Carrd vs Linktree in 2026: $49 a Year vs 9% to 12% of Sales

Linktree asks you to paste links into a form. Carrd asks you to lay out a page. For a page that exists to hold eight links, that difference is the entire argument, and Linktree wins it.

Then you put something up for sale, and the arithmetic changes so sharply that the setup gap stops mattering.

Linktree's own plan comparison lists a 12 percent seller fee on Free, 9 percent on its Starter tier and 0 percent only on Premium, which is 27.50 euro a month billed annually.

Carrd's payment-enabled forms run through your own Stripe account, and Carrd takes nothing, on its Pro Plus plan at $49 a year.

Sell $1,000 in a month and one of those arrangements costs about 90 euro and the other costs about $4, before the card processing you pay on both (Stripe's standard US rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents a charge).

A link in bio tool is a hosted single page that collects the links a social profile cannot hold. Both of these are that, and they have grown in opposite directions: Linktree into a storefront with a fee, Carrd into a one-page website builder with none.

There is a point at which neither is still the right tool, and since we sell the thing on the far side of it we will name it here rather than at the end.

Framekit runs a real catalogue with automatic file delivery from $0 a month, on your own domain from its $9 Starter plan, alongside a portfolio and client galleries.

For a page of eight links it is the wrong purchase and Linktree is the right one.

Revised 12 October 2026: this comparison now rests on the two pricing pages alone, so the setup timings and the claim that we built the page on both are gone, and Framekit's own-domain price is corrected; selling is now priced on Carrd Pro Plus, because Carrd's documentation puts payment forms on that plan rather than the $19 one.

Linktree's page, re-read the same day, lists 12 percent on Free, and its Pro plan card claims 0 percent against the table's 9, so Pro is shown both ways.

Full disclosure: Framekit is our own website builder, so we compete with both at the edges. We have kept this comparison between Carrd and Linktree and put our own position in one short marked section near the end. Every figure below comes from each company's own published pricing page, read in August 2026 and linked where it is used. Our own plans were re-verified on 20 September 2026; Carrd's prices stand as published in August, and Linktree's fees were re-read on 12 October 2026.

How We Compared Carrd and Linktree

We priced the same page on both rather than building it. It belongs to a DJ and producer: a profile image, eight links covering a mix archive, a booking form, three release pages, a mailing list, and social profiles, plus one thing for sale, a $29 sample pack.

Both pricing pages were read in August 2026 from a European connection with no promotional code.

Linktree served us euros and Carrd is priced in dollars, so we print each in its own currency rather than converting, and where we compare them we say so explicitly rather than pretending a conversion is precise.

Verified means we read it on the vendor's own pricing page in August 2026 and are reporting it with a link.

Judgements about how the pages look and how much setup each one asks of you are labelled as ours, and they come from each product's templates and documented editor rather than from a build.

We quote no third-party star ratings, because the large review aggregators blocked automated access during this round of research. Every number below links to the page it came from.

In one lineone DJ's eight-link page with a $29 sample pack for sale, priced on both platforms from their August 2026 pricing pages, in each vendor's own currency.

The Plans, Side by Side

Two rows are doing the work. Linktree Pro at 10.50 euro a month is the tier most people buy and, on Linktree's fee table, it does nothing about the 9 percent seller fee, though its own plan card says 0 percent.

Carrd Pro Plus at $49 a year is the only line in the table with a custom domain, payment forms and no cut, and Pro Standard at $19 gives you the domain without the forms.

Where Linktree Wins

In one lineLinktree is faster, simpler, and free for the job most people actually need, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of this comparison less useful.

Setup speed. You sign up, paste links, pick a theme, and it is live. Carrd requires you to think about layout, because Carrd is a page builder and Linktree is a form.

It is genuinely free. The free plan publishes unlimited basic links and lets you sell products and take brand offers.

If your page is a list, you never need to pay Linktree anything, and there is no equivalent free tier on Carrd that includes a custom domain.

Recognition. A Linktree URL is understood instantly by an audience that has seen thousands of them. That is worth something for a musician or a creator whose visitors arrive from a social profile and expect a familiar shape.

