Bitly is free for 5 links and 2 QR codes a month, and your own custom domain starts on its Growth plan at $35 a month ($29 billed yearly). LotsLink gives you unlimited short links, QR codes and click analytics for free, and charges only for your own domain: $4 a month, or $9 a month for three. Both have an MCP server for ChatGPT and Claude.
If you share links for work, make more than a handful a month and want your own domain without a $348 yearly bill, LotsLink fits. If you need link-in-bio pages, mobile deep links, editable QR destinations or enterprise SSO, Bitly is the bigger platform and worth its price.
Everything about Bitly below comes from its own pricing page, MCP page and developer docs, checked on 14 October 2026, with links at the end.
LotsLink vs Bitly at a glance
| LotsLink | Bitly | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Unlimited short links, QR codes, clicks and analytics on lots.link, plus one free lots.link subdomain | 5 links, 2 QR codes and 3 custom back-halves a month, unlimited clicks and scans, "Free With Ads" |
| Custom domain | From $4 a month per domain (pay as you go), or Starter $9 a month for 3, Pro $24 for 10, Business $59 for 30 | One complimentary domain from Growth: $35 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly ($348). Multiple domains on Enterprise |
| Short links | Unlimited (up to 1,000 new links per person in any 24 hours) | 5, 100, 500 or 3,000 a month on Free, Core, Growth and Premium |
| QR codes | Unlimited, PNG of the short link, scans counted as clicks | 2, 5, 10 or 200 a month; logo, colors, frames and SVG export |
| Click analytics | Country, city, device and referrer, timeline, individual click records and CSV or JSON export, free | Referrer from Core, country top 10 on Core and full from Growth, city and device from Premium, export from Growth |
| Analytics history | All-time click totals, reports for any period up to 365 days | 30 days (Core), 120 days (Growth), 1 year (Premium), 2 years (Enterprise) |
| AI agent access | MCP server (https://api.lots.link/mcp, OAuth) and REST API on every account, 34 tools | MCP server (https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/mcp, OAuth or API token) on all plans, 27 tools, within your plan's limits |
| Dashboard | Full dashboard: links, QR codes, domains, workspaces, analytics | Full web app, browser extensions and mobile apps |
| Teams | Unlimited workspaces and team members, free, with owner, admin, member and viewer roles | Multiple users and group permissions on Enterprise |
| Paid plans | $9, $24 or $59 a month (yearly: 10 monthly payments) | Core $10 a month (yearly only), Growth $35 ($29 yearly), Premium $300 ($199 yearly), Enterprise custom |
Where LotsLink is the better choice
Free means unlimited links, not five a month
Bitly's free plan is a real free plan, but it's sized for trying Bitly: 5 short links and 2 QR codes a month. Clicks are unlimited on both, so the difference is how many links you can make. On LotsLink, links, QR codes, clicks and analytics are free and unlimited, with one guardrail: up to 1,000 new links per person in any 24 hours.
So if you make a link for every post, newsletter and campaign, you'd outgrow Bitly Free in your first week. With LotsLink you don't pay anything until you want your own domain.
Your own domain costs $4, not $35
This is the gap most people search for. On Bitly, branded links on your own domain start with Growth: $35 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly as $348. That plan includes one complimentary domain, and more than one domain is an Enterprise feature.
On LotsLink, the only thing you pay for is your own custom domain:
| You want | LotsLink | Bitly |
|---|---|---|
| 1 custom domain | $4 a month (pay as you go) | Growth, $35 a month or $348 a year |
| 3 custom domains | Starter, $9 a month or $90 a year | Enterprise (custom price) |
| 10 custom domains | Pro, $24 a month or $240 a year | Enterprise (custom price) |
You point a DNS-only CNAME at customers.lots.link, LotsLink verifies the hostname and the HTTPS certificate, and you keep the domain with your own registrar. Bitly's Growth plan includes domain registration with the subscription, which is handy if you don't own one yet. The full breakdown is in LotsLink pricing explained, and current plans are on lots.link/pricing.
Full click analytics on the free account
On LotsLink every account sees the whole picture for every link: country, city, device, referrer, a daily timeline, individual click records, and export as CSV or JSON. Bots, link previews and prefetches aren't counted, so the count is real opens of your link.
Bitly splits analytics across its plans. Its feature table lists referrer data from Core, country data as a top 10 on Core and in full from Growth, city and device data from Premium ($199 a month billed yearly), and data export from Growth. Its data history is 30 days on Core, 120 days on Growth and 1 year on Premium. On LotsLink you can pull any period up to 365 days and the all-time total for every link.
If you print QR codes, every scan of a LotsLink code is a click on that link, with the same detail. I wrote up how that works in How to track QR code scans.
Your AI agent isn't capped at five links
Both products have a proper MCP server, and Bitly's covers a lot: links, QR codes, analytics and account details across 27 tools, on every plan. Bitly says the MCP uses your existing permissions and plan limits, so on Bitly Free your agent gets the same 5 links and 2 QR codes a month you do.
LotsLink's MCP has 34 tools and the same unlimited allowance as the dashboard. Your agent can create links with custom slugs, UTM tags and expiry dates, make QR codes, add and verify your custom domain, run workspaces for clients, invite teammates and read or export analytics. It works as you, with your role. A REST API is included too, for scripts and cloud agents.
