A while back, I started a podcast called The Books Voyage — book summaries, things I was reading, nothing crazy. Three episodes in, I stopped. Not because I ran out of things to say, but because of the tools.
I was using Bitly to shorten episode links, Linktree for a bio page, and spreadsheets to figure out what was getting clicks. About $15/month for a duct-taped setup that barely worked together. I was spending more time managing links than actually making episodes.
Every time I needed something slightly more useful, I’d hit a paywall. Custom domains? Upgrade. Analytics beyond “you got 12 clicks”? Upgrade. Exporting your own data? You already know the answer.
So I did what any engineer would do — I stopped podcasting and started building. A few months of serious after-hours work, switching gears every evening after my full-time job as a Principal Software Engineer. Eventually it turned into something real.
That’s Links on Link.
What I actually wanted to build
The goal wasn’t to build something packed with features for the sake of it. It was to build something honest — a platform that gives you real functionality without requiring a business case to justify.
A few things I was firm on from day one:
It had to be affordable. The Creator plan is $6/month and includes custom domains. That’s a deliberate choice, not a marketing hook. Comparable tools charge $35/month for the same thing.
It had to be fast. Some platforms show you a little preview page before redirecting you — a splash screen with the link’s title and a “proceed” button. That might seem harmless, but it slows down the experience and trains your audience to expect friction. Links on Link skips all of that. You click, you land.
It had to be safe. This one took the most work. Every URL you shorten or publish gets checked before it goes live — against spam lists, malware databases, and Google’s own threat intelligence. I built a system for this called LinkGuard. If a link points somewhere sketchy or broken, it gets flagged. Your audience lands somewhere safe, or they don’t land there at all. That’s a non-negotiable.
What’s live right now
Since launching, the platform has grown well beyond the basics. Here’s everything you can use today:
Links
- Short links with optional passwords, descriptions, expiry dates, and scheduling
- Custom aliases — pick your own slug, or let AI suggest one based on the URL content
- Smart targeting — route visitors to different destinations based on their device, country, region, or city
- A/B testing — split traffic across weighted variants and track clicks per variant
- Link rotator — cycle through multiple destinations using weighted, sequential, or random rotation with optional sticky routing
- Deep linking — open mobile apps directly on iOS and Android, with configurable fallback to the app store, a web URL, or an interstitial page
- Link cloaking — mask the destination URL behind a clean, branded title
- Link health monitoring — automatic checks on your destination URLs so you know when something breaks before your audience does
- Age gating — configurable age verification gates for sensitive content
- Custom OG metadata — control exactly how your links appear when shared on social platforms
- Link preview banners — opt-in branded banners with configurable duration before redirecting
- Tags — organise and filter links with custom tags
QR Codes
- QR codes in PNG, SVG, or Data URL format — with colour customisation, frames, centre labels, centre images, error correction levels, and margin control
- QR scan tracking — separate analytics for QR scans vs regular clicks
Analytics
- Click analytics — devices, locations, referrers, browsers, and trends over time
- AI-powered insights — get recommendations, audience shift analysis, timing optimisation, and an overall engagement score for your links, pages, and portfolio
- CSV export — download your analytics data whenever you need it
Pages
- Page builder for link-in-bio pages — drag and drop, templates, full brand control (colours, fonts, button styles, spacing, background gradients and patterns)
- Rich content blocks — text, images, links, headers, dividers, video embeds (YouTube), music embeds (Spotify, Apple Music), podcasts, product cards, digital product buy buttons, email capture, and social icon groups
- Digital product sales — sell PDFs, presets, templates, and more directly from your bio page with Stripe checkout and instant file delivery
- Custom OG metadata for pages — control how your page appears in social previews
- Password protection for pages — gate your page behind a password
- Age gating for pages — same configurable age verification as links
- AI page generation — describe what you want in plain language and get a complete page generated for you
- AI page enhancement — get AI-powered suggestions for your theme, copy, element order, and styles, then apply them selectively
- AI element enhancement — enhance individual elements with AI-generated copy improvements
Collections & Organisation
- Collections to group and track links together
- UTM campaign builder for tracking traffic across channels without manually writing parameters every time
Custom Domains
- Custom domains so your links and pages carry your brand, not ours
AI Features (Pro)
- AI analytics insights — deep analysis of your click data with actionable recommendations
- AI slug suggestions — smart alias recommendations based on URL content
- AI metadata generation — auto-generate titles and descriptions from any URL
- AI page generation — create complete pages from a natural language prompt
- AI page and element enhancement — improve your page’s theme, copy, layout, and styles with AI suggestions
- AI assistant — a conversational AI that understands your data and can execute actions on your behalf
- Developer API — a full REST API with scoped API keys, so you can build on top of Links on Link programmatically
- MCP server — a Model Context Protocol server so AI tools like Claude can manage your links, pages, and analytics directly
- Webhooks — get notified when links are created, clicked, hit milestones, or expire
- Zapier integration — connect Links on Link to thousands of other apps with native Zapier triggers
- Bitly import — migrate your existing links from Bitly with one click
- Workspaces — collaborate with your team using role-based access
- Notifications — in-app and email alerts for link milestones, expirations, and more
- Referral program — invite others and earn rewards
- LinkGuard running in the background on everything
What’s shipped since launch
Since the original version of this post, a few big things have gone live:
- Email capture — collect emails directly from your bio page, export as CSV, with inline and popup modes
- Digital product sales — upload a file, set a price, sell directly from your page with Stripe checkout and instant file delivery
- Sell Digital Product element — add buy buttons right in the page builder alongside your links, media, and email capture
What’s still being built
A few things I’m actively working on:
- GA4 and Meta Pixel integration directly from the page builder
- Courses and memberships
- Tip and pay-what-you-want links
These are genuinely in progress, and they’ll be included in the existing plans when they ship.
Who this is for
If you’re a creator, developer, educator, photographer, musician, or small business — basically anyone who shares links as part of their work — and you’ve ever felt like you’re overpaying for tools that treat features as leverage rather than value, this is for you.
You shouldn’t need an enterprise budget to have a branded short link, a bio page that sells your work, and analytics that tell you where your traffic is coming from. And you shouldn’t need to stitch together five different tools when one can do the job.
Why “Links on Link”?
It’s literal. One link that holds everything — your pages, your short links, your audience, your brand. The kind of link you actually control.
When I first wrote this post, I said I wished this tool had existed before I built it. That’s still true — except now it does a lot more than I originally imagined. And I’m still building.
If you want to try it, you can sign up at app.linksonlink.com and start with a 7-day free trial.
