Bitly

Short links with optional custom domain

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Pricing ModelFree plan plus monthly or annual subscriptions by link volume

Starts AtFree; paid from $10/month billed annually

Best ForCreators who share affiliate links on social, video and email and want a familiar shortener with analytics

SupportHelp centre; dedicated customer success manager on Enterprise

Comparison TablesNo

Broken Link DetectionNo

Geo-TargetingNo

Overview

The best-known link shortener, with custom domains, redirect editing, deep links and click analytics on paid plans.

What it does

Bitly is the shortener most people already recognise, and for affiliates that recognition is the feature: a bit.ly or branded link in a video description or tweet gets clicked where a raw tracking URL does not. It is a hosted service with a web app, browser extension, mobile apps and an API, not a WordPress plugin.

The free plan gives five links a month with unlimited clicks but no click history. Core is $10 a month billed annually for 100 links, 30 days of data, five redirect edits and a UTM builder. Growth is $29 a month annually ($35 monthly) for 500 links, a complimentary custom domain, branded links, four months of data and 20 redirect edits. Premium is $199 a month annually ($300 monthly) for 3,000 links, a year of data, city and device tracking, mobile deep linking and 110 redirect edits. Enterprise is custom with unlimited volume, group permissions, SSO, webhooks and a 99.99% uptime SLA. API requests scale from 1,000 a month on Free to 50,000 on Premium.

Watch the redirect edit limits. Affiliates often need to change where a link points when an offer ends, and Bitly meters those changes per month on every plan below Enterprise.

Bitly is a fine general shortener with strong analytics. It has no affiliate-specific features, no geo routing below Enterprise and no Amazon awareness, so treat it as a distribution tool rather than a link manager.