Why we made the most generous free tier in the market

When we sat down to design our free plan, we did something simple first: we signed up for everyone else's. What we found was remarkably consistent. The free tier of most link tools isn't built to be useful — it's built to be annoying enough that you upgrade. Twenty-five links a month. A hard cap on tracked clicks, after which new clicks simply stop being recorded. Interstitial ads on the links you share. One tool even stops redirecting once you pass the limit, which turns every link you've already shared into a dead end.

Each of those limits is a small paper cut, and together they send a clear message: the free plan is a demo, not a product. We decided to build the opposite — a free tier we'd actually be proud to recommend to a friend.

What "free" actually includes

• Unlimited short links — not five, not fifty
• Unlimited tracked clicks
• One custom domain, with automatic SSL
• Custom aliases and dynamic QR codes
• Realtime analytics with 30 days of history
• Folders, tags, and a UTM builder

No ads on your links. No surprise wall after your twentieth link. And the line we won't cross: a redirect never stops working. Whatever else runs out, a link you've already shared keeps resolving — forever, on any plan. If you never pay us a cent, TRIMS is still a genuinely good link platform for you.

The one thing that isn't unlimited

Analytics history is thirty days on Free, and we'd rather explain that than bury it. Storing and querying click history is the part of this product that actually costs money at scale, and it's also the part serious users care most about — comparing this month to last, watching a campaign mature, spotting a seasonal pattern. So that's what paid plans extend, to two years and beyond.

It's worth being precise about what expires: the history, not the counting. Your clicks are always tracked and always counted, on every plan. Thirty days is how far back you can look, not a budget that runs out mid-month and leaves you flying blind.

A free tier shouldn't be a trap. It should be the reason someone tells a friend about the product.

So how does the business actually work?

The obvious question is whether this is sustainable. It is — because paid plans earn their place with depth, not by holding your basics hostage. The things teams gladly pay for are genuinely more advanced: machine-learning insights, funnels and cohorts, A/B testing, geo and device routing, conversion attribution with server-side pixels, team workspaces with roles, white-label client portals, and much higher limits.

None of those are needed to shorten a link and see who clicked it. They're needed when link management becomes a serious part of how you grow. That's the natural moment to upgrade, and it's a moment you arrive at because the product earned your trust — not because a meter ran out.

Generosity as a growth strategy

There's a business bet underneath the values, and we're happy to say it out loud. If the free experience is fast, honest, and complete, more people build on TRIMS. More links in the wild means more people encountering the product, and a healthy fraction of those free users grow into a plan that makes sense for them.

We'd rather earn the upgrade with a better product than force it with a worse free tier. Generosity compounds: it buys goodwill, word of mouth, and the kind of loyalty you can't advertise your way to. If we do our job on the paid features, the free plan pays for itself many times over.