about

A URL shortener that doesn’t sell you out.

MicrLink is a URL shortener at micrl.ink. You paste a long link; we hand back a short one and a scannable QR code, in under a second. The whole thing is free, no card required, no email required, no signup required. Optional account adds analytics, custom slugs, folders, tags, and a dashboard.

What we actually do

Every short link we generate carries a few important properties:

• Instant redirects. We do one database lookup and serve the redirect. Typical response is under 50ms. No interstitial pages, no ads on the way through, no analytics ping scripts injected into your destination.
• A free QR code with every link. Not a paid upsell. Every short link can be rendered as a QR code in your browser, copied as PNG, or shared straight to a phone. Pro users can brand their codes with colors and a logo and export to SVG for print.
• Click analytics that don’t need a cookie banner. We count clicks, classify the browser and device type, and look up the country from the IP via MaxMind GeoLite2. We don’t set cross-site cookies, fingerprint visitors, or sell the data. The data shows up on your dashboard and goes nowhere else.
• Safety screening. Every destination is checked against Google Safe Browsing and our shortener chain blocklist before it goes live. Pro users editing destinations later get the same re-scan plus a server-side cooldown so a compromised account can’t silently redirect a clean link to malware.

Who it’s for

Anyone who needs a short link and a QR code. Common uses we hear about:

• · Sharing a long PDF or doc link in a printed flyer or business card
• · Replacing huge tracking parameters before posting a link to social media
• · Embedding a link in a video or slide deck where typing is painful
• · Marketing campaigns where you want click counts per medium (with custom slugs)
• · Restaurants, events, and museums that want a QR code linking to a menu, ticket, or exhibit
• · Developers who want a programmatic API for shortening (Pro)
• · Teams that need shared link management with custom domains (Team)

What we don’t do

• · We don’t sell your data. Ever.
• · We don’t inject ads or interstitial pages between the click and the destination.
• · We don’t set third-party tracking cookies.
• · We don’t train AI models on your link contents.
• · We don’t use your shortened links to retarget you across the web.

How we make money

Some people pay for Pro ($8/month) or Team ($24/month) and get features that require more infrastructure: branded QR codes, editable destinations, long-term analytics retention, bulk import, API access, custom domains. That subscription revenue covers the free tier’s servers and database. The free tier is genuinely free — not a trial, not a teaser. See the pricing page for everything each tier includes.

The stack, briefly

MicrLink runs on Next.js, hosted on Render, behind Cloudflare for caching and DDoS protection. The database is Postgres on Supabase, which also handles authentication. Geolocation comes from MaxMind GeoLite2, downloaded fresh on every deploy. Safety screening uses Google Safe Browsing. Email goes through Supabase’s built-in transactional system. Total stack cost runs roughly a few hundred dollars a month at our current scale, which is why a generous free tier is sustainable.