Self-hosted link shortener
Stop renting your own links.
Bitly charges $348 a year to shorten links that point at your own website — and switches every one of them off the day you stop paying. Kortli you buy once. It is a self-hosted link shortener: it runs on your server, on your domains, with your click data, and it keeps working whether or not we do.
Launch price until 31 December 2026. After that the same licence is $299. Complete source code included.
Not a mock-up — that is a real Kortli, and you can open it yourself. The demo is read-only, so click anything you like.
Renting from Bitly
$29 a month
$348 a year. $1,740 over five years. And the day you stop paying, every link you ever printed, posted or emailed stops working.
Owning Kortli
$199 once
Paid once, never again. You keep $1,541 over the same five years — and the links keep working whether or not we do.
Based on Bitly’s $29 a month plan, at today’s prices. More on Kortli as a Bitly alternative.
Everything included
Everything a self-hosted link shortener should do
Not a stripped-down free tier with the good parts locked away. This is the whole thing, on your own server, for one payment.
Your links
- As many domains as you like. No per-domain fee, because there is no monthly fee at all.
- Choose the ending yourself —
/spring-sale— or let Kortli make a short one. - Titles and tags, so a list of four hundred links stays findable.
- Search, filter and sort, as a list or as cards.
- Change where a link goes after you have sent it out. The short address never changes, so the poster you printed still works.
- Bring your existing links with you when you move.
Rules for where they go
- One link, different destinations. iPhone users to the App Store, Android to Google Play, everyone else to your website.
- Route by language, so a German visitor lands on the German page.
- Start and end dates. A link that opens on launch morning and closes itself when the offer ends.
- A click limit — the first 300 people get in, after that it stops.
- Your UTM tags carry through to the destination, so your analytics still work.
- You decide where a dead link sends people — your home page, not an error.
What happened after the click
- Every click recorded on your own machine, and nowhere else.
- Country and city, shown on a map.
- Where they came from — search, Instagram, your newsletter, or straight from a printed code.
- Browser, operating system and device.
- Robots counted separately from people, so your numbers mean something.
- Clicks on links that no longer exist, so you can see what people are still trying to reach.
- Export the lot to a spreadsheet whenever you want it.
Yours to run
- The complete source code. Every file, yours to read and change.
- Your name and your logo throughout, including the sign-in screen.
- Installs with one command on any Linux server. HTTPS sets itself up and renews forever.
- Nightly backups, with a restore that has actually been tested.
- A full API, so your own systems can make links without anyone opening a screen — plus an MCP server, so an AI assistant can do it by being asked.
- The licence is checked on your own machine. The only thing it fetches from us is a public list of withdrawn licence keys, once a day, carrying none of your data — and it still works behind a company firewall.
- Runs happily on a $6-a-month server.
Three things the rented ones charge extra for
And three you will actually use
Password-protected links
Put a password in front of any link and the visitor has to type it before they are sent on. Good for a trade price list, a draft nobody should see yet, a client’s folder — anything not meant for the whole internet. Send the password separately, or share a link that carries it, so the right person never has to think about it.
A/B testing
Point one link at up to four different pages and choose how the traffic splits. Kortli shows you the split you asked for, the clicks each one actually got, and the split that really happened. Run it for a fortnight, keep the winner, throw the other one away. One link goes in the email — you change what is behind it without sending anything again.
QR codes worth printing
Choose the shape of the dots and the corners, set your own colours, drop your logo in the middle, then download it as PNG, SVG or JPG. The SVG is real vector artwork, so it is sharp on a business card and sharp on the side of a van. And because it points at a Kortli link, you can change where it goes long after the menu has been printed.
New in 1.1
Or just ask for it
Kortli ships an MCP server, so an AI assistant can work your links directly. Not a chatbot bolted on the side — the real thing, doing the real job, on your own server.
“Shorten this and put a password on it.”
“Split the sale link 60/40 for a fortnight.”
“How many clicks did the March email get?”
It reaches everything, including the three things most shorteners have no way to automate — passwords, A/B tests and QR styling. One file, no dependencies, using the API key you already have. Nothing new to install and no second password to keep.
Works with Claude and anything else that speaks MCP. There is a plain REST API too, if you would rather script it than talk to it.
Pricing
One payment. Yours to keep.
Every licence includes the complete source code, 30 days of setup support and 12 months of updates. After that, updates are $49 a year if you want them — and Kortli never stops working if you do not renew.
Launch — until 31 December 2026
$199
One company, everything on this page. $199 if you buy before 31 December 2026 — after that the same licence is $299. We will ask you for an honest testimonial once you have used it for a while, and that is the whole reason for the lower price.
Plus $533 of bonuses, free — ReplaForms ($299), PressHand ($97) and ReplaStats with a year of hosting ($137). All included.
Single company
$299
Run Kortli on as many of your own servers and domains as you like, for your own company.
Plus $533 of bonuses, free — ReplaForms ($299), PressHand ($97) and ReplaStats with a year of hosting ($137). All included.
Agency
$899
Everything above, plus the right to run Kortli for your clients, rebranded as your own service.
Plus $533 of bonuses, free — ReplaForms ($299), PressHand ($97) and ReplaStats with a year of hosting ($137). All included.
Three bonuses · $533 · included free
Three more things, yours as well
Every Kortli licence comes with three more products, yours to keep — worth more together than the licence you are buying.
ReplaForms — a form builder you own
It is the form at the bottom of this page. Scroll down and fill it in — that is the product, running.
