Does Bitly's Free Plan Show Ads? What Changed in 2025 and What to Do About It
Does Bitly’s Free Plan Show Ads? What Changed in 2026 and What to Do About It
If you’ve clicked a Bitly link recently and hit an unexpected screen before reaching the destination, that’s not a browser glitch. In February 2025, Bitly began inserting interstitial “Destination Preview” pages on every link shortened with a free plan (Tedium, Feb 2025). The change was retroactive, meaning links you created months or years ago now behave differently for anyone who clicks them. This article explains exactly what happened, what the ads look like, how much it costs to get rid of them, and what your options are.
Key Takeaways
- Bitly added interstitial “Destination Preview” ads to all free plan links in February 2025 — retroactively, affecting existing links too.
- Every click on a free Bitly link now passes through an ad screen. There is no partial opt-out.
- Removing ads requires Bitly’s Growth plan at $35/month — more than any competing tool’s entry-level paid plan.
- Ad-free alternatives exist at $0/month, including UseClick.io, which offers click analytics and custom domains on its free tier.
- Existing Bitly links can’t be redirected away from Bitly’s servers, but new links can be created on any platform immediately.
What Are the Ads on Bitly’s Free Plan?
Bitly began showing interstitial ads on free plan links in February 2025, affecting the platform’s 500,000+ global customers (PR Newswire, Jan 2023). The ads appear as a “Destination Preview” page that loads between the click and the final destination, displaying Bitly branding and a sponsored message before the user can proceed.
Bitly describes the interstitial as a safety feature, since it shows users where they’re headed before they arrive. In practice, the screen functions as an ad unit that generates revenue from free-plan link traffic. The user must actively click a button to continue. There’s no automatic redirect for free-tier links anymore.
The experience is most disruptive in high-trust contexts. Share a Bitly link in an email newsletter, a customer support message, or a professional document, and the recipient clicks it expecting to land on your content. Instead, they hit an unfamiliar intermediate screen. That creates friction — and a potential credibility gap — before anyone reaches what you actually wanted them to see.
When Did Bitly Start Showing Ads on Free Links?
Bitly introduced interstitial ads for all free plan users in February 2025, confirmed by reporting in Tedium and Coywolf at the time. No advance public notice went out to free users before the change took effect. Many people discovered it when their own customers or followers reported seeing an unexpected intermediate screen after clicking a shared link.
The February ad rollout wasn’t Bitly’s only recent free-plan change. The platform progressively reduced its free tier over the previous several years, cutting the monthly link creation cap and removing other features. The chart below tells that story clearly. Ads were the latest step — and the most visible one yet for the people on the receiving end of every click.
Do Bitly’s Free Plan Ads Appear on Links I Created Before 2025?
Yes — and this is what caught most users off guard. The February 2025 change was retroactive, meaning every link ever created on a Bitly free account now shows the interstitial ad, regardless of when the link was made (301.pro, 2026). Links you made in 2022, 2023, or 2024 are all affected. If those links are still circulating in old emails, on social media profiles, in printed materials, or anywhere else online, every click now passes through Bitly’s ad screen first.
A forward-looking policy change to new links would have been manageable for most users. A retroactive one changed the experience for every active Bitly URL already in circulation. Bitly receives over 300 million visits per month as of March 2026 (Semrush, March 2026) — a large share of that traffic now passes through an ad screen.
What can you do about those existing links? The short answer is: not much on Bitly’s end. The bit.ly/xxxxx format will always resolve through Bitly’s infrastructure. You can’t point an existing Bitly URL anywhere else. What you can do is recreate your most-clicked links on a new platform and update the high-traffic spots where those old links appear — email signatures, bio links, pinned posts, and anywhere you control the placement.
How Much Does It Cost to Remove Ads From Bitly Links?
Removing ads from Bitly links costs $35 per month on the Growth plan — the minimum subscription level that eliminates the interstitial ad entirely (301.pro, 2026). There is no middle tier that removes ads for a lower price. If you want uninterrupted redirects on Bitly, the cost is $35/month, or $420/year, full stop.
That number looks different when you see what competing platforms charge for their entry-level paid plans. The URL shortener market was valued at $970 million in 2025 and is growing at over 15% annually (Global Market Statistics, May 2026), which means the competitive options are real and well-funded. Bitly’s $35 floor for ad removal sits at the top of the market for entry-level pricing.
Entry-Level Paid Plan Cost: Bitly vs Alternatives (per month) Horizontal bar chart sorted by price ascending: TinyURL $9.99 per month; UseClick.io $12 per month, also has a free no-ads plan; Rebrandly $13 per month; Dub.co $19 per month; Short.io $19 per month; Bitly $35 per month required just to remove ads from free plan links. Source: Official pricing pages, 2025. Entry-Level Paid Plan Cost: Bitly vs Alternatives Monthly cost to access full features with no ads on links $10 $20 $30 TinyURL $9.99/mo UseClick.io $12/mo ← free plan also available with no ads Rebrandly $13/mo Dub.co $19/mo Short.io $19/mo Bitly $35/mo — just to remove ads Source: Official pricing pages (2025) Bitly charges $35/month just to remove ads from free plan links — more than any competitor’s entry-level paid plan. UseClick.io’s paid plan starts at $12/month, and its free plan is already ad-free.
If you’re open to paying for link management, you can get more features at a lower monthly cost on several other platforms. And if you’re not ready to spend anything, ad-free alternatives with meaningful free tiers exist right now.