Analytics and integrations. Pro at 10.50 euro adds advanced analytics and mailing list integrations, and Premium adds data export, dynamic links and smart routing, social scheduling, and unlimited Instagram auto-replies.

Carrd has analytics on Pro and nothing comparable to the routing and auto-reply tooling.

The honest summaryif you will never sell anything through the page, Linktree Free is the correct choice and this article should end here.

Where Carrd Wins

In one lineCarrd puts the page on your own domain and removes its branding from $19 a year, and from Pro Plus at $49 it takes payments without taking anything from your sales, which makes it structurally cheaper the moment money moves.

The real numberCarrd Pro Standard is $19 a year and unlocks custom domains with full SSL, up to 10 sites, forms, widgets and embeds, site analytics, and removal of the Carrd footer branding.

Payment-enabled forms need Pro Plus at $49 a year, according to Carrd's payments documentation, re-read on 12 October 2026.

The custom domain is the one Linktree does not have at any price. This is the difference most comparisons skip. Every Linktree tier, including Premium at 27.50 euro a month, publishes to a Linktree address.

Carrd Pro Standard publishes to yours for about $1.58 a month. If the page is going on a business card, a press kit, or a release, that difference outlives every other consideration in this article.

Design control. Carrd builds a real page: sections, type, spacing, backgrounds, embeds. Linktree builds a themed list.

A DJ's page on Carrd can carry a full-width image and a paragraph of positioning above the links; on Linktree it carries a profile picture and buttons.

Payments run on your own account. Carrd Pro Plus's payment-enabled forms open Stripe Checkout with your own Stripe keys, so the money moves from the buyer to you and Carrd is not in the path.

That is the mechanism behind the fee difference, and it is also why Carrd cannot help you if a payment goes wrong.

The Fee, Precisely

In one lineLinktree's fee table charges 12 percent on Free and 9 percent on Starter and Pro until you reach a plan costing 27.50 euro a month, and Carrd's is zero on Pro Plus at $49 a year, so the crossover against Linktree's free plan arrives at about $34 of monthly sales.

Here is the arithmetic on our DJ's $29 sample pack, holding each in its own currency and comparing structure rather than converting.

On Linktree Starter, at 4.50 euro a month with a 9 percent seller fee, ten sales is $290 of revenue, and the seller fee is $26.10, plus the plan. Twenty sales is $52.20. A hundred sales is $261.

On Linktree Premium, at 27.50 euro a month, the seller fee is zero, so a hundred sales costs 27.50 euro. This is the plan to be on if you sell through Linktree at all.

On Carrd Pro Plus, at $49 a year, the platform cut is nothing at any volume. A hundred sales costs about $4.08 for the month, plus whatever Stripe charges you directly.

The crossovers. Against Linktree's free plan, Carrd Pro Plus is cheaper once your monthly sales pass about $34, because 12 percent of $34 is about $4.08, Carrd's monthly cost.

Against Linktree Starter, which charges 4.50 euro a month before its 9 percent, Pro Plus costs less from the first sale.

Against Linktree Premium at 27.50 euro a month, Carrd is cheaper immediately and permanently, by more than 20 euro a month, and the only thing Premium buys you that Carrd does not have is a hosted checkout.

And the crossover inside Linktree itself, which matters if you are staying: moving from Starter at 4.50 euro to Premium at 27.50 euro costs 23 euro a month and saves 9 percent, so it pays for itself at roughly 256 euro a month in sales.

Anyone selling more than that on Starter or Pro is losing money to a line item they have probably never read.

Here is a test that takes one minute. Open your Linktree plan comparison page and search it for the word "seller". If a percentage appears next to your plan, multiply last month's sales through the page by it.

That figure is what the page cost you beyond its subscription, and it does not appear on any invoice because it is deducted before the payout.

What Carrd Cannot Do

In one lineCarrd gives you a payment form rather than a store, so you handle delivery, records, and refunds yourself, and that work is the real price of the missing fee.

We would be doing exactly what we criticise if we stopped at the arithmetic.

