The Best Free URL Shorteners in 2026: An Honest Comparison
You want a short link and you don't want to pay for it. Fair enough. But most "best free shortener" lists were written years ago and never checked again.
The best free URL shortener depends on the job. For one quick link with no account, use is.gd. For click data and free custom domains, use Short.io or Dub. For a link that lasts, use TinyURL. Bitly has the tightest free limits of the group: five links a month, no click data, and an ad page on every free link.
Every number below was read off the vendor's own pages on 19 September 2026. These pages move fast, so check the live page before you commit to anything.
Which free URL shortener is best for you?
Start with what you actually need, because that narrows the field in one step.
You need one link, right now, with no signup. Use is.gd. There is no account, no plan and no upsell. The catch is permanent: you can never edit or delete an is.gd link.
You want your own domain on the link, for free. Short.io gives five custom domains on its free plan. Dub gives three. One is the usual free allowance, and Bitly gives none at all.
You write code and want links inside it. Dub's free plan includes API access, UTM templates and tags. Short.io's free plan allows 50 API requests a second. Either one works without a card. clik.so's free plan also includes its REST API, with three keys.
You want a name people recognise. That points to Bitly or TinyURL. Read the trade-offs below first, because both free plans have changed.
You want the numbers. Short.io, Dub and Cuttly all show click data on a free plan. Bitly and TinyURL do not.
You shorten links all day, from the browser. T.LY has no free plan. Its home page still offers a shortener it labels "Free to use. No account needed", and it publishes a free browser extension.
You are printing the link on paper. A flyer or a label cannot be reprinted, so you need to be able to change where the link points later. Check the edit column in the table below before you send anything to the printer. Bitly, TinyURL, Rebrandly and Cuttly all say no on free, and is.gd says no forever.
New to all this? Here is how a URL shortener works, in plain words.
What changed in 2026
Five things, and each one contradicts something you will read on most comparison pages.
1. Bitly's free plan has no click data at all. Not thirty days. None. The Data History row on Bitly's pricing table shows a dash for Free. The 30-day window starts on the paid Core plan.
2. Bitly free links show an ad page first. Bitly's help centre says it "introduced an interstitial page that includes a preview of the link destination and an ad". Free accounts still include ads. Only a paid plan removes them. None of this appears on the pricing page. Bitly has also stopped its no-account shortener, and those older links can never be edited.
3. T.LY has no free plan any more. Its pricing page lists four paid plans and a custom quote. Not one of them is free. There is a five-day trial with no card. T.LY still shows up in nearly every "best free" list.
4. BL.INK is no longer self-serve. The bl.ink site now redirects to Loftware, which bought BL.INK in April 2025. There is no public pricing page, so there are no free-tier numbers to give you.
5. Two caps get misread all the time. Short.io's free 1,000 links are a lifetime total, not a monthly one. Short.io's own table says the limits "are issued once and can be used over the account lifetime". And TinyURL's free plan is 30 links a month, not unlimited. Dub's free plan is real but hidden: dub.co/pricing opens on the Partners tab, which shows no free plan at all.
How we checked this
Every limit here came from the vendor's own pricing page or help centre, opened on 19 September 2026. We took nothing from other comparison posts. That is where most of the stale numbers come from.
Three rules kept us honest. Where a vendor's own pages disagreed with each other, we left the cell blank and said so in the notes. Where a vendor publishes no number, we do not guess one. And where a plan has quietly gone away, we say that instead of repeating an old figure.
That is why the table has gaps in it. A gap means we could not confirm something, not that the answer is no.
Two things stayed out for the same reason. Nobody publishes how long Short.io or Rebrandly keeps your click data. Nobody says whether Dub, Rebrandly or Cuttly ever remove an unused free link. We would rather leave a blank than fill it in from memory.
Pricing pages change without notice. A month from now, treat every figure here as a starting point. Open the vendor's page yourself, since each source links straight to what we read.
The free plans, side by side
| Tool | Free links | Click data on free | Custom domains | Edit a link later | Cheapest paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitly | 5 a month | None | None | No | $10/mo, yearly only |
| clik.so | 50 a month | 2,000 clicks, 30 days | 1 | Yes | $6.99/mo |
| Cuttly | 30 a month | Yes, 30 days | 1 | No | $12/mo |
| Dub | 25 a month | 1,000 events, 30 days | 3 | — | $30/mo |
| is.gd | 200/hour, 4,800/day | Only if switched on first | None | Never | No paid plan |
| Rebrandly | 10 a month | Totals and country; 100 clicks/mo of detail | 1 | No | — |
| Short.io | 1,000 lifetime | First 50,000 clicks | 5 | Yes | $5/mo |
| TinyURL | 30 a month | None | Not clear | No | $9/mo |
Read on 19 September 2026 from each vendor's own pages. A dash means the page does not say. TinyURL's pricing table and its own blog disagree about free custom domains, so we are not quoting a number. Bitly's Core plan is billed yearly only, and its cheapest month-to-month plan is Growth at $35 a month. Rebrandly's page showed more than one price for the same plan when we read it, so we are not quoting one.
