Comparison
Lynkarr vs Bitly
Bitly is the name everybody knows. What that name costs you is a monthly quota on the things you make and a thirty-day clock on the data they produce — here the allowance is what you hold, and the history runs to years.
No credit card required.
The short version
See how Lynkarr and Bitly compare on the essentials.
“Bitly is the recognised name.”
Recognition is worth having on a link somebody reads aloud. It is worth nothing on a QR code, where the reader sees a pattern and a destination — and on a printed pack or a screen, the name people should recognise is yours, not your vendor's.
The factA custom domain is part of Business at $45 a month, so the codes and links carry your name from the first scan.
“We only need a few codes, so the cheap tier will do.”
Their allowances are a monthly issuance, not a holding. Core is five QR codes a month; the sixth is next month or a plan change, forever.
The factStarter is $5 a month and holds 20 dynamic codes at once, with no monthly issuance to run out of. Business at $45 has no code limit.
“We just need the scan numbers.”
Then the question is how long you get to keep them. A printed code outlives the campaign that made it, and last Christmas is the comparison that makes this Christmas arguable.
The factCore keeps 30 days of click and scan data. We keep individual events for 400 days and daily rollups for seven years, on every paid plan.
“It is a link tool and we mostly need links.”
So do we — 20 held at once on Starter, unlimited and on your own domain from Business, editable after they are sent, with the same reporting. And when the campaign needs a landing page, a form, a digital card or a GS1 product code, it is the same account rather than a second subscription.
The factShort links, landing pages, forms, digital cards, GS1 Digital Link and a media library are all in the one product.
Side by side
A detailed look at how Lynkarr and Bitly stack up.
| Feature | Lynkarr | Bitly |
|---|---|---|
| Password-protecting a link | Business and above, and the password is stored encrypted so an owner can read it back without it sitting in the clear. | Not offered on any plan, including Enterprise. |
| Your own advertising tag on a hosted page | Business and above: Meta, Google Ads, TikTok or LinkedIn, and never fired for a link-preview robot. | Not offered on any plan. |
| Free plan | 2 dynamic QR codes, 5 static codes and 5 short links, held rather than monthly. | 5 links and 2 QR codes a month. |
| First paid tier | Starter, $5 a month: 20 dynamic codes and 20 short links, held at once rather than issued each month. | Core, $10 a month: 100 links, 5 QR codes a month. |
| QR codes at $29–$35 a month | 20 held at once on Starter at $5; no code limit on Business at $45. | Growth: 10 QR codes a month. |
| How long scan data is kept | 400 days of individual events and seven years of daily rollups, the same on every paid plan. | 30 days on Core, 4 months on Growth, 1 year on Premium, 2 years on Enterprise. |
| Beyond links and codes | Also landing pages, forms with submissions, digital business cards, a contact pool with event badge scanning, GS1 Digital Link and a media library. | Links, QR codes and link-in-bio pages. |
| Analytics after a code is pointed somewhere new | Every destination keeps a full report, not only a count: scans, visitors, the map, devices and times of day. Each scan is counted under the destination it was sent to, and two destinations can be merged. On Business and above. | A redirected link shows a redirect history: the current and previous URLs, the clicks each received and the dates each was active. Redirects are on some paid plans, limited per month, and each one also counts as a new link against the monthly link limit. (Bitly Support, read 7 October 2026.) |
| Contacts, from a scanned badge or business card | A badge or a personal business card is read by AI into a contact record, deduplicated against your existing pool, and tagged with the event it came from — not just a link click. Contacts are on Starter and above; events on Business and above. | Not part of the product. |
| Custom analytics dashboards | 1 on the free plan, 5 on Starter at $5, 50 on Business, unlimited on Enterprise. | 2 on Core at $10 a month, 10 on Growth. None on the free plan. |
| Scans | 10,000 recorded a month on the free plan, 1,000,000 on Starter, 4,000,000 on Business and 10,000,000 on Enterprise, counted across the account. A code keeps redirecting past the allowance on every plan: a paid plan is billed $5 per further million, and the free plan stops counting until the next month. | Unlimited on every plan. |
Figures for Bitly read from bitly.com/pages/pricing on 31 August 2026. Ours were checked against the running product on the same day. Prices change: if you find one of these out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Feature by feature.
Whether each tool’s published plans list the feature at all.
| Feature | Lynkarr | Bitly |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic QR Codes | Yes | Yes |
| Short Links | Yes | Yes |
| Scan Analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Custom QR Design | Yes | Yes |
| Campaigns | Yes | Yes |
| API Access | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Domains | Yes | Yes |
| Team Collaboration | Yes | Yes |
| Email Signature Management | Yes | No |
| Landing Pages | Yes | Yes |
| Forms | Yes | No |
| Badge & Business Card Scanning | Yes | No |
| GS1 Digital Link | Yes | Yes |
| MCP for AI Assistants | Yes | Yes |
| Smart Routing | Yes | Yes |
A tick means their published plans list the feature, on any plan, paid or free. A cross means their published plans did not list it when we read them on 30 August 2026.
Why teams choose Lynkarr
Where Bitly may fit better
- Link shortening and little elseA link-in-bio page is on its free plan.
- An API without payingIts API starts on the free plan; ours starts on Starter.
- A phone app todayIt has iPhone and Android apps. Ours is not out yet.
- HubSpot built inIt lists a HubSpot integration. We have none built in.
Why Lynkarr
Choose Lynkarr if you want an allowance counted by what you hold rather than what you make each month, years of history rather than weeks, and the pages, forms and cards the campaign will need next — in one account from $5 a month, with your own domain on the codes and links at $45.
One more thing, and it is a strength rather than a footnote: our analytics identify nobody. No cookies on a scan, no IP address stored, nothing sold. For anybody in healthcare, legal, education or the public sector, that is the answer that gets a tool approved rather than the one that starts a review. The detail is here.
Ready to do more with your links and QR codes?
Start free, with no card: two dynamic codes, five short links and scan analytics.