No file delivery. A payment-enabled Carrd form takes the money. It does not send the buyer the file. At two sales a month that is a pleasant email. At fifty it is a job, and the fix is a third-party delivery service, which has its own cost.

No product catalogue. One page, one or two payment forms. If you sell six things, Carrd is the wrong shape.

No customer records. There is no order list, no buyer history, and no way to email everyone who bought the sample pack. Your Stripe dashboard has the payments and not the relationship.

No refund handling. You process refunds in Stripe manually.

One page, permanently. There is no multi-page mode on any Carrd tier. When the project outgrows a single scroll, you migrate, and because there is nothing structured to export, the migration is copy and paste.

The honest way to weigh itmultiply your expected monthly sales by 9 percent. If the answer is less than an hour of your time, Linktree Premium's hosted checkout is worth buying and the fee is not the point. If it is more than a day of your time, Carrd plus a delivery service is the rational arrangement.

The Thing Neither of Them Solves

In one lineboth platforms rent you a page rather than selling you one, and neither builds an asset that belongs to you when you leave, with a single exception that turns out to matter more than any feature in this comparison: on Carrd, the address is yours.

A link page accumulates links. People put it in bios, in press releases, on flyers, in email signatures. Over three years that address becomes the thing people use to find you.

On Linktree, that address is on Linktree's domain at every tier including Premium. If you leave, every one of those references breaks, and any search authority the page accumulated stays with the platform. There is no redirect you can set, because you do not control the address.

On Carrd Pro, the address is yours. Leave Carrd and you point the domain somewhere else, and every reference keeps working. That is the single most valuable thing $19 a year buys, and it is invisible until the day you need it.

This is also the honest limit of both products. Neither will export a working copy of your page. What differs is whether the address survives, and only one of them lets it.

Where Framekit Fits

We build a website builder and therefore compete with both of these at the edges, so rather than salt that interest through the comparison above, here is our position stated once, including the part that argues against us.

Framekit is an AI website builder for photographers, filmmakers, designers, and creators, with a portfolio, client galleries, and a digital store on one domain.

Free at $0 with a 5 percent fee on product sales, Starter at $9 a month with a custom domain, Pro at $19 with 3 percent, and Business at $39 with no fee.

Where we lose to Carrd, plainlyprice. Carrd Pro Plus is $49 a year with payment forms and our Starter is $84 a year billed yearly plus a 5 percent fee, and for a single page with a payment form Carrd is the better purchase by a distance. We are not going to argue otherwise.

Where we lose to Linktreespeed and familiarity. Nothing we make is as quick to publish as a list of links, and a Linktree address is understood by an audience that has never heard of us.

Where we are different from boththe store is a real store, with a catalogue, automatic file delivery, an exportable order list and, from Pro, discount codes, sitting beside a portfolio on your own domain from Starter; checkout itself runs on a hosted framekit.ai page carrying your name.

That is a different product from a link page, and it only becomes the right one when the link page has stopped being enough.

How to Choose

In one linework down these questions in order and stop at the first one that describes you, because the later questions only change the answer if the earlier ones did not already settle it.

1. Is the page only a list of links, with nothing for sale, ever? Linktree Free. It is free, it is faster, and nothing in this article applies to you.
2. Do you sell anything at all through the page? Carrd Pro Plus at $49 a year, unless file delivery by hand is unacceptable to you.
3. Do you sell, and want a hosted checkout that delivers files without you touching it? Linktree Premium at 27.50 euro a month, and never a lower Linktree tier, because its fee table charges 9 to 12 percent on those.
4. Does the page need to be on your own domain? Carrd. Linktree does not offer this at any tier.
5. Do you need dynamic links, smart routing, or Instagram auto-replies? Linktree Premium. Carrd has no equivalent.
6. Do you sell more than one or two things, with real order volume? Neither. You want a store with automatic delivery, which Framekit runs from $0 a month and puts on your own domain from Starter, and our link in bio tools guide covers the full field.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Carrd better than Linktree?

For selling and for owning your address, yes.

