AppsFlyer is a mobile measurement partner built for teams running paid media at scale. LinkTrace is self-serve deep linking and install attribution for indie developers and early-stage startups. The practical difference for a small team: as of 23 August 2026, AppsFlyer’s free deep-linking tier does not include deferred deep linking — the lowest tier that does is custom-priced and requires a demo request, and the feature requires the AppsFlyer SDK and a Unified Deep Linking implementation in your app. LinkTrace includes deferred deep linking on its free plan, integrates with two HTTPS calls and no SDK, and publishes every price on its pricing page. If you are running significant paid-media spend and need SKAdNetwork management, ad-network postbacks or fraud scoring, AppsFlyer is the correct tool and LinkTrace does not compete for that job.
Every AppsFlyer figure verified against their own published pages on
LinkTrace
Self-serve deep linking, install attribution and referral tracking for indie developers and early-stage startups. No SDK, flat monthly pricing.
AppsFlyer
A mobile measurement partner (MMP) built for teams running paid media at scale.
Two products, two pricing pages, and one rate published between them.
AppsFlyer sells two separate things, on two separate pricing pages.
The full platform — attribution, analytics, SKAdNetwork, fraud, cost aggregation — has three tiers. Zero is free but, in AppsFlyer’s own description, measures engagement only — clicks and impressions — and does not measure attribution. Growth measures attribution and bills per conversion: a Welcome Package of 12,000 free conversions for the first year, after which conversions are priced at $0.07 each. Enterprise is custom-priced. (AppsFlyer pricing page and AppsFlyer Help Center, “Account management—plans, payments, and billing”, both checked 23 August 2026.)
This matters more than the headline rate, because it determines which of your use cases consume it.
AppsFlyer defines a conversion as a successful app install or user action that your efforts drove and that you measured with AppsFlyer — an install, a re-engagement, or a re-attribution. Organic installs, which AppsFlyer does not attribute, are not counted and are free. Its billing documentation lists “non-organic installs (NOI)” — new app installs attributed to a media source — as a plan unit, and lists owned media activity among what is billed. (AppsFlyer pricing FAQ and Help Center billing article, checked 23 August 2026.)
The implication for a referral programme. An install driven by a referral link is attributed to a media source, which makes it non-organic by AppsFlyer’s own definition, which makes it a billable conversion. So on the Growth plan, every referral install consumes conversion units at the same $0.07 as a paid-media install — even though you bought no media to acquire it. The same logic applies to installs driven by a creator link, a blog post or a newsletter. On LinkTrace these are not billed per install at all; they count against a plan allowance, and the plan price does not change.
There is a related gap worth naming, because it is the one most likely to affect a small team.
AppsFlyer sells deep linking through a separate standalone track, which its billing documentation describes as supporting owned media attribution only, in three packages — Standard, Advanced and Premium — none of which have a published price. What AppsFlyer does not publish is how a deferred deep link interacts with the Growth plan on the full-platform track: whether a deferred-deep-link install is a billable conversion there, whether Growth includes the deferred deep linking capability at all, or whether the standalone deep-linking track is a required additional purchase.
We are not asserting an answer to that, because AppsFlyer does not give one. We are pointing out that a founder trying to budget for “referral links that survive an install” cannot determine the cost from AppsFlyer’s published material at all — on either track. That is the question to put to their sales team, in writing, alongside the referral question above.
Deep linking is sold separately, marketed as requiring no attribution plan. Four tiers: Zero is free; Standard, Advanced and Premium are all listed as custom pricing with a demo request. AppsFlyer publishes no rate, no minimum and no volume allowance for any of the three paid deep-linking tiers. (AppsFlyer deep-linking pricing page, checked 23 August 2026.)
That second point matters more than the first for a small team, because of where the tier line falls.
AppsFlyer’s own tier descriptions place the capabilities as follows:
| Tier | Price | What the tier adds |
|---|---|---|
| Zero | Free | Short links, QR codes, routing from web and social into the app, basic performance signals |
| Standard | Custom — demo required | In-app screen routing, deferred deep linking, referral measurement and invite journeys |
| Advanced | Custom — demo required | Smart banners, bulk links, branded domains |
| Premium | Custom — demo required | Data Locker streaming, ESP integration, MCP, OneLink API |
Source: AppsFlyer’s deep-linking pricing page, tier descriptions, checked 23 August 2026. AppsFlyer’s own words: Zero is “best when… deep linking isn’t business-critical yet”; Standard “includes everything in Zero, plus… preserve context across install with deferred deep linking.”
