TinyURL VS SampleHQ

TinyURL's answer

TinyURL has been running continuously since January 2002, which makes it the first notable URL shortening service and one of the oldest still operating. For a link shortener that longevity is the product, not trivia: a short link is only useful for as long as it still resolves, and links created here don't expire.

Three things set it apart day to day:

• Human and bot clicks are reported separately. Most shorteners report raw click totals that quietly include crawlers and link-preview bots, so reported traffic reads higher than the real audience. Separating them means the numbers can be trusted for attribution.
• Destinations stay editable after a link is published. A link already printed on packaging or posted to social can be repointed without reissuing it.
• A permanent free tier, not a trial - 30 links a month, one branded domain, links that never expire.

SampleHQ's answer:

SampleHQ is purpose-built for packaging and label manufacturers. Instead of generic order tools, it manages samples end-to-end with real-time visibility, team assignments, fulfillment tracking, and a full request history. With native CRM syncing, SampleHQ also displays exactly which samples drive revenue, a feature no other tool offers.

TinyURL's answer

Three practical reasons, depending on what you need:

• You want attribution you can trust. Analytics cover clicks over time, referrer, geography, device, OS, browser and language, retained for two years, with bot traffic separated out.
• You want your own brand on the link. Bring your own domain or subdomain on any plan, with up to three branded domains on paid tiers.
• You want links that outlive the campaign. Twenty-four years of continuous operation, and a free tier that doesn't expire, matter when a link is printed on something you can't reprint.

Pricing starts free and goes to $9/month billed annually ($11 month-to-month) for 125 links a month with unlimited tracked clicks. Bulk plans handle 50,000 links a month for agencies and high-volume senders, and there's a REST API for automating the whole lifecycle.

SampleHQ's answer:

SampleHQ gives packaging suppliers a clean, modern workflow that replaces email threads and spreadsheets without forcing new behavior. Teams get instant visibility on every request, faster processing, and accurate shipping updates. Its CRM integration also gives sales and marketing a direct view of which samples lead to closed deals, helping suppliers prioritize what works.

TinyURL's answer

• Marketing teams running campaigns across several channels who need per-link attribution rather than a single lumped traffic figure
• Social media managers and creators working inside character limits, who want a branded link rather than a generic one
• Agencies managing links for multiple clients, each on its own branded domain
• Developers automating link creation and analytics through the REST API
• Enterprises needing SLA-backed uptime and compliance support
• Educational Institutions
• The healthcare industry

It also has a long tail of individual users who simply need a link shortened, which the free tier covers without an account upgrade.

SampleHQ's answer:

SampleHQ is designed for packaging and labeling manufacturers, converters, and print suppliers who process a steady volume of sample requests. It’s used by sales teams, customer service, project managers, and fulfillment teams who need clear visibility into sample status, delivery, and revenue impact.

TinyURL's answer

Kevin Gilbertson, a web developer, launched TinyURL in January 2002 so he could link directly to newsgroup postings, which at the time had long and unwieldy addresses. It was the first notable URL shortening service, and it arrived years before shortening became a category.

Twitter used TinyURL as its default shortener until May 2009, which put it in front of a mass audience during the period when character limits made short links essential.

Since then it's grown from a single-purpose utility into a link management platform: branded domains, click analytics with two years of retained history, editable destinations, QR codes, bulk creation and a REST API. It now serves over 4.4 million registered users and has created billions of links.

SampleHQ's answer:

SampleHQ was created after working closely with a large packaging manufacturer that struggled to manage sample requests across email, spreadsheets, and siloed tools. The process was slow, error-prone, and impossible to track. We built SampleHQ to centralize everything and to give suppliers the missing link between sample activity and actual revenue.

TinyURL's answer

TinyURL is a cloud-hosted web application, accessible from any browser with no install. Its public interface is a REST API (v2.4.2) published as an OpenAPI 3.0 specification and authenticated with bearer tokens, covering link creation, editing, destination changes, analytics retrieval and bulk batch processing.

TinyURL's answer

Twitter used TinyURL as its default URL shortener until May 2009.

SampleHQ's answer:

Since SampleHQ has just launched, we’re currently onboarding our first set of packaging and labeling suppliers. Early users include teams from mid-sized packaging manufacturers who helped shape the product during development, and the platform is now opening to a wider audience.