Score a URL shortener yourself

Step 1: collect the facts

Open the vendor's pricing page and write down the following. If a fact is not on the page, write "not published". That is itself a data point.

1. Free plan: does one exist? How many links? Is a custom domain included? Does it show ads on links? How much analytics history?
2. Cheapest paid plan: monthly price, billed monthly or annual only, link quota, number of custom domains, analytics retention.
3. Features: for each of the fourteen on the features page, note whether it is included, on a higher tier, or absent.
4. Launch year.

Step 2: apply the rules

Each column page states its rule in full. In short:

• Free plan (10): links up to 4, custom domain up to 3, no ads 1.5, analytics up to 1.5.
• Value (10): entry price up to 5 (minus 0.5 if annual only), links on that plan up to 3, domains on that plan up to 2.
• Features (10): weighted sum of fourteen features, conditional availability counts half, divided by 11 and scaled to 10.
• Transparency (10): readable pricing page 4, paid retention stated 2, free analytics stated 1, ads policy stated 2, features documented up to 1.
• Track record (10): 15 or more years 10, 10 to 14 years 8, 6 to 9 years 6, 4 to 5 years 4, 2 to 3 years 2, under 2 years 1.

Step 3: choose weights and total

This site uses 30, 25, 20, 15 and 10. Yours may differ. Three common alternatives:

Total = (free ÷ 10 × weight) + (value ÷ 10 × weight) + (features ÷ 10 × weight) + (transparency ÷ 10 × weight) + (track record ÷ 10 × weight). The weights must add to 100.

A worked example

Take ReSlug from the dataset. Its sub-scores are free 9.5, value 9.5, features 8.6, transparency 10.0, track record 1.0. Under the site weights the total is 85.5.

Under the "links in print" weights above, the same sub-scores give 69.2, and TinyURL moves from 55.1 to 64.1. Same facts, different question, different order. That is what the weights are for.