Two names are missing on purpose. T.LY has no free plan, so it cannot sit in a free table. BL.INK publishes no self-serve pricing at all now, so we have nothing to put in the row.
A closer look at each one
Alphabetical, so nobody gets a head start.
Bitly. Five new links a month and three custom back-halves a month. No click or scan data on free, and an ad page in front of every free link. You cannot change where a free link points. Links do not expire, and you get 2FA, the browser extensions and the mobile app. Pick this if you want the bit.ly name on a few links and do not need numbers.
clik.so. Full disclosure: this is our product. Free gives 50 new links a month and 2,000 tracked clicks, kept for 30 days. You get one custom domain, plus eight shared clik.is domains that do not count against it. Custom slugs, editable destinations, the QR customiser and a UTM builder are included, with no card. The weak spots are real. Fifty links is a low ceiling and 30 days of history is short. The API is included on Free (three keys), but link passwords start on the $6.99 Starter plan. Pick this if you want a branded domain and editable links free, at small volume.
Cuttly. Thirty new links a month, three custom back-halves, one branded domain and 30 days of click history. QR codes come in one style, and you cannot edit where a free link points. Pick this if you want click data and a branded domain free, and 30 links a month is enough.
Dub. Twenty-five new links a month, 1,000 tracked events, 30 days of history and three custom domains. It also includes API access, UTM templates and tags. Dub calls it "the most generous free plan on the market", which is their line and not ours. Dub is now mostly an affiliate and partner-payouts product. Pick this if you write code, or you want three custom domains free.
is.gd. No account, no plans, no paid tier. It limits you by rate rather than quota: 200 links an hour and 4,800 a day, per IP address. Click stats are opt-in, and you must switch them on as you create the link. You can never edit or delete an is.gd link, which is in their terms. is.gd expects its links to last forever. Pick this if you need one link now and will never change it.
Rebrandly. Ten new links a month and one custom domain. Free shows your total click count and the country, but detailed engagement data stops at 100 clicks a month. Free QR codes carry a watermark and cap at ten a month. Free users get no destination edits at all. Pick this if you want a branded domain on a handful of links and rarely open the data.
Short.io. The most generous free custom-domain allowance we found: five. Free also lets you update where a link points, and Short.io's page says it allows commercial use on the free plan. Read the link cap twice: it is 1,000 branded links for the life of the account, not per month. Click stats cover your first 50,000 clicks, after which the links keep working but new data is hidden. Pick this if you want several branded domains free and create links slowly.
TinyURL. Thirty new links a month, custom aliases and a QR code with every link. Free links never expire, per TinyURL's own pricing table. There is no click data on free, and you cannot change where a link points later. Pick this if you want links that last and do not need stats.
What does a free plan actually cost you?
Somebody pays for the servers. The two biggest costs are above: an ad page on Bitly's free links, and no click data on Bitly or TinyURL. Three more are easy to miss.
Links you cannot fix. Bitly, TinyURL, Rebrandly and Cuttly all block destination edits on free. is.gd blocks them forever, by design. Get the URL wrong and the link is dead, which is one of the quieter roads to link rot.
Caps that never reset. Short.io's 1,000 links are a lifetime total. Everyone else in the table counts per month.
Watermarks. Rebrandly stamps its free QR codes and its free link gallery.
None of this makes a free plan a bad deal, but it does mean that free is not one thing. Read the row that matters to you and ignore the rest.
Questions people ask
Does Bitly still send visitors straight to my page?
Not on a free account. Bitly's help centre says it added a page showing a preview of your destination plus an ad. Free accounts still include ads, and only a paid plan removes them. That page is not mentioned on Bitly's pricing page.
Can I use a free URL shortener for business?
Read the terms first. clik.so, which is our product, allows commercial use on every plan, Free included. Short.io's pricing page says it allows commercial use on its free plan too, and notes that many shorteners do not. We found no matching statement on the other pricing pages. If the link is going on an invoice or a package, check before you print.
Do free short links expire?
It depends, and only some vendors say. Bitly says free links do not expire. TinyURL's pricing table lists free links as never expiring. is.gd expects its links to last forever. The others publish no policy, so we cannot tell you either way.
Which free plan gives me my own domain?
Short.io gives five, Dub gives three, and clik.so, Cuttly and Rebrandly give one each. Bitly gives none on free, and TinyURL's own pages disagree, so we are not quoting a number. Here is how to put a custom domain on your short links.
Want to try one?
clik.so's free plan gives you 50 links a month, 2,000 tracked clicks and one custom domain, with no card. If that does not fit, one of the tools above probably will — that is the whole point of the table. The full plan comparison is there if you ever outgrow the free tier.