Head-to-head
Linktree vs Beacons
Quick verdict: Pick Beacons if you sell anything through your bio link, and pick Linktree if you do not. That is the whole decision, and it follows from two numbers both vendors publish: Beacons takes 9% of a sale where Linktree Free takes 12%, and Beacons includes a custom domain from $8.33 a month while Linktree offers none at any price.
Linktree and Beacons both put one link in your bio and both have a free plan, so the choice rarely comes down to the subscription. It comes down to two published numbers: the percentage each takes when you sell something, and whether your page can live on your own domain. Beacons wins both of those on price. Linktree wins on being the simpler, better-known product, which matters more than it sounds if you are never going to sell anything.
Everything below was read off linktr.ee/s/pricing, three Linktree help-center articles and beacons.ai/i/pricing on August 24, 2026. Where a vendor publishes no figure, the cell says so rather than estimating one.
Linktree
7.5/ 10
Good · Best for simple, free link hubs
Link-in-bio tool · From $0/mo · founded 2016
Beacons
8.0/ 10
Very Good · Best for creators who sell
Link-in-bio tool · From $0/mo · founded 2019
On the scores Each score is the editorial rating from that tool's own review on this site, applied to the tool as a whole rather than to this match-up. This page ranks nothing: it lays the two vendors' published plans side by side so you can price your own setup.
01 · Plans and pricing
Plans, fees and limits
USD list prices as of August 24, 2026. Both vendors show an annual and a monthly figure for each paid tier, and both are quoted below. Neither includes payment-processor fees, which apply on top on every plan.
| Plan detail | Linktree | Beacons |
|---|---|---|
| Free planlinktr.ee/s/pricing plus its Insights help article, and beacons.ai/i/pricing, read August 24, 2026 | $0. Unlimited basic links, plus selling products, courses and brand offers. Analytics reach back 28 days, and a 12% cut applies to digital-product sales. | $0, labeled "Free forever". Unlimited links, a customizable page, a daily-updating media kit, unlimited digital products, affiliate links, 50 email sends a month, Instagram auto-DM and 30 daily AI credits. A 9% seller fee applies. |
| Cheapest paid tier, and what it addslinktr.ee/s/pricing and beacons.ai/i/pricing, read August 24, 2026 | Starter, $6 a month billed annually or $8 monthly. Adds a personalized page, basic analytics with a 90-day window, and cuts the sales fee from 12% to 9%. | Creator, $8.33 a month billed annually ($100 a year) or $10 monthly. Adds a free custom domain across the bio page and store product URLs, 300 daily AI credits and 500 email sends a month. The card also promises advanced SEO and marketing features, but the feature grid marks those rows Creator Plus and up. The seller fee stays at 9%. |
| The full paid ladderBoth vendors' pricing pages, read August 24, 2026 | Three tiers: Starter $6 a month annually ($8 monthly), Pro $12 ($15), Premium $30 ($35). | Three tiers: Creator $8.33 a month annually ($10 monthly), Creator Plus $25 ($30), Creator Max $75 ($90). |
| Cut taken on a saleLinktree's fees help article and the beacons.ai/i/pricing store grid, read August 24, 2026 | 12% on Free, 9% on Starter and Pro, 0% on Premium. Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30 per purchase applies on every plan. | 9% on Free and Creator, 0% on Creator Plus and Creator Max. Payment-processor fees apply on top on every plan. |
| Cheapest way to pay 0%Both vendors' pricing pages, read August 24, 2026 | Premium, $30 a month billed annually or $35 monthly. | Creator Plus, $25 a month billed annually or $30 monthly. |
| Worked payout exampleLinktree's fees help article, read August 24, 2026; Beacons' pricing page carries no equivalent worked example | Published. On a $34.99 sale Linktree's help center shows you receive $29.48 on Free, $30.53 on Starter or Pro, and $33.68 on Premium. | Not published. |
