What Bitly's free plan includes — and excludes
As of mid-2026, Bitly's free tier is built around a small monthly allowance rather than open-ended use. In practice that means:
A monthly link cap. The free plan allows only a handful of new short links per month (in the region of five), plus a small number of QR codes — not unlimited.
A short analytics window. Click data is typically retained for around 30 days on free, so longer-term campaign analysis is gated behind a paid plan.
No custom domain. Free links use the bit.ly domain. Branded short domains are a paid feature.
No API access. Automation and integrations require a paid tier.
Limited editing. Changing a link's destination after creation is restricted on the free plan.
The paid Core plan (around $10/mo as of mid-2026) lifts several of these, but the jump from "free" to "useful for a real campaign" comes quickly. Always check current limits at bitly.com, as they change.
Bitly free vs EUQR at a glance
Bitly (free) | EUQR | |
New links | ~5 per month | Unlimited (dynamic, from €0.99/mo) |
Static QR codes | Limited | Free forever, no signup |
Analytics retention | ~30 days | Retained on your plan |
Data location | United States | EU (Amsterdam) |
Ads on links | Possible on free links | None |
Custom domain | Paid only | Paid tiers |
On cancel / leaving | bit.ly links can't be moved out | 90-day Recovery Page |
Bitly limits and pricing as of mid-2026 — verify at bitly.com before relying on specifics.
The ads most people don't expect
Here is the part that catches people off guard: free short links can carry Bitly's own branding and, at times, an interstitial — an extra step or promotional moment between the scan and the destination. For a personal link that is harmless. For a business putting a link on a flyer or a product, it means someone else's brand sits in the path between your customer and your page. If you want a clean, unbranded route from scan to destination, that is worth weighing.
The lock-in question
A bit.ly link is permanent in a way that works against you if you ever leave. The short link itself lives on Bitly's domain, so you cannot pick it up and point it somewhere else from another provider — if you stop using Bitly, those printed bit.ly links are not portable. For anything you have committed to print, that is real lock-in: your links only keep working as long as you keep your Bitly relationship. We go deeper on this in our Bitly alternative comparison.
Where Bitly's free plan genuinely fits
We will be fair about this, because Bitly earned its reputation. If you need to shorten the occasional link for personal use, you value the instant recognition of the bit.ly brand, or you are already inside Bitly's ecosystem and the caps do not bother you, the free plan does its job well and the reliability is excellent. For light, casual use it is a perfectly sensible choice.
The free plan strains when you are a business: when five links a month is not enough, when you need analytics beyond a month, when you do not want ads or someone else's brand on your links, when you need a custom domain, or when you care about where your click data is stored.
A European alternative worth knowing
If those business needs sound familiar, EUQR approaches the same job differently. Static QR codes are free forever with no signup. Dynamic short links and codes — the editable, trackable kind — start at €0.99/mo with unlimited links and unlimited scans, so you are not rationing links or worrying about a click spike. There are no ads or interstitials on your links, analytics are privacy-first (no raw IP storage, no third-party cookies, computed from daily-rotated hashes), and everything is hosted in Amsterdam under EU rules with a DPA on every paid account.
And on the lock-in point: if you ever pause or downgrade, your dynamic links and codes fall back to a branded Recovery Page for 90 days instead of breaking — so a printed link is never held hostage to an active subscription.