So the free tier covers link creation and store routing. The moment you need the link to survive an install — the actual reason most teams go looking for a deep linking tool — you are in a tier with no published price.
If you are comparing running costs, the arithmetic cuts both ways and it is worth being precise about where it turns.
In your first year, under 12,000 total conversions, AppsFlyer Growth costs nothing. LinkTrace Growth over the same year costs $119.88. For a pre-launch or very early app on the full-platform track, AppsFlyer is cheaper, and we would rather say so than have you discover it.
After the Welcome Package is used or the year elapses, conversions bill at $0.07. Against LinkTrace Growth at a flat $9.99/month, the crossover is roughly 143 conversions per month. Against LinkTrace Scale at $29.99/month with no install cap, it is roughly 429 conversions per month.
Past that point the gap widens quickly, because one side is metered and the other is not:
| Conversions / month | AppsFlyer Growth at $0.07 | LinkTrace Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $70 | $29.99 |
| 5,000 | $350 | $29.99 |
| 11,400 | $798 | $29.99 |
| 50,000 | $3,500 | $29.99 |
AppsFlyer column is its published Growth rate applied to volume; LinkTrace Scale has no install cap and no per-install charge. Checked 23 August 2026.
Two caveats we are not going to bury:
The units are not identical. LinkTrace bills nothing per install and counts “attributed installs” against a plan allowance. AppsFlyer counts “conversions,” which by its own definition covers installs, re-engagements and re-attributions that it attributes to a media source. The two are close enough to compare and not close enough to quote from. Treat the crossover as an order-of-magnitude guide.
Above modest volume, list pricing stops applying. Teams at real scale are on negotiated Enterprise contracts, and AppsFlyer does not publish those rates. Any comparison chart that multiplies $0.07 by a large install count and presents the result as AppsFlyer’s price is doing arithmetic, not research. We do not know what AppsFlyer costs at 100,000 installs a month and neither does anyone publishing a chart that claims to.
One product ships code into your binary. The other is two HTTPS calls.
This is the sharpest structural difference between the two products, and it is documented by AppsFlyer.
AppsFlyer’s deep-linking FAQ states that creating and managing links, QR codes and landing pages requires no SDK — but that routing users to a specific in-app screen, including deferred deep linking after install, requires the development team to integrate the AppsFlyer SDK (version 6.1 or later) and implement Unified Deep Linking in the app. (AppsFlyer deep-linking pricing FAQ, checked 23 August 2026.)
LinkTrace has no SDK. Integration is two plain HTTPS calls, authenticated with an API key header, identical from Swift, Kotlin, React Native or Flutter.
POST https://api.linktrace.in/api/v1/referral-links
x-api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY>
{
"referrerIdentifier": "user_abc123",
"source": "instagram",
"campaign": "instagram-q4",
"customPayload": {
"screenName": "product",
"sku": "red-sneakers"
}
}{
"data": {
"shortCode": "4d22fb5b",
"referralLink": "https://app.linktrace.in/r/4d22fb5b"
}
}POST https://api.linktrace.in/api/v1/attributions
x-api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY>
{ "userId": "user_xyz789" }The response carries attributed: true|false and, on a match, your customPayload returned verbatim — which is what you route on.
The practical consequence for a two-person team: nothing enters your app binary, there is no SDK version to keep current, and no App Store review is gated on an attribution vendor’s release cycle. The consequence at AppsFlyer’s end is that a deferred deep link cannot ship without a dev cycle and a UDL implementation, which is a real cost even on an unlimited budget.
LinkTrace’s redirect handler responds in under 50ms at the 95th percentile — 95 out of every 100 requests complete inside that budget, not just the median.
Why we state it this way. A single end-to-end number would be more flattering and less useful, because it folds in network conditions no vendor controls. What LinkTrace can actually be held to is its own processing time, so that is the number we publish. If you are comparing vendors, ask what any quoted latency figure includes — an end-to-end number measured on a fast connection and a server-side number are not the same claim.
