Weeny vs Bitly: an honest comparison for UK freelancers

If you share links for clients, in a newsletter or from your social bio, you have almost certainly used Bitly. Weeny is a much smaller, UK-based tool built for freelancers and solo marketers who want branded short links on their own domain, a privacy story they can explain to clients, and a few extra tools in the same place.

We make Weeny, so we are not neutral, but we have tried to be fair, including a whole section on where Bitly is the better choice. Prices change, so please check bitly.com before you decide.

Weeny vs Bitly at a glance

Notes: Weeny counts active links; Bitly counts links created per month. Weeny's Starter trial needs a card. Weeny redirects set no cookies and load no scripts, except a cookie after a visitor unlocks a password-protected link. Weeny keeps click stats (counts, dates, country, device, referrer) for as long as your account exists; visitor IP addresses are hashed when stored and deleted after 90 days; hashed IPs are not shown in the dashboard. Weeny's API covers listing, creating and fetching links with workspace keys. Bitly prices are in US dollars. Bitly details checked on bitly.com on 2 October 2026: https://bitly.com/pages/pricing, https://bitly.com/pages/cookies, https://bitly.com/pages/privacy and https://bitly.com/pages/terms-of-service.

In short: choose Bitly for a free plan, integrations, apps or very high volumes. Choose Weeny for branded links on your own domain at a low price, no cookies or scripts on redirects, and forms and link-in-bio pages in one account.

Price

Bitly's plans:

• Free: $0, with 5 links a month, 2 QR Codes a month and 2 custom landing pages.
• Core: $10 a month, billed annually ($120 a year). 100 links a month.
• Growth: $29 a month billed annually ($348 a year), or $35 paid monthly. 500 links a month, branded links and a complimentary custom domain.
• Premium: $199 a month billed annually ($2,388 a year), or $300 paid monthly. 3,000 links a month.
• Enterprise: custom pricing.

Weeny has two plans, priced in pounds:

• Starter: £6.99 a month or £69.99 a year. Up to 50 active links, 10 Teeny Pages, 10 forms, 1,000 form submissions a month, 3 custom domains and up to 5 team members. Starter comes with a 7-day free trial. A card is required, and you get a reminder before the trial ends.
• Pro: £18.99 a month or £189.99 a year. Up to 200 active links, 10,000 submissions a month, 10 custom domains and up to 10 team members.

On Weeny, switching a link off frees up space for a new one; on Bitly, your allowance resets each month. If you create lots of short-lived links, Bitly's model may suit you better. If you keep a steady set of client links running, Weeny's is easier to plan around. And Bitly's branded links start on Growth, while Weeny includes custom domains from Starter.

Privacy and GDPR

Start with what is similar. Any shortener that gives you analytics records something about each click, and Weeny is no exception. For every click we derive country, region and city from the visitor's IP, then store a hashed IP (not the raw address), plus the user agent, referrer, device, browser, operating system, and whether the visit came from the link itself or a QR Code scan. Bitly's privacy policy (https://bitly.com/pages/privacy) describes collecting a similar set: IP address and derived location, referrer, time and date, and device settings such as browser, operating system and language. Click stats (counts, dates, country, device, referrer) are kept for as long as your account exists; visitor IP addresses are hashed when stored and deleted after 90 days. The differences are in what happens around the data.

Weeny:

• No cookies or scripts on redirects. The one exception is a password-protected link, which sets a cookie after the visitor enters the password.
• No ads, and we never sell click data.
• Visitor IPs are hashed when stored and deleted after 90 days; hashed IPs are not shown in your dashboard.
• Weeny is run by JPCoding, a sole trader registered in the United Kingdom, and our privacy policy (https://weeny.app/privacy) follows the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
• A Data Processing Agreement is part of our terms (https://weeny.app/dpa). For data you collect through your links and forms, you are the controller and Weeny is the processor.
• Our sub-processors are listed by name: DigitalOcean, AWS, Vercel, Stripe, PostHog and DataFast. Some processing may happen outside the UK or EEA, under safeguards such as the UK IDTA or EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Bitly, from its own policies:

• Its cookie policy (https://bitly.com/pages/cookies) says each click of a Bitly link is tracked using a unique identifier stored in one or more cookies in the visitor's browser, which Bitly may link with other information such as IP address.
• Its privacy policy also lists cookies and mobile advertising identifiers among the data it collects, and says personal data may be transferred outside the EU and EEA, including to the United States.
• The same policy says Bitly sometimes shows a Destination Preview, which "may or may not include advertising from third parties".
• Bitly's terms (https://bitly.com/pages/terms-of-service) include a Data Processing Agreement as Appendix A.

