Linktree was founded in Australia in 2016 by Alex Zaccaria, Anthony Zaccaria, and Nick Humphreys. While they were originally banned from Instagram for being a spam website, they made product tweaks to help lift the ban. In 2022, the company raised $152 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion.
What is Linktree?
Linktree is a link-in-bio tool that lets you create a web page with all your essential links. On social media
platforms like Instagram, you can only add one bio link. Platforms like Linktree allow you to use your one bio link as a listing to include others that may be relevant to your audience.
Linktree users can customize their webpage theme to help them align with their brand aesthetic. You can add tools to help you collect payments, tips, or donations from your page. Plus, you can analyze your data, which will tell you about how many people viewed or clicked on your links to determine the top-performing links.
How does Linktree work?
Linktree works as a link-in-bio tool. Essentially, you would put this tool in your Instagram bio link to give you more links to share with your audience.
First, you’ll need to sign up for Linktree and build a landing page. Then, you paste all your links to your page. The links you paste could be to a specific product you created, your website, YouTube videos, other social media accounts, and more. Then, you share that link in your social media bio for every social media account you own. Then, when you create a post about something, such as an ebook you just launched, you can direct people to your bio link to complete the purchase.
What you need to know about selling on Linktree
Linktree also has high overhead costs. Most platforms charge low fees for online selling. On Linktree, the Starter plan costs $8 per month while the Pro costs $13.50, plus a 9% fee for selling digital products. The free plan charges a 12% fee for selling digital products, which is among the highest in the ecommerce industry. There are ecommerce platforms that charge only a 5% fee on their free plan. Overall, this can eat into your profit margins, reducing your earnings when more affordable platforms are available.
Linktree also gates features based on your plan. The more expensive the plan, the more features it has. Platforms like Payhip include all features on all plans, including the free plan. For instance, you can’t do email collection, phone number collection, animation, or even scheduling on the free plan.
Linktree also limits the number of auto-reply sends you can do per month. On the Pro plan, you can send up to 2.5 sends, which is extremely low for sellers with large online audiences.
Linktree also requires a Pro plan to add custom images or videos. Personalizing your page to fit your brand shouldn’t cost you anything. Many platforms automatically include customization features across all plans, including their free plan.
Linktree also pulls traffic away from your main website. The traffic gets sent to the linktr.ee
domain instead of your own website. Overall, this can hurt your search and LLM sales and your direct website engagement.
Sellers on Linktree are dependent on Linktree’s servers. The platform can sometimes experience downtime or security breaches due to its size. As a result, it may negatively affect your page when you’re trying to promote a new product or service.
Is Linktree the best platform to sell products?
No, Linktree isn’t the best platform to sell products. Payhip is a Linktree alternative better suited for selling digital downloads, courses, coaching services, software, memberships, and physical products. You’ll find all the features you need stacked on one platform. Plus, you can still have your links featured in your bio, but through your own website that people can scroll through to help boost your average order value. Payhip also lets you access payment gateways and host your digital files. To start selling on Payhip, sign up for free.