What Link Tracking and UTM Tools Cost

A link shortener looks like the cheapest tool in a social stack, and the monthly price says so. What the published plans actually sell is the report behind the link, and that is metered three different ways.

This guide reads the pricing pages of Bitly, Short.io, Rebrandly and Dub. Every figure below was read in the page markup on October 31, 2026.

One finding is worth stating before the numbers. On the pages read here, the hard limit is rarely the number of links. It is how long the click data survives.

Bitly sells history, not links

Bitly's free tier is labelled "Free With Ads" at $0 a month. It lists 5 links a month, 2 QR codes a month, 3 custom back-halves a month and "Unlimited clicks & QR Code scans".

Core is listed at $10 a month, marked "Annual Only", with an "Annual charge of $120". It raises links to 100 a month and adds the UTM Builder, plus "30 days of click & scan data".

Growth is listed at $29 a month, or $348 annually. It lists 500 links a month, branded links, a complimentary custom domain and "4 months of click & scan data".

Premium is listed at $199 a month, or $2,388 annually. It lists 3,000 links a month, "1 year of click & scan data" and "Custom campaign-level tracking".

Read those four lines together and the ladder is obvious. Thirty days, four months, one year. Twenty dollars a month buys links; a hundred and seventy more buys the ability to look back a year.

The UTM features are split across three tiers

Bitly's comparison table separates UTM work into four rows, and they do not unlock together. "UTM Builder" is marked unavailable on Free and available on Core, Growth, Premium and Enterprise.

"UTM Presets", described on the page as "Save and reuse UTM parameters", is marked unavailable on both Free and Core. It becomes available on Growth and above.

Two more rows sit higher still. "Bulk Import to Campaigns" and "Export of Campaign Data" are both marked unavailable on Free, Core and Growth, and available only on Premium and Enterprise.

That last row deserves a pause. Exporting your own campaign data to CSV is a $199 a month feature on the page read here, which is the same pattern described in what you can export from a social tool before you leave.

Bitly also meters edits. The "Redirects" row, for changing where an existing link points, is listed as unavailable on Free, then 5 a month on Core, 20 on Growth and 110 on Premium.

Short.io meters clicks you can see

Short.io publishes five tiers: Free at $0, Hobby at $5 a month, Pro at $18, Team at $48 and Enterprise at $148. All five are listed per month on the page read here.

Its unusual row is "Tracked clicks", described as "The limit of redirects visible in statistics". Free lists 50,000 a month and Hobby 100,000 a month, while Pro and above list unlimited.

Separately, the "Redirects" row is unlimited on every tier including Free. So the free plan will send visitors onward forever and simply stop showing you who they were.

Short.io also splits links by how they are made. "Branded links total" is 1,000 on Free and 2,500 on Hobby, and the note says those limits "are issued once and can be used over the account lifetime".

"Link automation", the API and bulk route, is metered yearly instead: 1,000 on Free, 2,500 on Hobby, 10,000 a year on Pro and 100,000 a year on Team. Conversions are 50 a month on Free and 200 on Hobby.

Custom domains climb with the tier too, at 5, 7, 10, 50 and unlimited. Users are 1 on Free, Hobby and Pro, then unlimited on Team and Enterprise, a seat model worth reading next to what counts as a seat in social media tools.

Rebrandly meters links per month

Rebrandly's comparison table is the clearest of the four on volume. Links a month run 10 on Free, 250 on Essentials, 1,500 on Professional, 3,500 on Growth and custom on Enterprise.

Destination edits are metered as well, listed as unavailable on Free, then 10 a month on Essentials, 50 on Professional and 150 on Growth. Password protected links appear only from Professional, at 50 a month.

Link galleries, Rebrandly's link-in-bio pages, run 1, 3, 4 and 11 across the four published tiers, with the free one carrying a watermark according to the table note.

That overlaps a product many teams buy twice without noticing. The standalone market is priced in what a link in bio page costs on six social tools.

One caveat on Rebrandly's headline prices. Each tier renders two figures at once, for example $11 and $8 on Essentials, under separate toggles for annual billing and for high-volume plans, so this guide does not assign either figure to a cycle.

Dub publishes the limits but not the price

Dub lists three tiers, Business, Advanced and Enterprise, and its comparison table is specific. New links are capped at 120,000 a year on Business, 600,000 a year on Advanced and unlimited on Enterprise.

Folders run 20, 50 and unlimited. "UTM builder + templates" is listed on all three tiers, which makes Dub the only page here that does not gate UTM presets behind a mid tier.

The monthly price did not render in the page markup for either tier, only the words "per month". This guide therefore carries no Dub price, rather than guessing at one.

What to check before you pay

• Find the click history row first; 30 days of data makes a quarterly report impossible.
• Check whether links are metered monthly, yearly or once over the account lifetime.
• Look for a separate cap on editing a link's destination, which several pages meter per month.
• Confirm that CSV export of campaign data is on the tier you are buying, not two above it.
• Count custom domains, because one domain per brand is the usual agency requirement.
• Check whether the free tier shows statistics at all, or only performs the redirect.

Those six rows decide more than any feature list. Reading them in order is the same method set out in how to read a social media tool pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

Which plan do I need to add UTM parameters?

On Bitly, the UTM Builder row is marked unavailable on Free and available from Core, listed at $10 a month billed annually. Saving reusable UTM presets needs Growth at $29 a month. Checked October 31, 2026.

How long do shorteners keep click data?

Bitly publishes the clearest ladder: 30 days of click and scan data on Core, 4 months on Growth and 1 year on Premium. Short.io instead caps the number of clicks visible in statistics, at 50,000 a month on Free.

Can I edit where a short link points?

Yes, but it is often metered. Bitly's Redirects row is unavailable on Free and lists 5 a month on Core, 20 on Growth and 110 on Premium. Rebrandly lists 10 destination edits a month on Essentials and 150 on Growth.

Is the free tier of a shortener usable for a campaign?

Only for a tiny one. Bitly's free tier lists 5 links a month and is labelled "Free With Ads". Short.io's free tier allows unlimited redirects but shows statistics for only 50,000 clicks a month.

Why can't I export my own click data?

Because it is a tiered feature. On Bitly, "Export of Campaign Data" is marked unavailable on Free, Core and Growth, and available only on Premium at $199 a month and on Enterprise.

What is the cheapest branded-domain plan?

Of the pages read here, Short.io lists 5 custom domains on its $0 Free tier and 7 on Hobby at $5 a month. Bitly lists a complimentary custom domain starting on Growth at $29 a month.

Bottom line

A complete link-tracking quote names five numbers: links allowed, how they are metered, how long click data is kept, how many destination edits you get, and whether export is included.

All four pages publish the first two. Only Bitly publishes a plain retention figure, and only Dub withholds its price from the page markup entirely.

Retention is the recurring trap in this whole category, not just in shorteners. The scheduling-side version is laid out in how far back social media analytics go.

And if the tool bundles generated copy or images alongside links, price that separately. The usual meters are described in what AI credits in social media tools actually buy and in Canva free versus Pro.