| Custom domainLinktree's custom-domain help article and beacons.ai/i/pricing, read August 24, 2026 | None, on any plan. Linktree's help center states it does "not offer the option to use a custom domain to replace the linktr.ee URL" and does not provide domain-forwarding tools either. | Included from the $10-a-month Creator plan ($8.33 annually), covering the bio page and store product URLs. Not available on the free plan. |
| Analytics depthLinktree's Insights help article and the beacons.ai/i/pricing feature grid, read August 24, 2026 | Lifetime view, click, click-rate and subscriber totals on every plan. The date range you can chart is 28 days on Free, 90 on Starter, 365 on Pro and the full lifetime on Premium. Traffic sources, locations, devices, filtering and most-clicked links are Pro and Premium only; exporting Insights as CSV is Premium only. | Advanced traffic analytics is marked available on all four plans, including Free, and the free plan card lists real-time analytics. The pricing page publishes no history window for any plan. |
| Email and marketingLinktree's paid-features help article and the beacons.ai/i/pricing marketing grid, read August 24, 2026 | No sending of your own. Linktree collects addresses and hands them to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Kit or Google Sheets, and those integrations are Pro and Premium only. Instagram auto-replies are capped at 1,000 DMs a month on Free, 1,500 on Starter, 2,500 on Pro and unlimited on Premium. | Sending is built in: 50 emails a month on Free, 500 on Creator, unlimited on Creator Plus and Max, with 5 automation sequences a month on the lower two tiers and 20 above. Instagram DM automations are marked unlimited on every plan. |
| Link limitsBoth vendors' pricing and plan-feature pages, read August 24, 2026 | Unlimited basic links on every plan including Free. Featured Layout links, the highlighted format, are capped at one on Free and unlimited on paid. | Unlimited links on every plan, plus unlimited link-in-bio sub-pages on every plan. |
| Removing the vendor's brandingLinktree's paid-features help article and the beacons.ai/i/pricing feature grid, read August 24, 2026 | Pro and Premium, so from $12 a month annually ($15 monthly). | Creator Plus and Creator Max, so from $25 a month annually ($30 monthly). |
| Free trial on a paid planlinktr.ee/s/pricing and beacons.ai/i/pricing, read August 24, 2026 | 7 days on Pro and Premium. Starter has no trial. | Not published. |
| Team seatsBoth vendors' pricing pages, read August 24, 2026 | Not published. Team seats sit on an "Agency or Enterprise" plan that the pricing page prices only as "Get in touch". | Not published. No plan on the pricing page mentions seats or team members; Creator Max adds onboarding, support priority and perks rather than extra users. |
- Linktree's earning features are not open to everyone: its help center marks Shops and Sponsored Links as US-only, and says paid digital products are available in certain countries only. Check eligibility before pricing a plan on its selling features.
- The percentages above are the ones charged on digital products and courses. Linktree runs a separate fee model on affiliate and sponsored-link earnings, where it takes a percentage of the commission on Free, Starter and Pro, nothing on Premium, and Stripe charges $0.25 per payout.
- Beacons labels its annual toggle "2 months free!". Linktree publishes no headline discount percentage at all: each card simply prints the annual and the monthly figure side by side.
- Beacons publishes a support response-time target per tier, from under 48 hours on Free to under 6 hours on Creator Max. Linktree publishes no response-time target on any plan, and names dedicated support only on its unpriced enterprise tier.
02 · Features
What each one publishes
Every cell below is what the vendor documents on its own pricing or plan-features page. Where a vendor publishes nothing for a capability, the cell says “Not published” rather than guessing at it.