For context on why the budget matters: redirect latency above 500ms produces a measurable reduction in click-to-install conversion, so the headroom here is deliberate rather than incidental.
Verified against each vendor’s own published material on 23 August 2026. Where AppsFlyer does not publish something, this table says so rather than estimating.
| Capability | LinkTrace | AppsFlyer |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Free forever (Starter) | Free (Zero, both tracks) |
| Paid pricing | $9.99/mo, $29.99/mo — published | Full platform: $0.07/conversion after 12,000 free in year one. Deep linking: not published, demo required |
| Billing model | Flat monthly, no per-install fee | Per-conversion metering on Growth; Enterprise negotiated |
| Annual contract | None | Enterprise plans are contracted; terms not published |
| Buying process | Self-serve, no card for free tier | Self-serve on Zero and Growth; demo request for all paid deep-linking tiers and Enterprise |
| Deferred deep linking | All plans, including free | Standard tier and above — custom-priced |
| Direct deep link into installed app | Scale ($29.99) — requires branded subdomain for Universal Links / App Links | Standard tier and above |
| Dynamic store routing (iOS/Android/web fallback) | All plans, including free | Zero (free) and above |
| Short links and QR codes | Dynamic links on all plans | Zero (free) and above |
| Referral attribution | All plans, including free | Standard tier and above |
| SDK required | No — two HTTPS calls, nothing in your binary | Link and QR creation: no. In-app screen routing and deferred deep linking: yes — SDK 6.1+ and UDL implementation |
| Attribution mechanism | Probabilistic matching, 24-hour window, both platforms. Returns attributed: false when there is no confident match | SDK-based deterministic mechanisms alongside probabilistic; AppsFlyer publishes no single match-rate figure |
| SKAdNetwork / AdAttributionKit | Not offered | Yes — conversion-value management, SKAN dashboards |
| Ad-network postbacks and partner integrations | Not offered | Yes — AppsFlyer states 10,000+ partner integrations |
| Fraud protection | Not offered | Yes — Protect360, positioned as a premium capability |
| Cost aggregation / ROAS reporting | Not offered | Yes |
| Raw data export to warehouse | Not offered | Data Locker, Premium tier |
On attribution accuracy, plainly: AppsFlyer’s SDK-based deterministic mechanisms will beat LinkTrace’s probabilistic matching on raw match rate. That is a real advantage and the price of our no-SDK design. Where we differ is in what happens to the misses: LinkTrace returns attributed: false rather than a best guess, so a referral payout is never triggered by a match the system was not confident about.
In controlled testing, LinkTrace correctly attributed 97% of Android installs and 85% of iOS installs where the install occurred within 30 minutes of the click.
What happens to the rest. Where there is no confident match inside the window, the API returns attributed: false. An unmatched install therefore shows up as a gap in your data rather than as a payout to the wrong referrer, which is the failure mode that actually costs money in a referral programme.
We are not aware of an MMP that publishes a comparable figure with its measurement conditions attached. Take that as a reason to ask them, not as a reason to take ours on trust.
Not a disclaimer. If any of these describe you, stop reading and go and book the demo.
You are running paid user-acquisition campaigns at meaningful spend. Attributing installs to ad networks, receiving postbacks and closing the loop on ROAS is the job AppsFlyer is built for and LinkTrace does not do it at all.
You need SKAdNetwork or AdAttributionKit conversion-value management. iOS paid measurement under Apple’s privacy framework requires conversion-value schema design, modelling and dedicated dashboards. LinkTrace has none of this.
Ad fraud is costing you money. Click spam, install hijacking and bot traffic at spend levels where a few percent matters is what Protect360 exists for.
You need cost aggregation across many networks. Pulling spend data from every channel into one ROAS view is an MMP feature.
You have a marketing operations team. AppsFlyer’s breadth is an asset when someone owns it full-time. Without that person it is surface area you pay for and do not use.
You are already at scale. Enterprise pricing is negotiated, and at high volume a negotiated per-conversion rate against a platform your team already knows may well beat switching costs.