None of this makes Bitly unlawful or careless; it publishes a DPA and detailed policies. The difference is in the defaults, and "no cookies or scripts on the redirect, no ads, and we never sell the click data" is a simple answer to give a client.

Analytics

Bitly keeps click and scan data for 30 days on Core, 4 months on Growth and 1 year on Premium, with city-level and device-type data from Premium.

Weeny keeps click stats (counts, dates, country, device, referrer) for as long as your account exists. Visitor IP addresses are hashed when stored and deleted after 90 days. Analytics show clicks and unique visitors, with location, device and browser breakdowns, across links, forms and Teeny Pages. Each click records whether it came from the link or a QR Code scan, so print and online sit side by side. Links can also carry UTM tags for your own analytics tool.

Branded links and custom domains

A branded link like go.yourbrand.com/spring looks more trustworthy than a generic one. Bitly includes branded links and a complimentary custom domain, which it registers for you, from Growth upwards.

Weeny lets you use your own subdomain from Starter: 3 custom domains on Starter and 10 on Pro. Setup is short:

1. Add a subdomain such as go.yourbrand.com in Weeny.
2. Add the CNAME record and the _vercel TXT verification record that Weeny shows you, at your domain provider.
3. Wait for verification. SSL is set up automatically.

You need to own the domain already. A separate subdomain per client works on both plans, and Teeny Pages can use your custom domain too.

On both services you can set your own link ending ("back-half" in Bitly's terms, slug in ours). Weeny links can also have a password, an expiry date, tags and their own social preview title and image.

QR Codes, forms and link-in-bio pages

Bitly's extras include custom landing pages and a digital business card. Weeny includes:

• QR Codes: every Weeny link has a downloadable QR Code, available from your links list and the link's analytics page, and there is a separate QR Codes section too. Scans show up in your analytics alongside clicks.
• Weeny Forms: a no-code form builder for contact forms, sign-ups and surveys. You can embed forms on your own site or a Teeny Page, see new submissions as in-app notifications, and send each submission to your own systems with a signed (HMAC) webhook.
• Teeny Pages: a simple link-in-bio page. Stack buttons, text, images, social links and embedded forms, publish it on your own domain, and see which blocks people click.

If you pay separately for a shortener, a link-in-bio tool and a form builder, one account with shared domains can save money and hassle.

Where Bitly is better

• It has a free plan. Weeny does not. If you shorten a handful of links a month and do not need your own domain, Bitly Free costs nothing.
• Scale. Bitly Premium allows 3,000 links a month, and Enterprise is built for large teams with custom volumes. Weeny Pro tops out at 200 active links.
• Integrations and apps. Bitly lists app integrations, browser extensions for Chrome, Edge and Firefox, iOS and Android apps, API allowances for each plan and webhooks on some tiers. Weeny is a web app with a links API.
• Advanced link features. Bitly offers mobile deep linking, routing by country or device, bulk creation and campaign grouping. Weeny does not.
• Enterprise needs. SSO, group permissions, activity logs, a 99.99% uptime commitment and a customer success manager are on Bitly's top tier.
• QR Code design. If styled QR Codes matter to you, Bitly lists colour options, frames and dot patterns.
• Domain registration. Bitly registers a custom domain for you on Growth and above. With Weeny you bring your own and use a subdomain.
• Defined data retention. Bitly states how long it keeps click data on each plan. Weeny keeps aggregate click stats for the life of the account and deletes hashed visitor IPs after 90 days.
• Maturity. Bitly is long established and widely recognised. Weeny is a small, independent product.

If any of those matter most to you, Bitly is likely the better fit.

So which should you choose?

Do you want your own domain on the links? Do you need to explain your privacy setup to clients? Would forms or a link-in-bio page in the same place help? If mostly yes, Weeny is worth a look. If you need a free plan, lots of integrations or enterprise scale, Bitly is the stronger choice.

You can see Weeny's plans and start the 7-day Starter trial at https://weeny.app?utm_source=blog&utm_campaign=weeny-vs-bitly. Have a look and see if it fits how you work.