| Area | Linktree | Beacons |
|---|---|---|
| SellingBoth are storefronts on top of a bio page rather than full ecommerce. The published difference is depth: Beacons lists memberships, payment plans and a Shopify integration that Linktree's plan pages do not. | Digital products and courses, the courses powered by Kajabi, plus an affiliate shop and sponsored links. Premium keeps 100% of affiliate-shop earnings. | Unlimited digital products on every plan. Courses are one per account with no video hosting on Free and Creator, and unlimited with hosting on Creator Plus and Max, which also add memberships, order bumps and Buy Now Pay Later. |
| Brand-deal toolsLinktree's pricing page and its paid-features article list no media kit, rate card or invoicing feature on any tier, so there is nothing to quote against this. | Not published | A media kit that updates daily on every plan, with rate cards, invoices, past projects, media-kit analytics and an AI brand-outreach email generator. |
| AI featuresNeither vendor publishes what a generation costs it, and Beacons' daily caps reset daily rather than monthly. | One: Ask Insights Chat, which answers questions about your analytics. It is marked a beta that is not yet available to all users, on Pro and Premium. | A metered credit system across text, images, chat, page design, emails and trending-content search. Daily allowances rise from 30 text generations on Free to 300 on Creator, and are unlimited on Creator Plus and Max. |
| Multi-page websitesLinktree's published product is the single bio page. Its help center's answer to wanting your own site is a Redirect link, not a builder. | Not published | A website builder alongside the bio page: 1 site of 1 page on Free, 1 of 3 pages on Creator, 5 sites of 5 pages on Creator Plus and 10 of 10 on Creator Max. |
| SchedulingThese are not the same feature. Linktree's Premium tier is the only one of the two that publishes scheduling of posts to social networks; both schedule changes to the bio page itself. | Link scheduling on the paid plans, so a link can go live or expire on a set date. Scheduling of social posts themselves is listed on Premium only. | Link-update scheduling is marked available on all four plans, including Free. |
| Instagram auto-DM | Keyword-triggered auto-replies on every plan, metered: 1,000 DMs a month on Free, 1,500 on Starter, 2,500 on Pro, unlimited on Premium. | Smart Reply auto-DM on the free plan, and the feature grid marks Instagram DM automations unlimited on all four tiers. |
| Pixels and trackingBeacons contradicts itself on the tier: its Creator plan card lists "advanced SEO and marketing features" as a Creator-tier feature, while the comparison grid marks both rows unavailable on Creator. Check in the product before buying Creator for either. Separately, Linktree names Google Analytics explicitly; Beacons' pricing page lists no Google Analytics integration, so nothing is quoted for it here. | Meta Pixel, UTM parameters and a Google Analytics integration, all three on Pro and Premium only. | Your own Facebook, TikTok and Pinterest pixels, under advanced marketing. The feature grid marks that row, and the advanced SEO row, as Creator Plus and Creator Max only. |
03 · Who each one fits
Pick by the shape of your accounts
Choose Linktree if
- You are not selling anything. The fee that makes Beacons cheaper never applies to you, and Linktree Free gives you unlimited links with nothing to weigh up.
- You want the name people recognize. Linktree has been doing this since 2016 and a linktr.ee URL needs no explaining to an audience.
- You want the analytics you get to be well documented: lifetime totals sit on every plan, and the help center states exactly which window and which report each tier buys.
- You want to try before paying. Pro and Premium both carry a 7-day trial; Beacons publishes no trial on any paid plan.
- Your Instagram auto-replies are light. Linktree includes 1,000 a month on the free plan.
Choose Beacons if
- You sell through the page. Beacons takes 9% where Linktree Free takes 12%, and reaches 0% at $25 a month annually against Linktree's $30.
- You want your own domain. Beacons includes one from $8.33 a month annually; Linktree does not offer one on any plan and says so in its help center.
- You want to email your audience from the same tool rather than pay for a separate sender. Beacons sends 50 a month free and 500 on Creator; Linktree only hands addresses to an integration, and only on Pro and above.
- Brand deals are part of the income. The daily-updating media kit, rate cards and invoices are on every Beacons plan and have no Linktree equivalent.
- You want more than one page, or a small multi-page site, without adding a website builder to the stack.
04 · The verdict
Which one should you pay for?
The selling case is not close on the published rates. On a $100 digital product, Linktree's free plan keeps $12 and Beacons' keeps $9, before either payment processor's cut. Getting to a 0% rate costs $25 a month on Beacons Creator Plus, billed annually, against $30 on Linktree Premium. Linktree does publish something Beacons does not, though, and it is worth reading: a worked example showing a $34.99 sale paying out $29.48 on Free, $30.53 on Starter or Pro and $33.68 on Premium. Beacons states its percentages and leaves the arithmetic to you.
The domain gap is the sharper one, because it has no workaround inside the product. Linktree's help center is blunt about it: it does not offer a custom domain to replace the linktr.ee URL, and it does not provide domain-forwarding tools either. Beacons puts a free custom domain on its cheapest paid tier, covering both the bio page and store product URLs. If your page is a brand asset rather than a convenience, that alone decides it.
