URL shortener API

Create short links from your own code, your scheduler or your automation tool. Available on every plan, including the free one — the same credential, no sandbox, no trial period.

One call

A bearer token and a URL is the whole thing:

curl -X POST https://urlicer.com/api/v1/links \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer url_live_xxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/spring-sale"}'

The response carries the short URL, its code, and the QR endpoint for it. Full request and response shapes are in the links reference.

What it covers

• Create a link — with a custom alias, an expiry, a password or a branded domain, subject to your plan.
• Bulk create up to 10,000 links in one request, with per-row results so a single bad URL does not fail the batch.
• List, read, update and delete — change a destination after the fact, which is the point of a short link on something printed.
• A QR code for every link, from a public endpoint you can use directly as an <img src>.

There are no native integrations with Zapier, Make or n8n. Every one of those can call an HTTP endpoint, which is all this needs — but if you want a one-click connector, we do not have one, and it is fair to weigh that.

Rate limits

Counted per key, per minute. There is no monthly request cap — what bounds your usage is how many links your plan allows, not how often you may ask.

Every response carries the remaining budget in its headers, and a 429 tells you when it resets — see rate limits.

Using it from a scheduler or an automation

The common case is not a bespoke integration: it is a tool you already run that needs a short link at the end of a step. A social scheduler posting a tagged campaign URL, a nightly job that shortens a feed, a spreadsheet of 2,000 product links that has to become 2,000 branded ones before a catalogue goes out.

All three are the same two calls — create, or bulk-create — from whatever can send an HTTP request. For the third, bulk creation does it in one request rather than 2,000.

How the limits compare

Worth knowing before you build: Bitly meters the API by month — 1,000 requests a month on free, 50,000 on their $199 plan, per their published pricing. Short.io serves 50 requests a second on every plan, which is more throughput than we offer below the top tier. We sit between the two: a per-minute budget rather than a monthly allowance, from 30/minute on free to 3,000/minute on Business, and no monthly ceiling at all.

If your workload is a steady trickle, the monthly cap is what bites. If it is a burst of tens of thousands, throughput is, and Short.io is honestly the better fit today.

Create an account and your first key takes a minute — free plan included. The reference lives in the API docs.