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The honest Short.io alternative.

Short.io has the most generous free tier in the category on domain count — and we'll happily say so. But password protection ships free on slsh.me, where Short.io reserves it for its $18 Pro plan; our real-time analytics are free with no 50k-click cap; and the features you'd upgrade for cost $8/mo here against that same $18 Pro.

Design-led: the same generosity, in an editor that's a pleasure to use — not just a functional dashboard.

Start free, no card See pricing

Password protection

On free vs $18/mo Pro

Real-time analytics

Free, uncapped vs Free, 50k cap

Password · expiry · masking

$8/mo vs $18/mo

Feature by feature

Two kinds of generous.

Short.io figures reflect their public pricing page as captured 2026-05-20. Where they're better, we say so.

Feature slsh.me — Free / Big Slash Short.io — Free / Hobby / Pro / Team
Password protection Free on 3 active links; unlimited on Big Slash Bundled into Pro $18/mo alongside expiration & cloaking
Custom domains on free 1 free, 3 on Big Slash — one CNAME, on-demand TLS 5 free — genuinely the most generous free domain count in the category
Real-time click analytics On free — 30-day rolling; full breakdown (device, browser, OS, full referrer) & unlimited history on Big Slash Click tracking on Free; richer analytics & conversion data on paid tiers
Link expiry & click caps On Big Slash ($8/mo) — date or N-click cap, 410 Gone with a custom page Expiration on Pro $18/mo
Link masking On Big Slash ($8/mo) — transparent, your short URL stays in the address bar (noindex frame, canonical to destination) Cloaking on Pro $18/mo and up
QR codes Free on 5 links; print-ready SVG across Big Slash Dynamic QR codes (paid tiers)
UTM tags built-in Yes — source / medium / campaign / term / content at create-time Via integrations / manual tagging
Public REST API Read-only on Free (100 req/day), full on Big Slash API on every tier — a real strength of theirs
Team plan (5 seats) Team Slash $25/mo (first 5 seats), then $5/seat — roles, audit log, webhooks Team $48/mo — city targeting, deep links, SLA
Entry paid price $8/mo Big Slash ($77/yr) — password, expiry, masking, unlimited history $5 Hobby · $18 Pro · $48 Team · $148 Enterprise

Short.io prices reflect their public pricing page, captured 2026-05-20.

The Pro upgrade

$18/month to lock a link and set an expiry date.

On Short.io, password protection, link expiration, and cloaking all live on the $18/mo Pro plan. They're the kind of thing you reach for once a week — a private preview link, a promo that ends Friday — not a power-user luxury.

slsh.me puts password protection and real-time analytics on the free tier, and bundles expiry plus transparent link masking into the $8/mo Big Slash — less than half Short.io's Pro price.

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Short.io Pro

$18/mo

slsh.me Big Slash

$8/mo

On the $8 plan

+Password protection & link expiry
+Transparent link masking
+Unlimited analytics history
+1,500 links/mo, three domains
+Password & analytics already free

Migration

Three steps. Keep your domain.

Your existing short.io links keep redirecting; slsh.me takes over the new ones. If you've been on your own branded domain, point that CNAME at us and yours come out the other side.

1

Sign up & add your domain

30 seconds, no card. Add a custom domain in Settings → Domains and we generate the exact CNAME record for your registrar.

2

Point one CNAME

Add links.your-domain.com → slsh.me at your registrar. On-demand TLS issues the cert on the first visit — no certificate to renew.

3

Recreate your links

Paste, pick a slug, save — branded as your-domain.com/abc. Got hundreds? Loop the POST /v1/links endpoint from a small script for a bulk import in seconds.

Honest answers.

Is slsh.me really free? +
Yes. The Free tier includes 100 links/month, one custom domain, one campaign, 30-day rolling real-time analytics, QR codes on 5 links, password protection on 3 active links, and a read-only API. No card required. The $8/mo Big Slash tier raises the limits, adds link masking and link expiry, and keeps every visit recorded forever.
Short.io gives five custom domains on free — why would I switch? +
If domain count on free is all you need, Short.io's five free domains are genuinely hard to beat — and we'll say so. slsh.me is generous on a different axis: password protection and real-time analytics ship on the free tier, where Short.io gates password and expiration behind its $18/mo Pro plan. And the features you'd upgrade for — password, expiry, link masking — sit on slsh.me's $8/mo Big Slash, less than half Short.io's $18 Pro.
Can I use my own domain on the free tier? +
Yes — point a CNAME at slsh.me and your links come out branded as your-domain.com/abc1234. Free includes one custom domain with on-demand TLS; Big Slash includes three. Short.io includes five domains on free, so if you need many branded domains for free, that's a real point in their favour.
Will my existing Short.io links keep working? +
Anything on a short.io domain stays where it is — slsh.me doesn't claim their slugs. If you've been using Short.io with your own branded domain, point that CNAME at slsh.me and the slugs you create here become drop-in replacements.
What does slsh.me NOT do that Short.io does? +
Short.io offers more custom domains on free (five vs one), a 50-domain Team tier, end-to-end link encryption, mobile deep links, and an API on every tier including free (slsh.me's API is read-only on Free, full on Big Slash). If you need many domains for free or those team features, Short.io is a strong pick. slsh.me trades that breadth for design quality, password and analytics on free, and lower prices for password, expiry, and masking.

Generous where it counts daily.

30 seconds, no card. Password protection and real-time analytics on the free tier, and link masking at half Short.io's Pro price.

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