Carrd Pro Standard is $19 a year with a custom domain, SSL and no Carrd branding, and Pro Plus at $49 adds payment forms that take no cut of your sales because payments run through your own Stripe account.

For a page that is only a list of links, Linktree is faster, simpler, and free, and there is no reason to pay for anything.

Does Linktree take a percentage of sales?

Yes.

Linktree's plan comparison lists a 12 percent seller fee on Free, 9 percent on Starter and Pro and 0 percent on Premium, which is 27.50 euro a month billed annually or 32 euro monthly, though the Pro plan card on the same page says 0 percent.

The crossover from a cheaper Linktree tier to Premium is about 256 euro a month in sales.

How much does Carrd cost?

The free tier builds and publishes up to three sites with Carrd branding.

Pro Lite is $9 a year without custom domains, Pro Standard is $19 a year with custom domains, SSL, up to 10 sites, forms, widgets, embeds, analytics and no branding, and Pro Plus is $49 a year with payment-enabled forms, redirects, password protection and up to 25 sites.

Can I use my own domain with Linktree?

No. Every Linktree tier, including Premium at 27.50 euro a month, publishes to a Linktree address. If a custom domain matters to you, Carrd Pro provides one for $19 a year and that is the clearest structural difference between the two products.

Does Carrd handle file delivery for digital products?

No. Carrd's payment-enabled forms take the payment and leave delivery to you, along with order records and refunds. That manual work is the real cost of Carrd's missing transaction fee, and it is the main reason to pay for a hosted checkout instead once volume grows.

Which is better for musicians?

Linktree for a release link that needs to be live tonight and route to eight streaming services.

Carrd for an artist page that needs to look like the record rather than like a link tool, and for selling sample packs or merch links without a 9 to 12 percent cut.

Many artists use Linktree for releases and a Carrd page as the permanent home.

Can I move from Linktree to Carrd?

Yes, and it is manual. Copy the links across, rebuild the layout, and point a domain at the Carrd page.

The part you cannot move is the Linktree address itself, so any bio, flyer, or press release pointing at it will need updating, which is the argument for using your own domain from the start.

Is Linktree Pro worth it?

Only for the analytics and mailing list integrations, because Linktree's fee table still charges 9 percent on Pro at 10.50 euro a month, even though the Pro plan card claims 0 percent; until the page agrees with itself, assume the 9 percent.

It is the most expensive middle tier in this category: you spend more and still pay the cut. If you sell, go to Premium or leave; if you do not sell, stay free.

Which one is better for SEO?

Carrd, for one reason: the custom domain. Links and mentions pointing at a Carrd page on your own domain build authority for you, and the same links pointing at a Linktree address build it for Linktree.

Neither is a real SEO strategy, and a single page can only rank for roughly one thing regardless of platform.

What is the cheapest way to sell one digital product from a link page?

Carrd Pro Plus at $49 a year with a payment-enabled form on your own Stripe account, accepting that you deliver the file yourself.

If you want the delivery handled, the cheapest hosted option in the wider category is a free plan with a 5 percent fee rather than either of these, which we cover in the link in bio tools comparison.

Final Verdict

If the page is a list of links, use Linktree Free and stop reading. It is faster to set up, familiar to your audience, and it costs nothing.

If you sell anything through the page, Carrd Pro Plus at $49 a year is the better purchase, and it stops being close very quickly.

Nine percent of a $29 sample pack is $2.61, so twenty sales on Linktree Starter cost more in fees than a full year of Carrd Pro Plus. The domain you get with it is worth more than the fee saving over three years.

The one arrangement to avoid is the middle: paying Linktree Pro at 10.50 euro a month while its fee table still takes 9 percent of every sale. Either sell nothing and stay free, or go to Premium, or leave.

Where Framekit does not compete. Carrd Pro Plus is $49 a year with payment forms and our Starter plan is $84 billed yearly, so for a single page with a payment form we are the more expensive choice and Carrd is the right one.

We are only relevant when the link page has grown into a portfolio with a real store behind it.

Related readingthe best link in bio tools, the best Linktree alternatives, and the best Carrd alternatives.