The Short.io alternative without a link meter
Short.io counts your links against a monthly plan. GoTo.now doesn't count at all - Unlimited links, QR codes and private analytics, free.
Shorten your first link free
Where the two tools differ
No link quota
No 1,000-link allowance to watch. Create what the campaign needs - The counter here only goes up.
Free means every feature
Editing, custom back-halves, QR styling and stats are not plan-gated. There is no upgrade wall behind the basics.
Private analytics
Clicks, referrers, devices and countries - Visible only to the link's owner, in real time.
QR codes with your logo
Colors, center logo, PNG and print-grade SVG, unlimited scans. No watermarks at any tier.
Edit after sharing
Re-point any link after it ships. Printed QR codes keep working through every destination change.
REST API
Everything the site does is automatable - Link creation, QR rendering and stats retrieval from your stack.
GoTo.now vs Short.io at a glance
| Feature | GoTo.now | Short.io free tier |
|---|---|---|
| Links per month | Unlimited | Capped allowance |
| Custom back-half | Free, unlimited | Included, within the cap |
| Edit destination later | Free on every link | Included, within the cap |
| QR codes | Styled, logo, SVG - Free | Basic on free |
| Click analytics | Full & private, free | Limited history on free |
| Custom domains on their servers | Request-based | Built-in (their strong suit) |
| Price for all of the above | $0 | Paid plans for scale |
Short.io is a capable product, and its self-serve custom-domain setup is genuinely good - If plugging your own domain in five minutes is the one feature you need, it earns its subscription. The switch case is the other 95% of daily work: shortening, editing, QR codes and stats. Those are metered there and free here.
What "no cap" changes in practice
A monthly link allowance quietly shapes behavior: teams reuse links across placements to save quota, and per-placement attribution dies with it. With no meter, the correct habit - one link per placement - Costs nothing, so print, SMS and social each report their own numbers instead of blending into one.
Switching from Short.io
- Export your links from the Short.io dashboard (CSV).
- Recreate them here - A handful by hand, thousands via the API with idempotent creation, keeping meaningful slugs as custom back-halves.
- Update the sources you control - Bios, templates, signatures, docs.
- Leave printed legacy links running and route every new placement through goto.now from today.
After that, a changed destination is an edit in the dashboard, not a re-share. Also comparing other tools? See the Bitly alternative and Rebrandly alternative breakdowns.
Honest limits
Self-serve custom domains are Short.io's home turf: here, branded domains are provisioned on request rather than by instant setup. If that flow matters more to you than unmetered everything else, Short.io is the better fit today - We would rather say so than surprise you after a migration.