What keeps Linktree in the conversation is that most people never sell anything. For a plain hub of links, its free plan carries unlimited links, lifetime click and view totals, and 1,000 Instagram auto-replies a month, and the paid tiers buy documented analytics depth rather than features you will not use. Beacons answers a bigger question than most readers are asking: a store, an email sender, a media kit, an AI credit system and a website builder are real capabilities, but they are also more product to learn. Neither of those is a score. They are what each vendor documents, and which set matters is a fact about your work, not about the tools.
This comparison is an editorial read of both vendors' published pricing and plan-feature pages, not a product test. Every price, limit and quota above was read on August 24, 2026 and can change without notice; check each vendor's live pricing page before you buy. The two scores come from our Linktree review and Beacons review.
Frequently Asked Questions
For selling and for owning your URL, yes, on the published numbers. As of August 24, 2026, Beacons charges a 9% seller fee on its free plan where Linktree charges 12%, it drops to 0% at $25 a month billed annually against $30 for Linktree Premium, and it includes a free custom domain from its $8.33-a-month Creator plan while Linktree's help center states it does not offer a custom domain on any plan.
Beacons also bundles email sending, a daily-updating media kit and a website builder that Linktree does not publish at all. Linktree is the better pick if you are not selling: it is the simpler, more widely recognized product, its free plan gives unlimited links and lifetime click totals, and its analytics tiers are documented in detail. Our reviews rate Beacons 8/10 and Linktree 7.5/10 on the tools as a whole, not on this match-up.
Yes. Linktree's pricing page lists a $0 plan with unlimited basic links, and you can sell products, courses and take brand offers on it. Two limits are worth knowing before you rely on it: digital-product sales on the free plan carry a 12% Linktree fee on top of Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30, and analytics only reach back 28 days, against 90 days on Starter, 365 on Pro and the full lifetime on Premium. Removing Linktree's own branding needs Pro, at $12 a month billed annually or $15 monthly. Read August 24, 2026.
Yes. Beacons publishes a $0 plan it labels "Free forever", and it is unusually full: unlimited links, a customizable page, a daily-updating media kit, unlimited digital products, affiliate links, 50 email sends a month, Instagram auto-DM and 30 daily AI credits. The two things it does not include are the ones people upgrade for: a custom domain, which starts at $8.33 a month billed annually, and a 0% seller fee, which starts at $25 a month billed annually. Until then Beacons takes 9% of each sale. Read August 24, 2026.
It depends on the job, because each rival beats it at one thing rather than everything. If you sell or want your own domain, Beacons is cheaper on both counts, at a 9% seller fee against 12% and a custom domain from $8.33 a month billed annually. If you want design control and your own domain on a small budget, Carrd is the one to look at.
If selling is the entire point of the page, Stan Store charges a flat monthly fee with no percentage on sales, which beats a 9% or 12% cut once your volume is high enough. And if you only need a free hub of links, nothing clearly beats Linktree Free. Our Carrd and Stan Store reviews set out both of those cases in full.
On the subscription alone Linktree is cheaper at the entry tier: Starter is $6 a month billed annually against $10 a month for Beacons Creator ($8.33 annually). Once you sell, that reverses, because the fee is the larger number. Linktree Free takes 12% of a digital-product sale and Starter and Pro take 9%, while Beacons takes 9% on Free and Creator. The cheapest route to a 0% rate is $25 a month on Beacons Creator Plus billed annually, against $30 a month on Linktree Premium. So: cheaper to subscribe to Linktree, cheaper to sell on Beacons. Both sets of figures were read on August 24, 2026.
Only with Beacons. Linktree's help center states plainly that it does "not offer the option to use a custom domain to replace the linktr.ee URL", and adds that it does not provide developer tools for domain forwarding either, so every Linktree page stays on linktr.ee/username on every plan. Beacons includes a free custom domain from its Creator plan at $8.33 a month billed annually ($10 monthly), covering both the bio page and store product URLs; its free plan does not include one. Read August 24, 2026.
Yes, and while you are deciding it is the sensible thing to do. Both have an open-ended free plan, neither asks for your social passwords, and your bio link is one field you can repoint in seconds, so you can build a page on each and compare the editor, the analytics and the checkout before paying anyone. What you cannot do is split the fee: whichever page takes the sale is the one whose percentage applies, so run the store on one of them rather than both.
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