GoTo.now vs. Ow.ly: A Direct Comparison of URL Shorteners

Published March 10, 2025 · GoTo.now Team

TL;DR - GoTo.now and Ow.ly both shorten links, but they're built for different people. Ow.ly lives inside Hootsuite, so you need a Hootsuite account (and a paid plan for the useful parts). GoTo.now stands on its own, costs nothing, and adds QR codes, private click stats and a link safety checker.

Key points

• Ow.ly requires a Hootsuite account; GoTo.now works without one
• GoTo.now is free, and your links never expire
• GoTo.now includes a free QR code maker; Ow.ly doesn't
• Click stats on GoTo.now stay private to you, in your own dashboard
• Custom link endings are free with a GoTo.now account

If you've shortened links for a while, you've probably bumped into an ow.ly link somewhere. It's Hootsuite's shortener, and it's been around forever. So how does it stack up against GoTo.now? I use both angles here - What each tool does well, and where each one falls short.

They come from two different worlds

Ow.ly was never meant to be a standalone tool. It exists inside Hootsuite, the social media scheduling app. When you schedule a post through Hootsuite, it can shorten your links with ow.ly automatically. That's handy - If you already pay for Hootsuite.

GoTo.now went the other way. It's a shortener first. You go to the site, paste a link, and you're done. No account needed for a basic link, no other software to buy, no ecosystem to join. That one design choice explains almost every difference between the two.

Getting your first short link

Here's what the first five minutes look like with each tool.

With Ow.ly, you sign up for Hootsuite, connect a social account, and shorten links as part of composing posts. If all you wanted was a short link for an email or a flyer, that's a lot of steps for something small.

With GoTo.now, you paste your long link on the homepage and copy the short one. That's it. Want a custom ending like goto.now/spring-menu instead of random letters? Make a free account and pick one. Custom back-halves don't cost anything.

Feature by feature

Two rows deserve a closer look. First, QR codes: every GoTo.now link comes with one, and you can change where the code points even after it's printed. Ow.ly has nothing like that. Second, expiry: GoTo.now links keep working forever, while ow.ly links depend on Hootsuite and your account there.

What happens after the click

Both tools count clicks, but they show you the numbers in very different places.

Ow.ly stats live inside Hootsuite's reporting tools. They're built around social posts, which is fine if social is all you do. If you shared that link in an email or on a poster, the picture gets murky.

GoTo.now gives every link its own stats page - Clicks, countries, devices, referrers, and a bot filter so fake traffic doesn't fool you. Those numbers are private. Only you see them, in your own dashboard. Nobody can peek at how your campaign is doing by guessing a URL.

Safety is a real difference

Short links hide their destination, and scammers have abused that for years. So it matters what a shortener does about it.

GoTo.now runs a public link checker where anyone can paste a short link and see where it really leads - Before clicking. That protects the people you share links with, and it protects your reputation too. Ow.ly doesn't offer a preview tool like this, so recipients just have to trust the link.

How the comparison shakes out

Here's the honest version. If your team already pays for Hootsuite and every link you share goes out through scheduled social posts, Ow.ly is right there and it works. There's no reason to fight it.

For everyone else, GoTo.now wins on points. It's free. It doesn't lock you into anything. Your links never stop working, your stats stay private, and you get QR codes and a safety checker thrown in. If you want your own domain on your links later, branded domains are there when you're ready. Try shortening one link with each tool and you'll feel the difference in about thirty seconds.