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- Why I’m Paying $18/Month for Something I Could Do for Free
Why I’m Paying $18/Month for Something I Could Do for Free

A lot of times my newsletter topics are triggered by an article or book, or something as mundane as something my wife said in passing.
Sometimes it’s the result of a painful lesson . . . like today.
We still have our CodaMagic site on WordPress and we use a plugin called BetterLinks for our URL redirects.
“Wait, what do you mean by URL redirects?”
When we share links in emails or websites or discussion communities, we want to capture that traffic in Google Analytics.
If we just share the direct link to a Coda pack or YouTube, we’ll never know if anyone actually clicked on it.
We don’t own those sites, so we can’t inject our tracking code on any of their pages.
To capture ALL traffic, we use a “URL shortener” tool called BetterLinks to create a shareable link for our packs.
When someone clicks on a link, they go to the final website, but first, we track that click in Google Analytics.
Unfortunately, our WordPress site went down over the weekend and it took me several hours to bring it back up.
This means that all of our redirects were broken.
Now I’m very technical and using WordPress is not a problem for me technically.
Open source is either “free” or “much cheaper” than commercial software.
If I have the technical expertise and it’s “easy’ for me to build my own servers, then why would I pay money for a commercial offering?
Because I’m also a busy entrepreneur trying to build a business.
I’m a HUGE fan of open source, and we use a lot of open source tools for our business.
But I DON’T have extra hours to spend troubleshooting unexpected technical issues.
Even though I have technical expertise, that doesn’t mean problems are quickly solved.
I can be a master mechanic, but if an engine blows up, it’s going to take me several days to repair it.
We’re migrating our BetterLinks to short.io.
It offers the same features for $18/month . . . which is a HUGE value . . .
We looked at several “free” open source link shortener alternatives (and there are a TON), but we’d have to host them ourselves, which means:
Monthly web hosting
Monitoring
My time to support issues
Potential lost sales due to outages
On the flip side, Short.io has a 99.9% uptime SLA.
They manage all the infrastructure 24/7.
If one of their servers goes down, they have backup servers that kick in immediately.
Their support team will get paged in the middle of the night, not me.
This is the same reason I pay $50/month for n8n Cloud, even though they have a “free” Community Edition.
So is open source “free”?
Yes, the binary software code itself is free.
Web hosting, my time and 5-star client satisfaction are NOT free.
So pick and choose open source wisely—don’t nickel-and-dime, especially when it’s the backbone of your business.
Maybe you don’t even know where to start with automAItion™ . . . well, I have the tool for you! And it’s FREE.
🎉 Introducing the Free Business AutomAItion Audit

This is a powerful Coda template that lets you audit your current business processes and calculate how much you could save both in money and time with automation.
I even recorded a tutorial that’s built into the template!
As loyal newsletter subscribers, you get this free — no strings attached!
Click here to get the template.
Troy's One Cool Thing of the Day
Key Features:
🔗 Branded Short Links: Create fully personalized short links using your own domain to enhance brand visibility.
📊 Detailed Analytics: Access comprehensive statistics on link performance, including clickstream data, location, and browser insights.
🔄 API & Integrations: Automate workflows and enhance internal operations with multiple custom domains and seamless integrations.
🔐 Link Security: Generate encrypted links to protect destination URLs, ensuring secure sharing.
🌍 Geolocation Redirects: Direct users based on IP to optimize user journeys, enhancing engagement and tracking.
The Bottom Line: Short.io provides a robust platform for businesses to manage their link-sharing strategies effectively, offering tools that improve both brand visibility and operational efficiency. Its comprehensive analytics and customization features make it an invaluable asset for digital marketing and engagement.
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Disclaimer: Just a heads-up! Some of the links in this newsletter might be affiliate links, which means I could earn a small commission if you make a purchase. No extra cost to you… just a way to keep the magic coming!
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