If your use case is only free short links and QR codes routing to the right store, AppsFlyer’s Zero tier does that at no cost with no SDK. That is a legitimate free option and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
You need deferred deep linking on a budget you can approve yourself. It is on our free plan. At AppsFlyer it is a custom-priced tier plus an SDK integration plus a UDL implementation.
You want to know the price before you talk to anyone. Our full price list is three numbers on a public page. AppsFlyer publishes no price for any paid deep-linking tier.
You are running a referral programme and paying real money on it. Crediting the right referrer, and returning attributed: false rather than guessing, is what we built the product around.
You are attributing installs to content, creators, communities or newsletters. This buyer is usually a growth or content person with no budget line for an MMP, and MMP pricing models are built around paid media, not this.
You do not want a third-party SDK in your binary. No release coupling, no SDK upgrades, no vendor code shipping to your users.
Your costs should not scale with your success. Flat monthly billing means a viral week produces a spike in installs, not a spike in the invoice.
// appsflyer faq
For deep linking, deferred deep linking, referral attribution and content or creator install attribution — yes. For paid-media measurement, SKAdNetwork management, ad-network postbacks, fraud scoring and cost aggregation — no. LinkTrace does not offer those and does not intend to. Teams that need them should use an MMP.
Partly. AppsFlyer states that creating and managing links, QR codes and landing pages requires no SDK, but that routing users to a specific in-app screen — including deferred deep linking after install — requires integrating the AppsFlyer SDK version 6.1 or later and implementing Unified Deep Linking in the app. LinkTrace requires no SDK for any of its features; integration is two HTTPS calls. (AppsFlyer FAQ, checked 23 August 2026.)
No. As of 23 August 2026, AppsFlyer’s free Zero deep-linking tier covers short links, QR codes and routing from web and social into the app. Deferred deep linking is listed as a Standard-tier capability, and Standard is custom-priced with a demo request. Deferred deep linking is included on LinkTrace’s free Starter plan.
On the full-platform track, Growth is pay-as-you-go at $0.07 per conversion after a Welcome Package of 12,000 free conversions in the first year; Enterprise is custom-priced. On the deep-linking track, only the free Zero tier has a published price — Standard, Advanced and Premium are all listed as custom pricing. Checked 23 August 2026; verify current terms on AppsFlyer’s own pricing pages before budgeting.
LinkTrace’s Starter plan is free and includes deferred deep linking, referral tracking and 1,000 attributed installs as a one-time allowance. Paid plans are $9.99 and $29.99 a month, flat, with no per-install charge. Building it yourself is also a real option and is genuinely correct for some teams — the components are individually straightforward, but platform edge cases and ongoing maintenance as iOS and Android change make it a multi-week project rather than a weekend one.
No. SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit are Apple’s frameworks for privacy-preserving paid-campaign measurement, and managing them is an MMP function. If your iOS paid spend needs conversion-value modelling, an MMP is the right tool.
LinkTrace uses probabilistic matching within a 24-hour window on both platforms and has no SDK, so it does not have access to the deterministic signals an SDK-based MMP can use. On raw match rate, an SDK-based deterministic mechanism will do better. In controlled testing on devices with known click-to-install pairs, LinkTrace correctly attributed 97% of Android installs and 85% of iOS installs where the install happened within 30 minutes of the click; accuracy across the full 24-hour window is lower, and real-world traffic with VPNs and rotating IPs degrades it further. LinkTrace’s design choice is to return attributed: false rather than a low-confidence guess, so downstream actions like referral payouts are not triggered by uncertain matches. AppsFlyer does not publish a comparable match-rate figure.
Every AppsFlyer figure on this page was read off AppsFlyer’s own published material on , and is attributed inline to the page it came from. Where AppsFlyer publishes nothing, this page says so rather than estimating on their behalf.
Vendor pricing changes without notice. Confirm current terms on AppsFlyer’s own site before budgeting. Found something out of date? Email contact@linktrace.in and we will correct it.
Deferred deep linking and referral tracking are on the free plan. 100 Dynamic Links · 1,000 attributed installs · Deferred Deep Linking · Referral Tracking · Link-wise click counts. No credit card, no SDK, no demo call.