5 Url Shortener Service Success Stories [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: November 19th, 2023

Start An Url Shortener Service

Designing an URL shortener tool can be a lucrative business opportunity. To create a URL shortener, you must understand JavaScript and other programming languages.

A URL shortener creates money by charging people for access to aggregate data created as a result of many people using the tools and advertising fees.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a url shortener service:

1. Sniply ($420K/year)

Matt Bentley, the Marketing Lead at Sniply, came up with the idea for the custom URL shortener after experiencing the problem of losing customers gained from curating other people's content. He realized that when sharing third-party content on social media, traffic is diverted away from your own website. This led to the creation of Sniply, which adds a custom call-to-action button on any shared page, directing the traffic back to the user's website. With 550 paying customers and an annual revenue of $420k, Sniply has become a valuable tool for startup founders, brand managers, and social media managers.

How much they make: $420K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1M
Current team size: 3

We Created A $420K/Year Tool That "Redirects" Website Traffic

Sniply is a custom URL shortener that adds a custom CTA button to any page shared on social media, with 550 paying customers, including large marketing companies, and an annual revenue of about $420k, revolutionizing content marketing.

About

Matt started Sniply about 10 years ago

Revenue

Matt grew the business to $35K/month

Costs

It cost Matt $1000000 to start the business

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2. T.LY ($31.2K/year)

Tim Leland, creator of the URL shortener and link management tool T.LY, After reading that Google would be shutting down its URL shortener service in March 2019, the founder saw an opportunity to develop a link shortener service that could fill the gap.

He also recognized that there was a demand for a link shortener API for use in his day job, specifically with a texting application. Realizing that other companies would also benefit from this service, he decided to build his own shortener API.

How much they make: $31.2K/year
How much did it cost to start: $50
Current team size: 0

I Built A URL Shortener Tool With 350K Active Users [Side Hustle]

T.LY is a simple URL shortener and link management tool that has over 8 million short URLs and has tracked over 80 million clicks, with a browser extension (https://t.ly/extension) having over 350,000 active users and making over $2,600 a month.

About

Tim started T.LY over 4 years ago

Revenue

Tim grew the business to $2.6K/month

Costs

It cost Tim $50 to start the business

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So... can you actually make money with a url shortener service?

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3. T.LY ($60K/year)

How much they make: $60K/year
Current team size:

His chrome extension just got $60k offer, he said no, now 400k users, $40k ARR

T.LY's founder Tim Leland created a URL shortener extension that has streamlined the process of designing, sharing, and tracking short URLs with just one click and currently tracks more than 100 million clicks from over 10 million short URLs.

About

They started T.LY over 4 years ago

Revenue

They grew the business to $5K/month

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Read by 497 founders