Best Deep Linking Alternatives for Small Teams in 2026

TL;DR: Every result for "best deep linking tools" today is a vendor's own list, and none of them take submissions or mention their own limits. This is WarpLink's roundup, and it names competitors, cites primary sources for every claim, and states plainly where WarpLink does not fit. Seven vendors are compared in depth: WarpLink, ChottuLink, Linkrunner, Detour, Airbridge, Branch, and AppsFlyer. If you want the short version: WarpLink, ChottuLink, Linkrunner, and Detour all publish a genuine free tier with no card required, and each is a real option for a small team. Branch and AppsFlyer are mobile measurement partners built for paid acquisition at scale, and they earn their price in that context, not this one. Create a free account and compare the real thing against this table.

The Deep Linking Landscape for Small Teams in 2026

Thirteen vendors were checked against primary sources: their own pricing pages, docs, and, where public, GitHub repositories. Six were dropped, for stated reasons. Adjust, Singular, and Kochava are sales-gated MMPs with no meaningfully different story than Branch or AppsFlyer, and Adjust already has its own dedicated comparison. Bitly, Dub, and URLgenius fail a basic bar for this list, genuinely offering mobile deep linking with a developer SDK, and get a short callout instead. Smler's pricing page returned a redirect loop on the day of research, so it is left out rather than guessed at.

That leaves seven: WarpLink, ChottuLink, Linkrunner, Detour, Airbridge, Branch, and AppsFlyer. The table below is current as of September 2026; vendor pricing changes without notice, so verify current numbers on the linked source before you commit.

Vendor	Entry price	Free tier	Deferred deep links	Install attribution	SDK platforms	Open source	Sales call required
WarpLink	$19/mo	$0, 10,000 clicks/mo, no time limit	Yes	Yes, referrer > device ID > fingerprint > raw signals cascade	iOS, Android, React Native	Yes, MIT, zero dependencies	No
ChottuLink	$19/mo (25K to 100K MAU)	$0, 25,000 MAU, includes deferred deep links	Yes, on every tier including free	Yes ("Link Attribution")	iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, Unity (vendor-published)	Not stated by vendor	No
Linkrunner	Pay-per-install above free	$0, 25,000 attributed installs, no card, no expiry	Yes, all tiers	Yes, all tiers	React Native, iOS, Android, Flutter, Expo, Web, Capacitor, Cordova (vendor-published)	Not stated by vendor	No on Free/Growth; sales call for Enterprise
Detour	$19/mo	$0, 1,500 clicks/mo	Yes, its core purpose	No, listed as roadmap	iOS, Android, React Native (GA); Flutter upcoming	Yes, MIT license, 275 GitHub stars	No
Airbridge	$40+/mo	None, 30-day trial only	Yes	Yes	Not stated by vendor	Not stated by vendor	No for Core; yes for Growth
Branch	$39/mo (after trial)	None, 30-day trial only	Yes, all plans	Yes, its core product	iOS, Android, Web, Unity, React Native (community)	No	No for Intro/Basics; yes above Basics
AppsFlyer	Per conversion, ~$0.03 to $0.07	$0, 12,000 conversions, a one-time Welcome Package bonus usable within your first 12 months	Yes	Yes, its core product	iOS, Android, Web, Unity, React Native (wrapper)	No	No for Zero/Growth; yes for Enterprise

A few cells are marked "not stated by vendor" rather than yes or no. That is not a knock on those products; the fact was not published on the pages checked, and we would rather say so than guess.

WarpLink

WarpLink is link infrastructure covering deep linking, install attribution, and real-time analytics in one SDK. The free tier is $0 for 10,000 clicks a month with no time limit, and paid plans are $19, $49, $99, or $149 a month for 100K, 500K, 2M, and unlimited clicks, all on the pricing page, month to month, no sales call.

Attribution runs a match cascade: the Play Install Referrer on Android and the IDFV on iOS are deterministic, with a probabilistic fingerprint and a raw-signals fallback behind them for the cases where neither is available. The full match cascade is documented, including how confidence scores work. SDKs are iOS, Android, and React Native, MIT-licensed, and zero third-party dependencies, so the code is fully readable.

WarpLink's own limits, stated plainly: there is no Flutter SDK today, the free tier's one custom domain is free for three months and then requires a paid plan, and there is no SKAdNetwork support, no ad network postbacks, and no cost or spend aggregation, because WarpLink is not a mobile measurement partner. Analytics has no public REST endpoint; totals, unique clicks, a time series, and source are available through the dashboard and through an MCP server for AI clients, and dashboard-only detail like country and device breakdowns is not exposed to either. There is no in-app custom event tracking, no revenue or LTV tracking, and no cohort analysis. If any of those are requirements, WarpLink is not a fit yet.

