When a prospect clicks your link, you want them to see your brand, not a generic URL shortener's. Branded short links do exactly that—they replace those messy bit.ly/abc123 addresses with clean, recognisable URLs under your own domain. But beyond vanity, they're a powerful way to track engagement, build trust, and tie every click back to the person behind it.
The problem is choosing the right tool. Most platforms force you to pick between a full CRM suite (bloated, expensive) or a bare-bones link shortener (no context). You need something that handles branded links and tracks them properly, ideally alongside your outreach and contact data. This guide walks through ten options worth a look—each with different strengths depending on whether you're managing a sales team, running campaigns, or building a product ecosystem.
# Clkly
Clkly is the simplest way to track every click on your branded links. It gives you your own domain, real analytics, and ties every click back to the contact who made it. You can be set up in 30 seconds—no card, no demo, no sales call.
- Create branded short links on your own domain (e.g.,
yourname.com/launch) in one click - Styled QR codes with your logo, custom colours, and transparent backgrounds—print-ready SVG or PNG
- Country and city-level analytics per click: see which device, browser, and referrer drove each visitor
- Group links into folders by campaign or client, then bulk move, tag, or archive them
- Track opens, clicks, and bounces on every outreach email, with real-time notifications tied to your contacts
# HubSpot
HubSpot is a full-stack CRM and marketing platform that includes link tracking as part of its broader suite. It's geared towards mid-market sales and marketing teams who want a single pane of glass for pipelines, email, and analytics. Link shortening exists within HubSpot's ecosystem—you can create tracked links and associate them with campaigns and contacts—but it's not the primary focus. Pricing scales significantly with add-ons; most teams end up on a mid-tier plan ($1,200+/month) to unlock meaningful automation and reporting. HubSpot's strength is breadth; its weakness is that most users only tap a fraction of what they pay for.
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# Bitly
Bitly pioneered the URL shortener category and has evolved into a platform for link management and campaign tracking. It offers both generic and custom domain links, QR code generation, and click analytics by geography, device, and referrer. Bitly is widely used by marketers for social campaigns and enterprise teams managing thousands of links. The free tier covers basic shortening; paid plans ($35–$99/month) unlock custom domains, advanced analytics, and API access. Bitly has brand recognition, but for sales teams needing CRM-tight integration and outreach sequencing, it's link-first rather than contact-first.
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# Rebrandly
Rebrandly focuses on custom domain links and white-label link management. It's popular with agencies and teams that need to shorten links across multiple client domains. The platform offers QR code generation, click analytics by location and device, and team collaboration features. Pricing starts around $20/month for a single custom domain and scales with additional domains and users. Rebrandly doesn't include CRM or email outreach—it's a dedicated link shortener with strong branding controls, making it a good fit for agencies but less suitable if you need to track outreach alongside link clicks.
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# Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales CRM built around a visual pipeline and activity tracking. It includes basic link tracking and email integration (via Outlook and Gmail), but link management is secondary to deal management. Sales teams use Pipedrive primarily to manage prospects and pipeline stages; email sequences and link analytics exist but aren't as sophisticated as in dedicated outreach tools. Pricing starts around $14/month per user for the basic tier and scales with team size and feature tier. Pipedrive is a strong choice for teams whose main need is pipeline visibility, but if branded short links and email tracking are central to your process, you'll feel the gaps.
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# Short.io
Short.io is a dedicated link management platform that competes directly with Bitly and Rebrandly. It offers custom domain links, QR codes, advanced analytics (including device, location, and referrer data), and team collaboration. Short.io also includes a basic CRM layer and API for developers. Pricing starts around $30/month for a single domain with higher tiers for multiple domains and advanced features. Short.io occupies a middle ground—stronger than a bare shortener, but still positioned as link-first rather than contact-first, so integrating it with your sales process requires extra steps.
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# Lemlist
Lemlist is a dedicated cold email and outreach platform focused on email sequences, personalisation, and engagement tracking. It includes link tracking and QR code generation tied to email campaigns, but custom domain links are a secondary feature. Lemlist's strength is in campaign-level outreach—branching sequences, conditional logic, and AI-assisted replies based on contact interactions. Pricing starts around $35/month and scales with monthly email volume. If your primary use case is running multi-touch email campaigns with dozens of contacts, Lemlist is excellent; if you need a unified CRM where every link, email, and note is tied to a single contact record, you'll outgrow it.
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# Salesloft
Salesloft is an enterprise sales engagement platform designed for large teams and complex multi-channel sequences. It handles email, call logging, SMS, and social outreach alongside link and email tracking. Branded link shortening exists but is woven into the broader cadence-building and forecasting toolset. Salesloft is positioned for sales ops teams managing 20+ reps; pricing reflects that scale ($10k+/year). For smaller teams or individual contributors, the feature density and cost are both overkill. For large enterprises with dedicated sales ops, it's a mature all-in-one choice.
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# Mailchimp
Mailchimp is primarily an email marketing platform for SMBs and e-commerce brands. It includes list management, automation, and basic link tracking within email campaigns. Branded link shortening is not a native feature—it focuses on campaign-level sending rather than individual contact tracking. Mailchimp's free tier covers up to 500 contacts with limited automation; paid tiers start around $20/month. Mailchimp is excellent for bulk email campaigns and segmentation; it's less suited for sales outreach where you need to track individual prospect behaviour and tie clicks back to specific contacts.
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# Zapier
Zapier is a workflow automation and no-code integration platform that connects hundreds of apps (including link shorteners, CRMs, and email tools). It doesn't create its own branded links or manage outreach directly. Instead, Zapier acts as a bridge—automating tasks like "when a link is clicked in Bitly, create a contact in HubSpot" or "when an email bounces in Lemlist, update a field in Pipedrive". Zapier is free for simple workflows and pricing scales with complexity ($20–$799+/month depending on task and data volume). Teams using Zapier typically cobble together best-of-breed tools; the trade-off is flexibility in exchange for integration complexity and data latency.
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# Close
Close is a CRM and dialer platform built for sales teams that rely on phone outreach. It includes email tracking, branded links, and built-in calling alongside a contact database and pipeline view. Close's strength is call logging and activity tracking; link and email features are solid but not as sophisticated as in dedicated outreach tools. Pricing starts around $29/month per user for the Starter tier. Close is a good fit for teams that balance phone and email outreach; if email sequences and link tracking are your primary tools, you'll find more depth elsewhere.
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# Why Clkly stands out
Clkly combines branded short links with full outreach and CRM functionality—no separate tools, no integration hassle. Every link click lands in your contact record automatically, your email sequences track opens and bounces in real time, and you can group links into folders and analyse them by campaign or client. Set up your first link in under a minute, then build sequences, track replies, and manage your entire pipeline from one dashboard.
- Own your domain—no middleman branding on your links
- Real-time click and email tracking tied directly to contact records
- Build email sequences with branching logic and conditional sends, no separate tool
- Bulk actions and folder organisation keep hundreds of links tidy as you scale
- Import your existing links from Bitly or Rebrandly, or your contacts from HubSpot or Pipedrive