Your agent for speed, the dashboard for control: everything the agent does shows up in the LotsLink dashboard, and you can do all of it there yourself.
Teams and clients cost nothing extra
Workspaces and team members are unlimited and free on LotsLink, with owner, admin, member and viewer roles. An agency can keep one workspace per client and invite each client as a viewer. Bitly lists multiple users and group permissions on its Enterprise plan.
What Bitly does well
Bitly is the best-known link shortener and a much larger platform, and some of what it offers LotsLink doesn't try to do:
- Brand recognition. People know bit.ly links.
- Editable destinations. Change where a link or QR code goes after you share it (5 a month on Core, 20 on Growth, 110 on Premium), so printed codes can be redirected.
- Designed QR codes. Logos, patterns, frames and SVG downloads.
- Landing pages and link-in-bio. Bitly Pages, plus digital business cards.
- Mobile deep links from Premium, and dynamic routing by country or device.
- Built-in AI. Bitly Assist creates links and analyzes performance inside Bitly, from Core.
- Apps and integrations. Browser extensions, iOS and Android apps, Shopify, Canva and HubSpot.
- Enterprise controls. SSO, user management, webhooks and a 99.99% uptime commitment on Enterprise.
If those are what you need, Bitly is built for it. If what you need is lots of trackable links, QR codes and your own domain, from the dashboard or your agent, LotsLink does that for free or a few dollars.
Which one should you choose?
Choose LotsLink if:
- You make more than a few links a month and want them free and unlimited.
- You want your own domain for $4 a month, or three for $9, without a yearly plan.
- You want city, device and referrer data and exports without upgrading.
- You work in ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code or Cursor and want your agent to create and track links without a monthly cap.
- You run links for several clients or teammates.
Choose Bitly if:
- You need to change a link's or QR code's destination after printing.
- You want landing pages, link-in-bio or designed QR codes with your logo.
- You need mobile deep links, webhooks, SSO or an uptime commitment.
- You want a mobile app and browser extensions for shortening on the go.
How to switch from your AI agent
Connect LotsLink to your agent first. The MCP server is https://api.lots.link/mcp, you sign in with OAuth and there's no key to paste. Setup for Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor is on lots.link/mcp. In Claude Code it's one command:
claude mcp add --transport http lots-link https://api.lots.link/mcp
Then give your agent something like this:
In LotsLink, list my workspaces and use my personal one. Add my domain go.example.com as a custom domain and tell me the DNS records to set. When I say the records are in, verify the domain. Then recreate these links on it with the same slugs and UTM tags: [paste your links]. Make a QR code for the flyer link, and next week show me clicks by country, device and referrer for each link.
Behind that prompt the agent uses lotslink_list_workspaces, lotslink_add_custom_domain, lotslink_verify_custom_domain, lotslink_create_link, lotslink_create_qr_code and lotslink_get_link_analytics. If Bitly is connected to the same agent, it can pull your Bitly links for you first, since Bitly's MCP can list and filter your links.
Two things to know. Custom slugs on LotsLink are 7 to 40 characters (letters, numbers, dash and underscore), so a shorter Bitly back-half needs a longer name. And if your domain currently points at Bitly, its links stop working there once you move the DNS, so recreate the ones that matter right after you verify. Or start fresh on a new subdomain like go. and leave your old links where they are.
Eligible new accounts get 4,000 free credits, valid 90 days, no card, which covers a custom domain for about a month. Links on lots.link are free from the start.
Common questions
Is Bitly free?
Yes, Bitly has a free plan with 5 links, 2 QR codes and 3 custom back-halves a month, unlimited clicks and scans, and ads. Paid plans start with Core at $10 a month, billed yearly only. LotsLink is free with unlimited links, QR codes and analytics.
What is the Bitly free plan limit?
5 short links and 2 QR codes a month, 2 landing pages and 3 custom back-halves a month, and 1,000 API requests a month. Clicks and scans are unlimited. Custom domains aren't included on Free or Core.
How much does a Bitly custom domain cost?
A custom domain on Bitly starts with the Growth plan: $35 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly ($348 a year). It includes one complimentary domain, and multiple domains need Enterprise. On LotsLink a custom domain is $4 a month, or $9 a month for three.
What is a good free Bitly alternative?
LotsLink, if you want unlimited free short links, QR codes and click analytics, plus your own domain for $4 a month. It has a full dashboard and an MCP server, so ChatGPT or Claude can create and track links for you.
Does Bitly have an MCP server?
Yes. Bitly's MCP server is at https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v4/mcp, signs in with OAuth or an API token, works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and Windsurf, and is listed on all plans. It works within your plan's limits. LotsLink's MCP server is at https://api.lots.link/mcp, free and unlimited.
Can I move my Bitly links to LotsLink?
Yes. Your agent can recreate each link in LotsLink with the same destination, UTM tags and, on your own domain, the same slug if it's 7 to 40 characters long. Click history stays in Bitly; new clicks are counted in LotsLink from the switch.
More comparisons are on lots.link/compare, including the best URL shorteners with MCP support.
Bitly details checked on 14 October 2026 from bitly.com/pages/pricing (plan cards, monthly and yearly prices, and the detailed feature comparison), bitly.com/pages/ai/mcp, the Bitly MCP server docs and Bitly's MCP announcement. LotsLink details from lots.link/pricing, lots.link/mcp and api.lots.link/docs.md. Prices and features change; check their pages for the latest.