ChottuLink

ChottuLink publishes a forever-free tier at $0 for up to 25,000 monthly active users, including deferred deep linking, real-time analytics, and a custom domain on every tier, including free. Paid tiers are Indie at $19 a month (25K to 100K MAU), Growth at $39, and Scale at $99. The unit is MAU, not clicks, a different cost curve from WarpLink worth modeling against your own traffic before comparing headline prices. Install attribution is marketed as "Link Attribution." SDK platform support (iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, Unity) is a vendor claim from ChottuLink's own pricing page; whether the SDK is open source is not stated there.

Linkrunner

Linkrunner offers a free tier covering 25,000 attributed installs with no card required and no expiry, with install attribution as a core feature on every tier, not an add-on. The vendor's own pages list SDK support for React Native, iOS, Android, Flutter, Expo, Web, Capacitor, and Cordova, the broadest platform list here, though that breadth is self-reported and not independently verified against Linkrunner's repositories. Above the free tier, Growth is priced per install rather than per click, denominated in Indian rupees, a different unit than every other vendor here. Enterprise requires talking to the team; Free and Growth do not.

Detour

Detour, built by Software Mansion, is honest about not doing attribution at all: it is explicitly listed as a roadmap item, not a shipped feature. What it does ship is real deferred deep linking as its stated core purpose, a free tier at $0 for 1,500 clicks a month, and paid tiers at $19 and $79 above that. iOS, Android, and React Native are generally available; Flutter and additional native platforms are upcoming. Its React Native SDK is MIT-licensed and public on GitHub, with 275 stars and 6 forks at the time of writing. If you need routing and deferred context without attribution, Detour is a legitimate, honestly-scoped free option. If attribution is a requirement, it is not there yet.

Airbridge

Airbridge is a mid-market MMP with a rare feature for this category: published starter pricing. There is no permanent free tier, only a 30-day trial, after which the Core plan runs $40 or more a month and includes 500,000 "data points," billed at $0.0001 per point beyond that. Airbridge markets deferred deep linking as preserving context "through install" and lists install attribution as a core capability. SDK platform support and open-source status are not stated on the pricing page checked. The Core plan needs no sales call; Growth is custom-quoted.

Branch and AppsFlyer, Briefly

Branch and AppsFlyer are both mobile measurement partners, and both are covered in full-depth comparison posts already, so this section stays short rather than repeating that work.

Branch publishes no free plan, only a 30-day trial that settles at $39 a month if you never choose a plan. A custom domain and the Short Link API require Activation Basics at $199 a month; the full deep-link API and measurement packages sit above that. Full breakdown: Branch.io Alternative for Indie Developers and Branch Pricing in 2026.

AppsFlyer is priced per attributed conversion, roughly $0.03 to $0.07 each, with a free "Zero" tier capped at 12,000 conversions, a one-time Welcome Package bonus usable within your first 12 months. Cost scales with success rather than with traffic, which is the opposite of a click-based or MAU-based model. Full breakdown: AppsFlyer Alternative for Small Teams.

Shorteners Are Not Deep Linking

Three names come up often in "deep linking" searches that do not belong on this list.

Bitly is a link shortener first. Mobile deep linking is gated behind its Premium plan at $199 a month, with no deferred deep linking and no install attribution at any tier. Dub supports deep links only on its Pro plan or higher, and has no install-attribution feature; it is a web-link and affiliate-payout product, not a mobile measurement product. URLgenius is explicitly SDK-free, marketed at creators and marketers routing links into apps without touching code, a different category from a developer SDK with attribution. None of the three are wrong for their actual job. None of them are a deep linking and attribution SDK for a mobile app.

Where WarpLink Does Not Fit

A roundup that only lists WarpLink's wins would be advertising, not research. The complete list of gaps:

• No Flutter SDK. iOS, Android, and React Native are covered; Flutter is not.
• No SKAdNetwork or ad network postbacks. WarpLink does not send attribution data back to ad networks and has no conversion-value mapping.
• No cost or spend aggregation. There is no ad spend ingestion or blended CAC view.
• No fraud suite beyond bot user-agent filtering. That is real protection against known bot traffic, not a substitute for a dedicated fraud product at paid-acquisition volume.
• Free custom domain is capped at three months. After that, a custom domain requires a paid plan.
• No public REST analytics endpoint. Analytics is available in the dashboard and through an MCP server with a smaller field set (totals, unique clicks, time series, source); dimension breakdowns like country and device are dashboard-only.
• No in-app event tracking, revenue, LTV, or cohort analysis. WarpLink answers "which link drove this install," not broader product analytics questions.

