, see the URL shortener API guide for Python.

The other difference is counting. Because Dub filters known bots and folds repeat clicks within an hour, its numbers will usually be lower than SendURL's for the same traffic. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. SendURL's records keep the user agent, so you can spot previews and scanners yourself.

Pricing compared

As listed on 15 October 2026:

Dub offers a 14-day trial on paid plans and 10% off for yearly billing. SendURL Pro is set up by email (support@sendurl.to), not by self-serve checkout, and SendURL's link limits are totals for the workspace, not monthly allowances.

What SendURL doesn't do

If you're moving from Dub, check this list first:

• No custom or branded domains; every link is snu.to/<slug>.
• No UTM templates, and no UTM fields in the console.
• No bot filtering, no unique-click count.
• No city or region.
• No conversion tracking, partner program, A/B split, geo or device routing, or deep links.
• No team members.
• No CSV export (the API is the export) and no bulk import.
• No QR styling.
• Changing a link's destination is API-only.

Checklist: is SendURL enough to replace Dub for you?

• Your links can live on snu.to rather than your own domain.
• You don't need conversions, sales attribution or partner payouts.
• You can add UTM parameters to destinations yourself.
• Raw totals (previews and scanners included) are fine, or you'll filter by user agent yourself.
• The analytics history each plan lists (7 days on Free, 30 on Pro) is enough, or you'll pull clicks out through the API.
• One person manages the links.

If most of those are ticked, shorten a link on the home page and see the click records for yourself. If not, Dub is the better fit, and our free Bitly alternatives comparison and the best URL shorteners list cover other options.