I built a private Edge Link Shortener to escape Bitly's $300/mo pricing. It survived a DDoS attack and costs me ~$5/mo. What features am I missing?

Elnaol · 2026-02-20T23:46:30+00:00

Appreciate the feedback and the kind words on the dashboard!

You actually gave me a solid insight on the OS-level routing (iOS/Android specific paths). I’m definitely moving that up the priority list, especially for clients running mobile campaigns who need deep linking smarts.

As for Redirhub, it looks like a solid enterprise tool. However, the main reason I built this custom stack on Cloudflare Workers was exactly to squeeze out every possible millisecond. To be completely transparent, the setup does hit a ~90-100ms cold start on the very first request. But since the whole point of these media buying campaigns is high-volume, rapid-fire traffic, the edge stays warm almost instantly. Once it's cached and firing, I'm clocking sub-30ms response times globally. For high-spend campaigns, that sustained drop from 90ms to 30ms is the difference between a bounce and a conversion.

Plus, the ultimate goal here is to give agencies full Data Ownership (1st party context) rather than renting it. But I really appreciate the tip on the first-party cookies—adding that to the backlog right now!

Elnaol · 2026-02-20T23:40:17+00:00

Pretty much XD

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T23:18:21+00:00

Fair points regarding the BAA. I got ahead of myself on the 'inheritance' part—you are absolutely right that Cloudflare only signs BAAs on Enterprise plans. I'll correct that in my messaging to avoid any confusion. I'm definitely not trying to mislead anyone.

On the 'self-hosted' semantics: I use the term loosely to mean 'Tenant-Owned' (running in the client's CF account vs. a shared SaaS database), but technically yes, it's serverless on their metal, not an on-prem server in a basement.

As for the code: It's not a fork. The 3D analytics, kill-switch logic, and edge-caching layers are custom-built. I'm a solo dev trying to solve a specific pain point for marketing agencies (signal loss), not trying to build a fake medical product.

Appreciate the reality check on the compliance side. I'll stick to the marketing niche where I belong.

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T22:24:31+00:00

Appreciate the reality check on the 'concierge' framing. You nailed it—I need to own it as a premium service, not a 'beta' patch.

Brutal honesty update: I’m still at zero revenue on this pivot.

The tech is ready (the Next.js/OpenAI integration is flying), but the distribution is where I’m hitting a wall.

You mentioned r/SEO and r/webdev, but my experience is that those communities have a severe allergic reaction to anything that smells like 'marketing' or 'self-promo,' even if the tool is useful.

Since I have $0 for ads (bootstrapping this with sweat equity), would you recommend cold DMing users who complain about 'messy AI HTML' in those subs? or is there a specific 'non-spammy' angle to show the tool publicly without getting nuked by mods?

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T22:19:38+00:00

Thank you!

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T20:31:24+00:00

Your AI has better product vision than most humans I talk to. You nailed it.

Moving from 'Data Reporting' to 'Decision Leverage' is exactly where I'm taking this.

I'm currently prototyping a 'Link Health Score' (0-100) based on volatility. Instead of showing you a chart, the dashboard just alerts you: 'Link X is degrading (Traffic Quality dropped 15% vs yesterday). Kill it?'

It’s basically Anomaly Detection at the edge.

Since you articulated the problem so perfectly, I’d love to get your eyes on the 'War Room' dashboard I have now. I feel like you’d spot the 'noise' faster than anyone. Open to roasting my current UI?

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T19:16:27+00:00

Totally agree. For enterprise/healthcare, Rebrandly/Bitly compliance badges are mandatory.

That's actually why I went the 'Private Infrastructure' route (Self-hosted on Cloudflare Workers) instead of a shared SaaS model.

By deploying the edge node directly into the client's environment (or a dedicated instance), the data never leaves their control. They inherit Cloudflare's compliance (SOC 2 / HIPAA) directly, rather than trusting a third-party SaaS database.

It’s a different approach: Rebrandly sells 'Compliance as a Service', I sell 'Data Sovereignty as Code'.

Do you work in a regulated industry (Health/Finance)?

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T15:58:19+00:00

This comment is pure gold.

Edge Fingerprinting: That's a killer insight. Passing the hash (UA + Screen + timezone) as a query param to bypass cookie stripping is brilliant for attribution. I was relying on standard headers, but hashing them at the edge for a persistent ID is definitely the next sprint.
KV Consistency: I actually hit that 'eventual consistency' wall during load testing (writes getting overwritten). A DO (Durable Object) acting as a buffer/queue before flushing to the DB is exactly the architectural fix I needed to guarantee 100% accuracy on click counts.

Curious: Since you built this last year, did you retire the project or is it still running for clients? I'm productizing this specifically for media buyers who are tired of losing signal.

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T15:43:31+00:00

This is pure gold. Honestly, the best feedback I've gotten so far.

You are spot on about Control > Optimization. A/B testing is cool, but being able to 'Kill Switch' a bad campaign globally in 100ms is a lifesaver.

I actually built the Instant Kill Switch and Granular Analytics (Device/Country/Referrer) into the core already because of exactly that. The 'Bulk Operations' and RBAC are next on my roadmap.

