Short.io is one of the better-known subscription tools in its space — and at $18/mo (Personal/Pro plan, unlimited links), one of the recurring line items people most often look to replace. If you're searching for a Short.io alternative you pay for once and own forever, Redirectly is the OneTimeSuite answer: $24, one time.
Why people go looking for an alternative
Short.io runs $18/mo (Personal/Pro plan, unlimited links), and like most SaaS the bill never stops — cancel and you typically lose access to your own history. That's roughly $648 over three years. Redirectly flips that model: Self-hosted redirect layer with wildcard and regex rules, hit tracking and 404 rescue.
What Redirectly covers
- Exact, wildcard and regex rules — 301, 302 or 307 status codes with $1 to $9 capture substitution and active/inactive toggles.
- Bulk CSV import/export — Dump hundreds of old-URL to new-URL mappings straight from a migration spreadsheet.
- Hit tracking per rule — Count, last hit and last referrer show which old URLs still get traffic, and tracking soft-fails so it can never break a redirect.
- 404 rescue — Unmatched paths are logged with counts so you can convert a high-traffic 404 into a redirect rule in one click.
- UTM / query passthrough — Incoming ?utm_* params merge into the target URL via a per-rule toggle.
The honest trade-off
Short.io will keep shipping features, integrations and managed infrastructure that a pay-once tool won't chase — if that ecosystem is genuinely load-bearing for your workflow, staying is a fair call. For the core job, the math favors owning the tool: $24 once against $18/mo (Personal/Pro plan, unlimited links) forever. Less than one month of Rebrandly buys Redirectly outright, redirect features and all.
Also worth reading
Redirectly's main head-to-head is with Rebrandly — see the detailed comparison or the product page for the full feature list, FAQ and demo video.
Try Redirectly — $24, once
Self-hosted redirect layer with wildcard and regex rules, hit tracking and 404 rescue.