A Bitly alternative without the 5-link monthly cap
Bitly's free plan stops at 5 links a month, shows ads, and keeps click history for paying accounts only. Za.gl shortens as many links as you want, without an account, and shows you the clicks.
What each free plan actually gives you
Read off each vendor's own pricing page on July 26, 2026. Sources at the bottom.
| Free plan | Za.gl | Bitly | TinyURL | Short.io | Dub |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free links per month | Unlimited | 5 | 30 | 1,000 total, lifetime | 25 |
| Click analytics on free | 7-day history | Not included | Not included | 50,000 clicks/mo | 1,000 events, 30 days |
| Password-protected links on free | Included | Not listed | Not listed | Pro only, $18/mo | Pro only |
| Link expiration on free | Up to 30 days | Not included | Not included | Pro only | Pro only |
| Ads on the free plan | None | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Shortens without an account | Yes | Not listed | Yes | Demo domain only | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $5/mo, $50/yr | $10/mo, billed annually | $9/mo | $5/mo | $30/mo |
The parts other shorteners charge for
Password on any link, free
Set a 4 to 100 character password when you create the link. Short.io and Dub both put this behind a paid plan.
Expiring links
Give a link a deadline up to 30 days out on free, up to a year on Pro. After that it returns 410 instead of resolving.
Click analytics without paying
Country, referrer, device and timestamp per click, with 7 days of history on free and 90 on Pro. Bitly gives free users no history at all.
No account needed
Paste a URL, get a short link. An access token is handed back so you can claim and manage the link later if you want to.
Country and device rules
Send visitors from one country somewhere else, or block them, and route mobile traffic separately from desktop.
Custom aliases
Five characters or more on free, three on Pro. Bitly caps free custom back-halves at three per month.
Switching takes one link
There is nothing to migrate. Links already live on bit.ly keep working; you simply create the next one here. Paste a URL on the homepage, add an alias, password or expiry if you need one, and copy the result. The token in the response is what turns those links into an account later, if you decide you want a dashboard.
Shorten your first linkQuestions people ask before switching
Bitly's free plan allows 5 links per month, carries ads, and gives free users no click history. That is fine for a one-off link and painful for anything regular. Za.gl has no monthly cap on links, no ads, and shows click analytics on the free plan.
No. Links you already published on bit.ly keep resolving through Bitly. Switching only affects the links you create from now on, so you can move over gradually rather than in one migration.
Shortening, pastes and landing pages are unlimited on the free plan. Pro costs $5 per month or $50 per year and adds CSV export, 90-day analytics retention, editing every field of a link, three-character aliases, one-year expiration and SVG or PDF QR codes.
Yes. POST to /api/shorten with an Authorization: Bearer token, rate limited to 10 requests per minute. The request works without a token too, and the response hands you one back for the links you just created.
It stops resolving and returns HTTP 410 Gone rather than sending the visitor anywhere. You can also cap a link by number of clicks, from 1 up to 1,000,000.
Every competitor figure was read off that vendor's own pricing page on July 26, 2026, with the sources linked at the bottom. Where a vendor does not state something publicly, the table says "Not listed" instead of guessing.
Competitor figures verified July 26, 2026 on: Bitly pricing, TinyURL pricing, Short.io pricing, Dub link plans. Prices change; if you spot a stale number, tell us and we will fix it.