How to choose a link shortener for content you share everywhere

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If you share the same content on social, in email, on packaging and in print, choose a link shortener on four things, in this order: whose domain the link lives on, whether you can change where it goes after it is out, whether it sends each device somewhere it can act, and whether its numbers would survive a sceptical client. Price per link comes last. Most comparisons start with price and feature grids, which is why so many teams end up switching tools a year in, with links already printed.

Here is what each of those four things means in practice, and a short test you can run before you commit.

Whose domain is it?

A short link is a promise made by a domain. When someone taps it, their phone asks that domain where to go next. If the domain disappears, every link and every printed QR code on it goes with it.

That is not a theoretical risk. Google stopped creating goo.gl links in 2018, began warning on them in 2024, and on August 25, 2025 switched off every goo.gl link it had flagged as inactive. Google says more than 99% of existing links had seen no activity in the month before its original announcement. Anyone who had printed one of those links on a brochure found out the hard way that a free shortener is a loan, not an asset.

Three questions settle this:

  • Who owns the short domain, and what is their business model? A company that charges for links has a reason to keep them running. A free service funded by ads or data has less of one.
  • Can you use your own branded domain, and on which plan?
  • What happens to your links if you cancel? Some services keep redirecting, some stop. Ask before you print, not after.

Look-alike domains are part of the same question. Short links invite exactly the kind of one-letter impersonation that phishing relies on. Know your tool’s official domains, publish them, and tell your audience which ones are real.

Can you change where it goes after it is out?

A link in a post can be deleted. A link on 10,000 boxes cannot. The single most useful feature for shared content is a dynamic link: one whose destination you can change after publishing, without changing the link itself.

A dynamic link turns a wrong URL, a moved product page or an expired promotion into a two-minute fix rather than a reprint. It also matters for security. In a 2022 public service announcement, the FBI warned that criminals were tampering with QR codes, including pasting malicious codes over legitimate ones, to send people to fake sites that ask for login and payment details. No platform can stop a sticker going over your poster. What you can control is who is able to change your own links.

So ask two things. Can only authenticated users on your account change a destination? And does the platform monitor for abuse, so a link you handed a customer keeps going where you sent it? A link anyone can edit, or one on a domain nobody watches, is a weak point in your campaign, however good the creative is.

Does it send each device somewhere it can act?

The same link gets tapped on an iPhone, an Android phone, a laptop and sometimes a tablet. If what you are sharing is an app, a game or anything with a store listing, a link that sends everyone to the same page loses most of them at the moment you paid to reach them. An iPhone user sent to Google Play cannot do anything there.

Device targeting is now common. Zapier’s 2026 review notes that Dub and Short.io can send different devices to different places, and Buffer’s August 2026 roundup lists device-based redirects for Rebrandly and T.LY as well. The difference is in the detail:

  • Which platforms does it recognize? iOS and Android are standard. macOS, Windows and Amazon Fire are not.
  • Is routing included, or a higher-tier add-on?
  • Do you have to set the rules yourself for every link, or does it detect the platform and choose the right store automatically?

If you only ever link to web pages, this matters less. If you promote apps, it decides whether your campaign works.

What it measures, and what it cannot

Every shortener counts clicks. The useful question is whether those clicks are people.

They often are not. Many email security tools open links before the recipient does, to check them for malware or phishing, and tracking systems can log those visits as clicks. The telltale signs are clicks on footer and legal links, many links clicked within seconds of delivery, and no real session on the destination page. Keep raw clicks separate from what you report, and never let a single click trigger a sales alert.

To get numbers you can defend, combine two layers:

  1. The short link’s own data: clicks and scans by device, platform and location, ideally in real time, so you can see a campaign behave while it is still running.
  2. Campaign parameters on the destination. Google Analytics says you should always set utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, and warns that values are case sensitive: google and Google are reported as two different sources. Agree on a lowercase naming convention before the first link goes out, not after the report looks wrong.

The short link tells you who reached for the content and on what. The parameters tell you what they did next. Neither one alone measures success.

Two more checks: how long the tool keeps your history (Bitly’s own comparison lists 30 days of data history on its Core plan), and whether you can separate one client’s or one campaign’s links from another’s when it is time to report.

How it charges

Pricing models fall into three rough shapes: by seat, by feature tier, and by the number of links you run. None is wrong, but they reward different teams. Seat pricing punishes agencies with many contributors. Feature tiers can put routing or branded domains out of reach on the plan you can afford. Per-link pricing suits teams with a clear, steady volume.

Free plans are for testing, not campaigns. Bitly’s free plan, for example, allows five links and two QR codes a month.

A ten-minute test before you commit

Before you print anything, create one link and one QR code and do this:

  1. Tap the link on an iPhone, an Android phone and a desktop browser. Note where each one lands.
  2. Change the destination, then scan the QR code again. It should follow the change without being regenerated.
  3. Send the link in an email to yourself and check whether a click is recorded before you open it.
  4. Add your UTM parameters and confirm they arrive intact in your analytics.
  5. Find the provider’s list of official domains and its policy on what happens to links when you cancel.

If a tool fails step 2 or step 5, do not put it on anything you cannot take back.

Where 1Link fits

We built 1Link® at TAPQUAD® for the case where the same link has to work on every device. It detects the visitor’s platform and sends them to the right store on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows or Fire, or to any destination you choose. Every link comes with a free dynamic QR code you can repoint and real-time analytics by device, platform and location, and agencies can keep each client’s campaigns separate. Links resolve only through 1lk.io and 1Link.app, two domains TAPQUAD owns and monitors, and only your authenticated account can change where a link goes.

Plans are sized by the number of links you activate each month rather than by seats, starting at 28 links a month, and there is a free 30-day trial. Whatever you choose, run the ten-minute test first.

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