Dub.co is an open-source URL shortener and link attribution engine wrapped in one

In recent weeks, PayPal’s Honey, which claims to find the best coupon codes for a deal, has been at the center of controversy. Allegedly, the tool sneakily earned affiliate money by changing the attributes of product link creators posted on their videos. At the center of it, the problem was how affiliate links work and how the money goes to whoever has the last link when the user makes the purchase.

Former Vercel employee Steven Tey thinks his open-source URL shortener and link tracking service Dub.co can solve this problem by removing the need to use coupon codes and embedding them in the link.

The company builds an attribution and affiliate product that creators can use to create their own links. And users will get a discount only if they use that specific link.

“We want to make attribution much more transparent to creators and companies to avoid situations like the Honey scandal, where someone can steal attribution,” Tey said in a call with TechCrunch.

Tey started Dub.co while working at Vercel as an open-source URL shortener. Added tracking links along the way. He built this project to better understand the products that Vercel was shipping. Over time, Dub.co became a full SaaS service. Tey left Vercel at the end of 2023 and started the company at the same time.

“There was a big problem with the tracking of the allocation to understand where our revenues come from. At Vercel, at that time, we did not know how our work of defense of developers like the creation of articles and tutorials that translates into revenue. So that planted the seeds for Dub,” Tey said.

He added that after launching Dub.co, he realized the affiliate space was outdated and cluttered with few tools for customization. That’s when he realized there’s more to link tracking than just URL shortening services.

While the company’s primary source of revenue is businesses and companies, it also offers a free plan for people to shorten their links and follow. In particular, the startup is working with the Malaysian government to use the open-source side of the project to build a link shortener and tracker for the authorities. In addition, companies like Twilio use the hosted SaaS version of Dub.co and customize it according to their needs to track their links, campaigns and events. Also, YouTube channels like Huberman Labs use Dub’s solution to track affiliates.

Dub.co launched a new product called Conversions this week, which can track marketing clicks in real time converting to subscribers or sales. The startup said this will help companies track granular metrics like customer acquisition costs, retention rates and lifetime value to better understand marketing returns. Dub.co can also integrate with tools like Shopify and Stripe to better track conversions.

Tey noted that while Dub.co offers AI features, he doesn’t want them to take over core products. Currently, users can use AI to create custom reports or get title and description suggestions for different links. The startup also uses AI for auto-tagging links to existing categories.

Joseph Jacks, founder of OSS Capital, said that Dub.co has an advantage over the competition with its open-source nature, better user experience and design.

The company raised $2 million from investors including OSS Capital; Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch; Balaji Srinivasan; design service Framer founders Jorn van Dijk and Koen Bok; former Facebook designer Soleio, who was an early supporter of Vercel, Perplexity and Figma; and Cal.com CEO Peer Richardson.

“Links are the foundation of the web – pair that with attribution and the addressable market is massive, tens of billions minimum,” Jacks told TechCrunch by email.

“By providing short links in attribution engines, Dub can help marketers answer the age-old question of ‘What is my ROI on my marketing spend?’—backed by real-world conversion data.”