Why I Stopped Using Bitly (And What I Switched To)

#webdev #saas #productivity #tutorial

A few months ago I hit the wall with Bitly. My free plan ran out of analytics. My branded links looked cheap. And paying $35/month for what should be basic features felt wrong.

So I went looking for something better. Here is what I found.

The Bitly Problem

Bitly is great until you need:

Analytics beyond 30 days (locked behind Pro)
Custom domains without paying $35/month
API access that does not throttle you at 100 requests/month
Link-in-bio pages (not available at all)

For a SaaS builder managing multiple products, these are not nice-to-haves. They are essentials.

What I Switched To

I moved everything to Dub.co and honestly the difference is night and day.

Here is what the free tier includes:

Feature	Bitly Free	Dub.co Free
Links	10/month	25/month
Analytics	30 days	Forever
Custom domains	No	Yes
API calls	100/month	1000/month
QR codes	Basic	Advanced
Link-in-bio	No	Yes

My Setup

I use Dub.co for:

Newsletter tracking — every link in my emails goes through Dub so I know what readers actually click
Social media — branded short links for Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit
API integration — I built a simple webhook that creates a short link whenever I publish a new blog post

The API is dead simple:

curl -X POST https://api.dub.co/links \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "url": "https://example.com/long-url", "domain": "yourdomain.com" }'

The Migration

Migrating from Bitly took about 20 minutes:

Export your Bitly links (Settings → Export)
Import into Dub.co (they have a CSV import)
Set up your custom domain (just a CNAME record)
Update your API calls (the Dub API is similar to Bitly but better documented)

Results After 3 Months

Saved $420/year on Bitly Pro
Better analytics — I can see click data from 6 months ago
Faster API — No more rate limit errors
Branded links — my-domain.co/whatever instead of bit.ly/random

If you are still on Bitly, take 20 minutes and try Dub.co. The free tier alone beats Bitly Pro.

What link shortener do you use? Drop a comment below.

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