Flared vs Bitly
Flared vs Bitly: your own domain, free.
Flared leads Bitly on 12 of 14 points. Free includes 5 custom domains and 1,000 active links, where Bitly Free has 5 links a month and no domain. Plus costs $100 a year for 10 domains, where Bitly charges $348 a year for one.
The scorecard
Flared leads on 12 of 14 points.
| Flared | Bitly | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 1,000 active links, 5 custom domains, no ads | 5 links a month, no custom domain, with ads | Flared |
| First custom domain | $0, on Free | $29 a month, billed $348 a year (Growth) | Flared |
| Paid plan, per year | $100 for 10 domains and 10,000 active links | $348 for 1 domain and 500 links a month (Growth) | Flared |
| Change a destination | Any time, on every plan | Not on Free; 5 a month on Core, 20 on Growth | Flared |
| QR codes | One for every link | 2 a month on Free, 10 on Growth | Flared |
| Click history | 365 days on Plus at $100 a year | 4 months on Growth; 1 year on Premium at $2,388 a year | Flared |
| API | Every plan, 60 requests a minute per token, no monthly quota | 1,000 to 25,000 requests a month (Free to Growth) | Flared |
| UTM builder | Every plan, in the dashboard, CLI, and MCP | From Core, $120 a year | Flared |
| App links for iPhone and Android | Every plan, a destination for each | Mobile deep links on Premium, $2,388 a year | Flared |
| Terminal and CI | The flared CLI, with JSON output | No CLI listed | Flared |
| Open source and self-hosting | AGPLv3 core, runs in your Cloudflare account | Not available | Flared |
| Pay once | Plus Lifetime, $200 | No lifetime plan listed | Flared |
| AI assistants (MCP) | Every plan, OAuth sign-in with no API token | Bitly MCP listed | Both |
| Recorded clicks | 100,000 a month on Plus; links keep redirecting past it | Unlimited | Bitly |
Bitly facts from Bitly鈥檚 pricing page with annual billing selected, as of October 14, 2026. Flared facts from Flared pricing. Flared Plus is also $15 month to month.
Built for how you work
- Create links from the dashboard, the CLI, the REST API, or an AI assistant. Every plan includes all four.
- Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor connect to the MCP server with an OAuth sign-in, so you never paste an API token into a chat.
- Tag campaigns with UTM parameters and send iPhone and Android visitors to your app, on every plan.
- Fix a typo or move a campaign after you print it: the short link and its QR code stay the same.
- Analytics keep no raw IP addresses and use no visitor cookies, unless the workspace forwards clicks to an analytics tool. Export your links and analytics at any time.
- No lock-in: the core is open source, and you can run it in your own Cloudflare account on Workers Free.
Bitly鈥檚 extras cost more
Bitly sells a marketing suite, and most of its extras sit on higher plans. Bulk link and QR code creation starts on Growth at $348 a year. City-level data needs Premium at $2,388 a year, and SSO needs Enterprise. Bitly also makes link-in-bio pages. Flared includes a UTM builder and app links on every plan, so branded links, analytics, campaigns, and app traffic cost $100 a year.
Move your links from Bitly
Links on your own subdomain keep their addresses when you move them to Flared. Links on bit.ly stay with Bitly; Import can copy them to flared.link with a new
address.
- Export your links from Bitly as a CSV file.
- Add the subdomain in Flared, such as
go.example.com, and point its CNAME record tocustomers.flared.link. Flared issues the HTTPS certificate, usually within minutes and at most in about an hour. - When the domain shows as active, choose Import on the Links page and upload the file. Links on your domain keep their back-halves.
Scripts can send the same links to POST /v1/links/import in the REST API. See custom domains for the DNS
details. The Free plan holds 1,000 active links; Plus holds 10,000.