Conditional logic, so a question nobody needs to answer is never shown. Drop-off reported question by question, so you find out which one is costing you answers. No cap on responses, ever.
ReplaStats — your figures inside WordPress
A WordPress plugin that puts your website statistics inside wp-admin — six figures with the change on the period before, a chart, five reports, and a live count of who is on the site now.
No cookies and no cookie banner, and nothing is stored in your WordPress database, so the site stays fast. Comes with a full year of hosted statistics ($108), so your numbers are running from day one. The plugin ($29) is yours to keep after the year — stay on hosting, drop to the free plan, or point it at your own server.
PressHand — WordPress, by asking
A Mac and Windows app that edits your WordPress site by conversation. Write a post, fix a page, change the menu, add a picture — by saying what you want, rather than clicking through wp-admin to find it.
It talks to your own sites from your own machine, so nothing about your site passes through us. It runs on Mac and Windows, and the download brings everything it needs. Each site is connected once before you start.
of products, sent with your licence key and included with every licence on this page — launch, single company and agency. Worth more than the licence you are buying. That is deliberate.
Or let us do it for you
Not everyone wants to touch a server, and that is fine. Neither of these is required — Kortli installs itself in an afternoon if you would rather.
We install it for you
$199 + $499 one off
The $199 licence, plus $499 for the setup. Both paid once, nothing monthly.
The licence is included in that price. We set it up on your server, point your domains at it, get the HTTPS working, put your logo on it and walk you through it on a call. Usually done within two working days.
Covers up to four hours of our time, which is comfortably more than a normal install takes. If yours needs longer — an unusual server, or moving thousands of existing links across — we tell you what and why before we carry on, and agree the cost with you first. No surprise invoices.
We run it for you
$199 + $79 a month
The $199 licence once, then $79 a month for the hosting. Stop whenever you like. The monthly part is card only — crypto cannot auto-renew.
We host Kortli on our servers, in your name, on your domains. Updates, backups and monitoring are ours to worry about, not yours. Your links and click data stay yours — ask for a copy at any time, or move to your own server whenever you like.
Support
A person, not a queue
Three ways to reach us, and the same small team answers all of them. Your first 30 days of setup support are included with every licence.
Live chat
The bubble in the corner of this page. Ask a question before you buy, or after. During working hours somebody is usually there within a few minutes.
A support ticket
For anything that needs looking into properly. You get a reference, the whole thread stays in one place, and nothing falls down the back of an inbox.
Plain email
hello@kortli.com. We read every message ourselves and a person writes back — usually the same working day.
Questions, answered
What do I need to run it?
Any Linux server with Docker. A $6-a-month box is plenty for most people — one processor, 1 GB of memory. You will also want a short domain to put your links on — see branded short links on your own domain. The installer asks five questions and does the rest, including the HTTPS certificate.
What happens when the 12 months of updates run out?
Nothing. Kortli carries on exactly as it is, forever. You simply stop being offered new versions until you renew, and renewing is optional — it is $49 a year whenever you want it. Nothing switches off, nothing nags you, and no link ever stops working.
Do you see my links or my click data?
No. Kortli runs entirely on your server. Once a day it downloads our public list of withdrawn licence keys from pay.tradiant.net, and that request carries no licence key and none of your links or click data. The licence check itself happens on your own machine, offline — it works behind a company firewall with no way out to the internet. There is nothing on our side to sell, lose or hand over.
Is it really the full source code?
Yes. Every file, yours to read and change. You are not renting access to a black box — you own your copy outright, and it keeps running whatever happens to us.
Can I move the links I already have?
Yes. Kortli can bring in the links you have elsewhere, so the switch does not mean starting from nothing. If you would like a hand with it, that is part of the installation service.
Can I have it installed for me?
Yes — $199 + $499, paid once. That is the licence and the setup together. We put it on your server, point your domains at it, add your branding and walk you through it. It covers up to four hours of our time; if yours needs more we agree that with you first, never after. If you would rather not have a server at all, we can host it for you: $199 once, then $79 a month. See Or let us do it for you.
Does it work with AI assistants?
Yes. Kortli ships an MCP server — a small file that lets an AI assistant use Kortli directly, the same way you would. You point your assistant at it once, and after that you can simply say “shorten this and put a password on it” and it happens.
It can create, find and delete links, read the click figures, set and remove passwords, start and end A/B tests, and style QR codes. It signs in with the API key you already have, so there is no second account and nothing extra to install. It runs on your machine and talks only to your server.
It works with Claude and anything else that speaks MCP. If you would rather write a script than talk to an assistant, the same jobs are available over a normal REST API.
What is Kortli built on?
The engine underneath is Shlink, an excellent open-source shortener under the MIT licence. You could download Shlink for nothing tomorrow, and we would rather say so plainly than have you find out later.
What Shlink does not have is password-protected links, A/B testing, styled QR codes, the MCP server, the screen you see above, the one-command install, the backups, or somebody to ask when it goes wrong. That is what we built, and that is what you are paying for.
Can I get a refund?
You get the complete source code the moment you buy, so sales are final once the files have been downloaded. If you have not downloaded them, write to us within 14 days and we will refund you in full.
Talk to a person
Ready to buy? Questions first? Not sure it fits what you need? Write to us and a person answers — usually the same working day.
Would rather just email? hello@kortli.com. Either way we read every message ourselves, and a person writes back, not a chatbot.
Own your links.
One payment. The complete source code. Your server, your domains, your data.