v5.ink vs Dub.co: The Link Platform Built for the AI Era
Dub.co is great for link management. But if you need to know which AI agents are recommending your product, you need something different.
Dub.co is an excellent link management platform. It's open-source, developer-friendly, and has great features for attribution and analytics.
But there's one thing it doesn't do: tell you when AI agents are visiting your links.
The gap in every link platform
Every link shortener — Dub.co, Bitly, Rebrandly, Short.io — was designed for a world where traffic comes from two sources: humans and bots.
But in 2026, there's a third category that matters more than ever: AI agents.
When ChatGPT recommends your product, when Perplexity cites your article, when Claude researches your company — those are AI agent visits. They're not spam bots. They're not humans. They're something new, and they're driving real business value.
No link platform tracks this. Except v5.ink.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Dub.co | Bitly | v5.ink |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short links | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom domains | Yes | Yes | Coming soon |
| QR codes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Click analytics | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Geo routing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Device routing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI agent detection | No | No | Yes |
| Per-agent breakdown | No | No | Yes (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, 14+) |
| AI vs Human routing | No | No | Yes |
| AI Traffic Score | No | No | Yes |
| Weekly AI report | No | No | Yes |
| MCP Server | No | No | Yes |
| Custom OG preview | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pricing | From $25/mo | From $29/mo | From $19/mo |
When to use Dub.co
Dub.co is the right choice if you need:
- Advanced attribution and conversion tracking
- Partner/affiliate link management
- An open-source, self-hostable solution
- A mature ecosystem with many integrations
When to use v5.ink
v5.ink is the right choice if you need to:
- Know which AI agents are recommending your product
- See the human vs AI traffic split on every link
- Route AI agents to different content than humans
- Get weekly AI traffic reports
- Track specific AI agent trends (ChatGPT vs Claude vs Perplexity)
The bigger picture
We're not trying to replace Dub.co. We're building for a different question.
Dub.co answers: "Where does my link traffic come from?"
v5.ink answers: "Which AI agents are recommending my content, and what happens when they do?"
In a world where AI agents increasingly mediate how people discover products, that's a question worth answering.
Start tracking AI traffic on your links
v5.ink detects ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and 14+ AI agents automatically.
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