Are you looking for a viable Pretty Links alternative for your affiliate marketing needs? Would you like to know more about the differences between Pretty Links vs. ThirstyAffiliates?
Well, you’re in luck! We’ve compared the features side-by-side, and the results are in!
In this post, we’ll compare Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates. To better suit your needs, we’ve included both the free and pro versions of each.
One thing we often find is, other link cloaking and link management solutions aren’t built with bloggers in mind. Busy bloggers need to leverage their resources to get the most time possible for doing what they do great: creating content.
Unlike Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates is a solution purpose-built with bloggers and niche website owners in mind. We focus hard on the tools that matter. So, if you’re looking for a purpose-built tool, ThirstyAffiliates is the only Pretty Links alternative you should consider.
As bloggers, niche site owners, and affiliates ourselves, we know what features are must-haves and what makes a tool like this great. We’ve been refining our tool for many years and are always finding new and innovative ways to improve.
Here at ThirstyAffiliates, we pride ourselves on our customer service and try our best to ensure everyone has a good experience while using our product.
We give a 14-day refund satisfaction guarantee on our ThirstyAffiliates Pro product. We also take care of our customers personally when it comes to customer support issues. We’ll never just send you to an inactive forum.
With that all said, it’s difficult to compare two products directly based on features. But we hope you find this comparison informative!
Pretty Links vs. ThirstyAffiliates (Free Versions)
Both ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links come in “free” or “lite” versions – which we’ll compare first. As you can see in the table below, the ThirstyAffiliates free version is a favorable alternative to Pretty Links Lite.
| ThirstyAffiliates | Pretty Links Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Shortening / Destination Cloaking | Yes | Yes |
| Link Categorization | Yes – uses hierarchical WP taxonomy called “Link Categories”, which works just like Post Categories | Yes – uses its own grouping method called “Groups” |
| Uses Custom Post Types | Yes – uses standard WP core post type technology | No |
| Multiple Redirect Options | Yes – 301, 302, 307 | Yes – 301, 302, 307 |
| Link Prefixes | Yes – customizable link prefixes | No – uses direct URLs |
| Stats | Yes – includes Reports interface | Yes – includes Reports interface |
| Affiliate Link Picker Tool | Yes – works just like WP link tool + Advanced Link Picker as well | Yes – basic list |
| Link Insertion Options | Standard Link, Shortcode, Image | Standard Link |
| Show Category Slugs in URLs | Yes | No |
| Import/Export Settings | Yes | No |
| Attach Images/Banners To Affiliate Links | Yes | No |
| No Follow | Yes – globally or per link override | Yes – per link |
| Open in New Window | Yes – globally or per link override | Yes – per link |
| Pass Additional Query Strings | Yes | Yes |
| Modularized Design | Yes – you can turn off the parts of ThirstyAffiliates you don’t need for extra plugin speed | No |
| Import/Export Settings | Yes – easily export then import your global settings into another site for faster setup | No |
| Quick Add Links | Yes – quick add tool lets you add links on the fly | Yes – but not from editor (WP dashboard widget) |
| Built-In Proactive Link Fixer | Yes – fixes older links in the content | No |
| Uncloak Option | Yes – to make links compatible with Amazon Terms of Service | No |
| Rest API Compatibility | Yes | No |
Pretty Links vs. ThirstyAffiliates (Pro Versions)
Next, we compared the two premium versions. Check out how ThirstyAffiliates compares with Pretty Links Pro.
| ThirstyAffiliates | Pretty Links Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Site License | 3 Levels – Single site – 5 sites – 10 sites | 3 Levels – Single site – 2 sites – 5 sites |
| Automatic updates | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic Keyword Linking | Yes – with inbuilt caching and support for Unicode characters | Yes |
| Advanced Statistics Reports | Yes – multiple advanced Reports in a dedicated section | Yes – Single report screen |
| Geolocation Link Redirect | Yes | Yes |
| CSV Import / Export Tool | Yes – also supports merging | Yes |
| Amazon API Importing | Yes | No |
| Google Analytics Click Event Pushing | Yes – support legacy, universal, and GTM | Yes – but via a plugin integration |
| High-Speed HTAccess Redirect | Yes | No |
| Link Event Notification Emails | Yes | No |
| REST API Compatibility | Yes | No |
| URL Shortening (with bit.ly) | Yes | No |
| Automatic 404 Checker | Yes | No |
| Price | Varies | Varies |
We hope this comparison of Pretty Links vs. ThirstyAffiliates will help you decide which tool is right for your needs. To learn more about the differences between the ThirstyAffiliates versions, click here.
