Best free URL shorteners compared

Free means different things from one URL shortener to the next. Some let you work without limits. Others allow a handful of links a month, keep click statistics for paying customers, or show an ad before your page opens. We compared five services using what each one states on its own pricing and help pages. We run Nev, so we are not a neutral judge: check the figures yourself before you decide.

What the free plans include

Service	Links a month	Click statistics	QR codes
Nev	Unlimited	checkUnlimited	checkUnlimited
Bitly	5	Paid plans	2 a month
TinyURL	30	Paid plans	checkWith every link
Rebrandly	10	Details for 100 clicks a month	10 a month, with a watermark
Cuttly	30	Last 30 days	One style

What to check before you choose

How many links are free. Monthly limits on free plans are low: 5, 10, or 30 links. That is enough to try a service and rarely enough to use it. What the person who clicks sees. The link is for them, not for you. If an ad or a waiting page stands between the click and your page, some of them will never arrive. Whether you can see the clicks. Knowing if anyone opened the link is the reason many people shorten links at all. On some services that is free, on others it starts with a paid plan. Whether you need an account. An account means a password, an email address on file, and one more place that holds your data. For a link you need once, a shortener that works without one saves time. How long the link works. A link printed on a poster or saved in an old message has to keep working. Look for a clear statement about how long links are kept. Whether the shortener itself is clean. Look up its address in a public scanner such as VirusTotal. If security vendors flag the service, browsers and mail filters may block your links no matter where they lead. Our guide to short link safety shows how to check.

The five services one by one

Nev. No account and no limit on the number of links. Links open the destination directly, with no ads and no waiting page. Every link comes with click statistics and a QR code, is screened for phishing and malware, and is stored for at least ten years unless you set an expiry date. A permanent link can be given an ending of your own choice, and you can delete a link yourself within an hour of creating it, together with its statistics. The list of your links is kept only in your browser, so Nev also works as a private bookmark list: copy it and import it on another device at any time. Because there are no accounts, anyone who knows a link can view its statistics. Nev has no custom domains and no team accounts, and the address a link leads to cannot be changed once the link exists. Bitly. One of the best-known shorteners, built for marketing: branded links, QR codes, and landing pages. Bitly states that every user must create an account. Its free plan is labelled as a plan with ads: it allows 5 links and 2 QR codes a month, and a preview page with an ad appears before the destination. Click data history and ad-free links come with paid plans. TinyURL. One of the oldest shorteners, online since 2002. Its home page has a field for shortening a link and choosing your own ending for it. The free plan lists 30 links a month, each with a QR code, and its links do not expire. Click analytics and editing a link belong to paid plans. Rebrandly. Built around branded links under your own domain, and the free plan includes one. That plan covers 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, with detailed click data for up to 100 clicks. QR codes made on it carry a watermark. Cuttly. A link management platform that adds link-in-bio pages and surveys to short links. The free plan gives 30 links a month and keeps click statistics for 30 days. Cuttly states that it does not inject ads and that its links do not expire.

Which one to choose

A link right now, without signing up. Nev. You also get click statistics and a QR code without paying. Links under your own domain. Bitly, TinyURL, Rebrandly, and Cuttly offer branded domains, some of them only on paid plans. Nev has no custom domains. A team that runs campaigns together. Bitly, Rebrandly, and Cuttly offer team features on paid plans. Nev has none. Nothing between the click and your page. Stay away from free plans that add an ad page. Nev never shows ads, on the site or in front of links.