Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates — which is better?

They're close, and notably both are owned by the same company (MemberPress), with similar pricing around $99/year and overlapping features: cloaking, auto keyword linking, and click tracking. ThirstyAffiliates leans into geolocation redirects, category organization, and Amazon API handling; Pretty Links leans into product displays and QR codes. Pick on which of those extras you'll use — for core link management they're roughly interchangeable.

Do I need a link tracker if I have Google Analytics?

They do different things. GA4 can track outbound affiliate clicks via events or UTMs, but it doesn't cloak or manage your links, and it has no idea what a click earned. A link plugin cloaks and organizes; an earnings tracker tells you which links pay. GA4 sits in the middle — it counts, but stops there. Most affiliates end up with a link manager for tidiness and something else for the money question.

Does a link tracker tell me which links make money?

Usually not. Almost all 'affiliate link trackers' count clicks and stop — clicks are the beginning of the audit trail, not revenue. To know which links earn, you have to join those clicks to the commissions they produced, which is earnings attribution (EPC per link or page), not click tracking. That's a different category of tool, and it's the one that actually changes what you do next.

Best Affiliate Link Trackers (2026): Pick the Right One for the Job

Q: What's the best affiliate link tracker?

It depends which of three jobs you have. For cloaking and organizing links inside WordPress, Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates, and Lasso are the practical picks. For branded short links across platforms, Bitly or Rebrandly. For international smart-redirects, Geni.us. But if your real question is which links actually earn — not just get clicked — you need earnings tracking, which most link tools don't do. Match the tool to the job; the common mistake is using a click counter when your real problem is earnings attribution.

Search "best affiliate link tracker" and you'll get lists that mix WordPress cloaking plugins, branded URL shorteners, and enterprise paid-traffic trackers as if they were the same thing. They're not. "Link tracker" bundles three separate jobs, and picking the wrong tier wastes money or leaves the important question unanswered. So start here.

Full disclosure: Clickolytics is our tool, and it lives at the top tier below. We'll say plainly what it does and doesn't do — including that it isn't a WordPress link plugin at all.

The three jobs a "link tracker" does

Most "affiliate link trackers" cloak links and count clicks — genuinely useful, but they stop one tier short of the number that changes decisions: what each link actually earns. Pick the tool for the job you have, and don't mistake a click counter for an earnings tracker.

Job 1 — Cloak & manage links (WordPress). Turn ugly affiliate URLs into tidy, branded, editable links you can update in one place. This is what most people actually mean by a "link tool," and it's a WordPress-plugin job:

Pretty Links — cloaking, short links, auto keyword-linking, click stats, product displays, QR codes. Pro runs around $99/year; a capable free tier exists.
ThirstyAffiliates — the close sibling (same owner, similar price and core features), leaning into category organization, geolocation redirects, and Amazon API/uncloaking for compliance. Choose it over Pretty Links for geo-targeting; choose Pretty Links for product displays.
Lasso — more of an all-in-one WordPress monetization plugin than a pure link tool: product-display boxes and comparison tables, broken-link alerts, and "opportunity detection" that finds unmonetized links. Around $19/month per site, strong Amazon integration.

Job 2 — Count clicks. How many people clicked, from where. Every Job-1 plugin does this, and so do Bitly and Rebrandly (branded short links, campaign analytics — but not real commission attribution), Geni.us (smart links with geo and device redirects, good for international Amazon), and GA4 (via events/UTMs, free). This is where most tools stop — and for a lot of affiliates, that's the trap.

Job 3 — Tie clicks to earnings. Which links and pages actually made money. This is a different category. As the trackers' own vendors admit, clicks are the beginning of the audit trail, not revenue — and almost no "link tracker" crosses this line. Doing so means joining clicks to the commissions they produced: EPC per link or page. That's affiliate analytics, not link management — tools like Clickolytics, wecantrack, or Affilimate.

The mistake that costs the most

The single most expensive error here is using a click counter when your real problem is earnings attribution. A page can send 400 clicks and earn less than another page's 90, and no amount of click data tells you that — you'll cheerfully "optimize" toward the wrong links. If you've ever looked at a link plugin's click report and still not known which links to keep, that's the tier gap, not a you problem. The click count is real; it's just answering a smaller question than the one that pays.

This is also why "which is better, Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates" is usually the wrong question. For Job 1 they're interchangeable enough. The question that moves revenue is whether anything in your stack answers Job 3.

Where Clickolytics fits — honestly

Clickolytics is a Job-3 tool, and it is not a WordPress link plugin. It doesn't cloak your links, organize them into categories, or insert them into content — if that's what you need, use Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates, or Lasso, full stop. What Clickolytics does is track clicks first-party and cookieless on your own sites and tie them to the revenue you import, so you get EPC per page across a whole portfolio without a cookie banner.

So the honest pairing for many operators is a link plugin for Job 1 and Clickolytics for Job 3 — ThirstyAffiliates to keep your links tidy, Clickolytics to see which of those tidy links actually earn. They don't compete; they sit at different tiers. And where it overlaps with the aggregators (wecantrack, Affilimate), the trade-off is the one from our analytics-tools comparison: breadth of network integrations versus first-party, cookieless on-site detail.

Quick chooser

Just want tidy, cloaked, editable links in WordPress → Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates. Add Lasso if you want product boxes and monetization prompts.
Branded short links across social/YouTube → Bitly or Rebrandly.
International Amazon / smart redirects → Geni.us.
Running paid traffic → a media-buyer tracker (Voluum, RedTrack) — overkill for pure content.
You need to know which links and pages actually earn → an earnings tracker (Clickolytics), on top of whichever Job-1 plugin you already use.

Buy for the job you have. And if you already own a click counter, the upgrade that changes decisions isn't a better counter — it's the tier that turns clicks into earnings.

See which of your links actually earn: Clickolytics ties first-party, cookieless clicks to the revenue each page produces — the Job-3 answer most link trackers skip. See how it works →

Frequently asked questions

What's the best affiliate link tracker? Depends on the job: Pretty Links/ThirstyAffiliates/Lasso for WordPress cloaking and management; Bitly/Rebrandly for branded short links; Geni.us for international redirects; an earnings tracker (Clickolytics) for which links actually pay.

Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates? Close — same owner, similar ~$99/year pricing and core features. ThirstyAffiliates for geo-redirects and Amazon handling; Pretty Links for product displays and QR codes. Interchangeable for core management.

Do I need one if I have GA4? GA4 counts outbound clicks but doesn't cloak/manage links or show earnings. Most affiliates use a link plugin for tidiness plus something else for the money question.

Does a link tracker show which links earn? Usually not — they count clicks and stop. Knowing which links earn means joining clicks to commissions (EPC), which is earnings attribution, a different category.