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Wish those images worked!
Ha! You’re the first one to notice since July, Will.
They’re meant to be little green ticks but are pointing at a non existent file. I’ll fix that up tomorrow.
Also, our plugin is free now, so feel free to download and try it out. Even better 🙂
Ticks are still not working… lol
I’m leaning toward Prettylink because I think it has one more useful feature: tweet badges.
Does thirstyaffiliates offer that?
Hey bee, thanks for spotting that. All fixed.
I’m yet to hear anyone asking for tweet badges and I haven’t found a solid use case for that feature myself yet either. Is there any particular scenario you could share that you’re thinking of using that feature for? I’d love to include some more social aspects maybe with an add-on but to be honest from what I hear many people find it’s a bit superfluous for a link management tool. We’re focusing on other more important integrations for now unless there’s a really great reason to include it.
Also, just to update the post above, our core plugin is entirely free now (we don’t have the tiered versions mentioned above anymore) so you can pick and choose the add-on pieces you’ll actually use. Feel free to download ThirstyAffiliates from WordPress.org and have a play.
You plugin is cool, due to less downloads from plugin directory its always a doubt whether plugin will be updated by developer regularly or not.
Can you add functionality of link like this – domain.com/affiliate-link without any default slug in-between.
Thanks !
Hi Ashraf,
Yes, we only listed our plugin on the directory like 6 months ago. Before that it was 100% premium, but we changed our business model which allows us to give away the core product for free.
No slug is something that’s been on our list, but we haven’t had a lot of requests for it. I’ll look into it.
Would love to see a fresh update to this post. It’s late 2017 and a lot of things have changed. Including higher prices, unfortunately.
Thanks Jedd,
I’ll put this on my list to update 😉
Pretty Links prices are still the same as in the article above and ThirstyAffiliates prices have actually gone down.
You’re exactly right Marcello. I’ll fix that!
Great comparison, can you use both at the same time to test them out or will that mess anything up?
Hi Bradley, you can. Keep in mind that Pretty Link doesn’t use Custom Post Types so beware of link clashes between the plugins. I suggest putting your ThirstyAffiliates link prefix to something you know you haven’t used in Pretty Link. Hope this helps!
Any chance ThirstyAffiliates will get the split testing feature of Pretty Links? This is the only feature that’s really swaying me to Pretty Links.
Hey Rick,
We used to have an add-on for split testing but going by the numbers it was the least purchased and downloaded add-on we ever had!
Unless we get a lot of demand I doubt we’d put this in since most people split test on the landing page level and will generally just substitute the first affiliate link for some other affiliate link in the variation page.
Hope this makes sense!
If anyone else wants this feature please write in or leave a comment.
I want to purchase Thirsty Affiliate plugin as I am impressed with comparison, I am currently using pretty like and as I see the Thirsty affiliate have fast HTaccess redirect and also import + link shorting,
the question is, I am using Pretty links on my blogs now and have more than 300+ URL’s…
Just need to know, can Thirsty affiliate import it? From pretty link or do you have any settings to migrate form, pretty link?
Please let me know, so I can decide to purchase thirsty affiliates. As I dnt want o do manual migration of more than 300+ links…
Hi Ali, you can as a CSV export/import. The main difference is the link prefix is required on our end so bear that in mind.
Sorry, problem is my theme shop. Coupons theme….. hahaha as affiliate this is really a bad one for mythemeshop.
Please delete previous posts
Can I import redirections from popular “Redirection” plugin? I have been using that since day one.
Hi Gaurav,
With ThirstyAffilaites, you can easily import your affiliate links. Here’s our support doc with more information on how to do so: https://thirstyaffiliates.com/knowledgebase/how-to-import-your-affiliate-links.
For more on how to import redirection links, please contact our support team at outreach@thirstyaffiliates.com.
Great comparison! I really love thristy affiliates as it’s saving a lot of time and effort. I love it’s reuseable link concept so we can change it once and it will affect everywhere.