If your requirements list includes buying installs from ad networks, SKAdNetwork measurement, or Flutter support, WarpLink is not the right fit today, and one of the other vendors above is worth evaluating instead.

How This Roundup Differs From Our Other Comparisons

WarpLink already publishes single-vendor comparisons against Branch, AppsFlyer, and Adjust, and a Firebase Dynamic Links migration roundup. Those posts exist for readers who already know which vendor they are evaluating, or who are migrating off a shut-down product and need a checklist against that migration. This post is for the reader shopping across the whole category from a blank page, and it is the only one of the five that covers the newer indie-focused entrants, ChottuLink, Linkrunner, Detour, and Airbridge, none relevant to a Firebase migration or a head-to-head against one enterprise vendor.

Sources

• WarpLink pricing: warplink.app/pricing
• ChottuLink pricing: chottulink.com/pricing.html
• Linkrunner pricing: linkrunner.io/pricing
• Detour: detour.swmansion.com, github.com/software-mansion-labs/react-native-detour
• Airbridge pricing: airbridge.io/pricing
• Branch pricing: help.branch.io/docs/branch-intro-plan, help.branch.io/docs/activation-basics-package
• AppsFlyer pricing: appsflyer.com/pricing
• Bitly pricing: bitly.com/pages/pricing
• Dub deep links docs: dub.co/docs/concepts/deep-links
• URLgenius pricing: app.urlgeni.us/pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best deep linking alternative for small teams in 2026?

There is no single best option, because teams need different things. WarpLink covers deep linking, install attribution, and real-time analytics for $0 to $149 a month with no sales call, and fits teams whose installs come from their own links rather than paid ad networks. Detour is a strong free choice for routing without an attribution requirement. ChottuLink and Linkrunner are newer entrants worth evaluating on their own published pricing.

Is there a free deep linking tool with install attribution?

Yes, several. WarpLink's free tier includes 10,000 clicks a month with install attribution and real-time analytics, no time limit. ChottuLink's free tier covers up to 25,000 monthly active users with deferred deep linking included. Linkrunner's free tier covers 25,000 attributed installs with no card and no expiry. Detour's free tier covers 1,500 clicks a month but has no install attribution at all today, so it does not qualify if attribution is a requirement.

What is the cheapest deep linking option for indie developers?

WarpLink, ChottuLink, Linkrunner, and Detour all publish a permanent free tier with no card required, and each has a paid tier near $19 a month once you outgrow it. Branch and AppsFlyer are the most expensive entry points here: Branch settles at $39 a month after a 30-day trial, and AppsFlyer charges per attributed conversion with no flat monthly floor.

Do I need an MMP for deep linking, or is a link service enough?

If your installs come from ad networks you pay for, you need an MMP like Branch or AppsFlyer, because they send attribution data back to the network for optimization. If your installs come from links you created yourself, shares, emails, QR codes, or organic search, a link service with attribution, such as WarpLink, answers "which link drove this install" without the ad-network machinery.

How is this roundup different from your Firebase Dynamic Links post?

The Firebase post targets one reader, a team migrating off a shut-down product, and compares four options against that checklist. This roundup targets a reader shopping across the whole category from scratch, and covers vendors like ChottuLink, Linkrunner, and Detour that the Firebase post does not mention because they are not relevant to that migration.

Which deep linking option has an open source SDK?

WarpLink ships MIT-licensed SDKs with zero third-party dependencies, and Detour's React Native SDK is MIT-licensed with 275 GitHub stars. Branch and AppsFlyer do not publish their SDKs as open source. ChottuLink, Linkrunner, and Airbridge do not state an SDK license, so it is not confirmed either way.

Related Guides

• Branch.io Alternative for Indie Developers: the full comparison against the MMP that came out of deep linking.
• AppsFlyer Alternative for Small Teams: the full comparison against the largest MMP by revenue.
• Adjust Alternative for Small Teams: the full comparison against Adjust's TrueLink and Conversion Hub.
• Best Firebase Dynamic Links Alternative in 2026: the migration-focused roundup for teams replacing a shut-down product.
• Install Attribution: the full match cascade behind WarpLink's attribution.
• Install Attribution Without an MMP: what an MMP is genuinely for, and how to attribute link-driven installs without one.

Getting Started

If WarpLink's shape fits, the free tier is a five-minute integration: create a free account, register your app, create an SDK key, and add the iOS, Android, or React Native SDK. The quickstart covers the setup, and the free tier's 10,000 monthly clicks, deferred deep links, and attribution are enough to evaluate against everything else here before you decide.