Is There Any Way to Use Bitly Free Without Ads?
No. There’s no setting, workaround, or feature within Bitly’s free plan that removes interstitial ads from redirects. Some users have experimented with Bitly’s custom domain routing as an alternative path, but the ad policy applies at the account tier level, not the domain level. As long as your account is on the free plan, all your links will show the Destination Preview screen on each click.
Bitly’s reasoning is understandable from a business standpoint. Maintaining link infrastructure at scale — global availability, analytics, API support, and uptime across billions of monthly redirects — has real costs. The free plan historically worked as a user acquisition channel, subsidized by paid subscribers. As paid-to-free ratios shifted, adding ads to free-tier traffic became a way to generate revenue from the links that were previously operating at no return. It’s a model other platforms have adopted before.
That context doesn’t change the user experience, though. If your links now deliver a worse result than they did six months ago, the practical question is what to do next. You have two real paths forward.
UseClick.io: Ad-Free Link Shortening, Starting at $0
10 free links with real click analytics, custom branded domains, QR codes, and UTM tracking. No ads on any link, ever — free or paid.
What Are Your Real Options If Bitly’s Ads Are a Problem?
Over 70% of businesses use shortened links for audience engagement (Business Research Insights, April 2026), so this affects a lot of real workflows. If Bitly’s ads are disrupting yours, here are the two honest options.
Option 1: Pay Bitly $35/month
If you’re already deep in Bitly’s ecosystem — with years of link history, integrations built on their API, or custom domains already configured there — upgrading to the Growth plan is the lowest-friction solution. You get ad-free redirects, 500 links per month, and Bitly’s full analytics suite. The $35/month is a real cost for solo creators and small teams, but it does resolve the problem without any migration effort.
Option 2: Move to an ad-free alternative
If you’re not invested in Bitly specifically, this is the better long-term move. UseClick.io’s free plan includes 10 total links, 1,000 tracked clicks per month, custom branded domains, QR codes, and a UTM builder — all with no ads on any link, at any plan level. The Starter plan at $12/month brings you 300 links and 25,000 tracked clicks per month. That’s less than a third of what Bitly charges just to remove ads, with a comparable feature set.
Dub.co offers 25 links per month with 1,000 tracked events for free. Short.io allows up to 1,000 total links with 50,000 tracked clicks per month at no cost. Neither shows ads. TinyURL handles the “I just need a quick link” case with unlimited free links and no account required, though it doesn’t include analytics on the free tier.
Switching is mostly a one-time effort. Recreate your active links on the new platform, update the high-traffic locations where your old Bitly links appear — email signatures, bio links, pinned posts — and you’re done. Your old Bitly links will keep working, just with the new ad experience. Everything you create from here forward can go somewhere else.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do Bitly’s interstitial ads look like?
Bitly’s interstitial ads appear as a “Destination Preview” page that loads when someone clicks a free-plan link. The screen shows the destination URL and Bitly branding alongside a sponsored ad unit. The user must click a button to proceed. There is no timed automatic redirect on the free plan. Previously, free Bitly links went directly to the destination without any intermediate page (Coywolf, Feb 2025).
Did Bitly’s ads affect links I created before February 2025?
Yes, fully retroactively. Every link created on a Bitly free account now shows the interstitial, including links made before the February 2025 rollout (Tedium, Feb 2025). Links embedded in old emails, printed on business cards, or shared in social posts are all affected if they were created under a free Bitly account. There is no legacy exception for pre-2025 links.
How do I remove ads from my Bitly links?
The only way to remove ads from Bitly links is to upgrade to the Bitly Growth plan, which costs $35 per month (301.pro, 2026). There is no lower-cost tier that removes the interstitial. Alternatively, you can create new links on an ad-free platform like UseClick.io and redirect your audience to those instead. Existing Bitly links cannot be rerouted away from Bitly’s servers without paying for the upgrade.
What is the best free alternative to Bitly with no ads?
UseClick.io offers a free plan with 10 total links, 1,000 tracked click events per month, custom branded domains, QR codes, and UTM tracking — with no ads on any link, free or paid. Short.io allows up to 1,000 total links with 50,000 tracked clicks per month for free. Dub.co gives 25 links and 1,000 tracked events per month for free. TinyURL offers unlimited free links with no ads but no analytics.
Does UseClick.io have a free plan with no ads?
Yes. UseClick.io’s free plan includes 10 total links, 1,000 tracked clicks per month, custom branded domains, QR codes, a UTM builder, and API access at 100 requests per minute. No ads appear on any link at any plan level. Paid plans start at $12/month for Starter (300 links, 25,000 tracked clicks per month) and scale up from there. No credit card is required to start.
The Bottom Line
Bitly’s February 2025 free plan change removed something users had taken for granted: that a short link goes directly to its destination. The retroactive rollout meant it affected the entire history of free-plan links in circulation, not just new ones. And the $35/month minimum to remove ads places Bitly at the top of entry-level pricing in the category.
If you’re affected, the decision is practical. Pay Bitly for the ad-free experience you previously got for free, or start creating new links on a platform that doesn’t show ads on any tier. UseClick.io, Short.io, and Dub.co are all solid starting points, each with a free plan well below Bitly’s $35/month threshold — or no cost at all.
Your old Bitly links will keep working, just with the new ad experience attached. Every link you create from today forward can go wherever you choose.
