Paste a long URL and share a short one on 1ref.eu or your own domain. Clicks are never capped, metered or billed, and your click history is kept for as long as you keep your account.
1ref is a free beta run and paid for by botBrains GmbH, a software company in Berlin. There are no ads on your links and we don't sell personal data. Teams that need higher limits can email us about becoming a Supporter. If the free plan changes, we give reasonable notice first.
Yes, a free one with your email address. No credit card. Paste your link at the top of this page first: it is created as soon as you have signed in or finished signing up.
No, not unless you set an end date. 1ref does not delete links for inactivity. A link stops redirecting if you delete it, its end date passes, you delete your account, or it is blocked for abuse such as phishing. If we ever had to wind down the free beta, we would give reasonable notice first, and you can export every link at any time.
We would give reasonable notice first. You can export your links and your click history as CSV at any time. Links on your own domain stay on your domain: point it at another service and recreate them from the export with the same back halves.
No. Redirects are never metered, capped or billed, and the clicks in your analytics have no monthly cap. Reading data through the API is not metered either.
Your links keep redirecting and clicks keep being counted. The free plan includes 10,000 links and 50,000 changes a month (creating, editing or deleting links, in the dashboard or through the API). If you reach the monthly change limit, new changes pause until the 1st of the next month (UTC). Need higher limits? Email support@ref0.eu and we'll talk.
Yes, custom domains are part of the free plan. Point a subdomain such as go.yourshop.de at cname.1ref.eu with a CNAME record, add a TXT record to prove you own it, and we set up HTTPS automatically.
1ref runs only on servers in Germany and processes data under the GDPR. A data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR applies to every account automatically. We don't store raw IP addresses with your click data and set no tracking cookies on redirects. Our servers run in ISO/IEC 27001-certified Hetzner data centres; 1ref itself holds no certification.
As published on their pricing and help pages (checked October 2026), the free plans include 5 links a month on Bitly, 25 new links a month on Dub and 1,000 links on Short.io. 1ref includes 10,000 links in total. Click analytics on those free plans are capped or not included; on 1ref they have no monthly cap. See the comparison table on ref0.eu/#compare.
Yes. Edit the destination whenever you like; the short link and any QR code you printed open the new page. New links use a temporary (302) redirect by default, so browsers pick up the change right away, and every change is saved in the link's history.
Yes, at any time and on the free plan. Settings has two CSV exports: every link with its settings, and your click history. One click export holds the newest 250,000 clicks; the API's date filters fetch older ones. Both exports are also available through the API.
Yes. Export your links as a CSV file and import it on the Links page; common column names from other shorteners are recognized. If your old links ran on your own domain, connect that domain to 1ref and import them with the same back halves.
Yes. Create an API key in Settings and use the JSON API at ref0.eu/api/v1. The free plan includes 50,000 write operations a month, and reads such as listing links and fetching analytics are not metered.