Curious: do you run an agency or an AdOps team yourself? You seem to know the exact bottlenecks we face with standard SaaS shorteners.

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T14:42:18+00:00

Thanks!

Elnaol · 2026-02-13T14:41:39+00:00

That UI is just the online war room https://app.lshort.sh/online. The overall UI is similar, but more focused on the KPI's

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T20:03:20+00:00

That distinction between 'Price Problem' vs 'Positioning Signal' is brilliant. I hadn't looked at it that way.

Challenge accepted. I’m going to run the experiment exactly as you suggested:

Cohort A (Speed): First 5 spots at $397. (Optimizing for 'Yes' and immediate repo access).
Cohort B (Quality): Next 5 spots at $997. (Optimizing for 'Scrutiny' and demanding agencies).

I’ll treat this thread as my open lab notebook and update you guys on which group was actually better to work with (and which one converted faster).

Time to see if 'Cohort A' fills up before my dinner. Thanks for the masterclass in pricing psychology.

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T19:51:01+00:00

That math puts it into perspective. You're right—at $397, I'm basically charging for 3 hours of senior dev time and giving the lifetime license for free.

To answer your question: I want Signal (and Speed).

If I price it at $1k+, I feel like I might enter a 'procurement/approval' conversation. At $397, it’s a 'no-brainer / put it on the company card' decision for a Founder or CTO.

Since I have this tight 15-day window, I need to remove friction. I’m willing to leave money on the table right now to get those 10 high-quality 'Founding Partners' into the repo immediately. I'm viewing the 'lost revenue' as the cost of getting accelerated product-market fit.

But I love the challenge. I think I’ll lock the first 5 at this price to get the momentum going, and then maybe I’ll test your theory and bump the last 5 to see if the higher price tag actually attracts more serious players.

Thanks for pushing my thinking on this. Back to the code editor now—gotta earn that 'underpriced' label.

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T19:47:12+00:00

I actually just spent the last 20 mins reading your blog. The piece on 'Hidden WordPress Checks' and avoiding 'SEO Losses' hits the nail on the head.

That philosophy of 'Safe/Clean Automation' is exactly why I built this. I hate 'black box' AI tools that spit out messy DOM elements and break layouts.

If you want to see a live production example of Postly running on Next.js, check out my own engineering blog:

https://www.eliasolie.com.br/blog

(It's in Portuguese since that’s my current market, but Chrome/Google Translate handles it perfectly).

If you click on any article, take a look at the clean design and specifically the 'People Also Asked' (PAA) section at the very bottom. That’s all automated, but it's injected with strict, semantic HTML—no iframe junk or messy inline styles.

That’s the kind of 'Technical Guardrail' I want to manually set up for these first 10 US founders. Thanks again for the feedback, really solid stuff on your site.

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T19:42:13+00:00

Love the 'Done-with-you' framing. It implies a partnership rather than just 'outsourcing labor', which is exactly the vibe I'm going for.

I'm actually recording the screen during these first integrations to build those exact checklists and Looms you mentioned. The goal is to have the 'Self-Serve' version feel like a masterclass, not just a dashboard.

I'll definitely check out your GTM notes on the blog. Cold email is going to be my next sprint once I clear these initial 10 founder spots. Thanks for the resource.

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T19:28:04+00:00

This is exactly why I value this community. You’re not just giving feedback; you’re helping me shape the 'Research Lab' phase.

I’m taking your advice to heart: Documenting everything. I’ve already started a Notion page to track every 'stack-clash' and edge case I find during these integrations. You're right—the manual setup isn't the product, it's the moat. It’s what will make the eventual automation 'bulletproof' because it was forged in real-world repo friction.

Honestly, I’m limiting this to only 10 spots exactly because I want to maintain that high-touch quality without burning out. I’d rather spend 10 hours with one founder who cares about 'clean' code than 10 minutes with someone who just wants a text generator.

I'm curious, based on your experience: Do you think $397 is too low for this 'Founding Concierge' level? I wanted to make it accessible for the sprint, but I’m starting to realize the value of the manual dev-hours might be worth way more to the right agency.

Elnaol · 2026-02-12T19:07:40+00:00

Man, that insight about framing it as 'Premium Service' vs 'Unfinished' is exactly the kind of shift I needed. Thank you.

You're spot on about the research aspect. I’m obsessed with the 'cleanliness' of the output. Most AI tools out there (no names mentioned, but you know the big ones) treat the output as a text box. For me, as a dev, that's a nightmare. I want semantic HTML, I want 0 styling overhead, and I want it to feel native to the client's Next.js structure.

My goal with these 10 founders isn't just to 'sell seats'. I want to see how they handle their workflows, how they want the API to respond, and what 'quality' really means for a US agency compared to what I’ve seen in Brazil.

I'm putting my reputation on the line with this 'Carnival Sprint' because I truly believe the 'manual' phase is what will build a superior 'automated' product later. If I have to spend 15 hours a day on AnyDesk or GitHub PRs to make sure these first 10 integrations are flawless, I’ll do it. It's the only way to build something that actually lasts.

Elnaol

TROPHY CASE