Carrd Alternative (2026): Free Sites Like Carrd, Compared Honestly
October 3, 2026 · 7 min read
Looking for a Carrd alternative? An honest 2026 comparison of Carrd and lit.bio: prices, payments, custom domains, analytics, and who should stay with Carrd.
Quick answer: Stay with Carrd if you want real design freedom, your own domain or more than one site. Pro Standard is $19 a year for 10 sites with custom domains plus Stripe, PayPal and Gumroad widgets, and that is hard to beat. Consider lit.bio if you mostly use Carrd as a link page and would rather set it up from your phone in a few minutes, with per-link click analytics, a Save contact button, background music and a view counter already built in, and no layout work. Be aware that lit.bio's free plan stops at 10 links and it has no custom domains yet. All prices here are as of October 2026.
What Carrd is, and why people look for an alternative
Carrd is a one-page website builder. A solo founder known as AJ launched it in 2016 and has run it without venture funding ever since. You start from a template and place every element yourself, so a Carrd site can be a landing page, a portfolio, an event page or a link list. The searches around it tell you who uses it: "carrd alternative for artists", "for discord", "for tumblr" and "sites like carrd but easier" all show up in Google's suggestions. Plenty of people use Carrd as an about-me page or a link page for their profiles.
Some of the reasons people look elsewhere are on record. Third-party reviewers point out that Carrd has no built-in per-link click analytics, no mobile app (you edit in a browser) and one page per site. On Trustpilot, Carrd has 3.1 out of 5 from 59 reviews. Reviewers praise its simplicity, clean templates and the founder's support. Complaints include SSL certificate problems that triggered browser warnings and the lack of autosave: one reviewer said in 2025 that they lost a day's work.
Carrd vs lit.bio at a glance
| Carrd | lit.bio | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 3 sites on a carrd.co subdomain, Carrd branding, element limits | lit.bio/yourname, up to 10 links, all 12 themes, QR code, no ads, small "Create your own free page" link |
| Paid prices | Pro Lite $9/yr (3 sites), Pro Standard $19/yr (10 sites), Pro Plus $49/yr (25 sites), with larger site-count versions up to $999/yr. Annual billing only, 7-day trial with no card | Pro $9/mo or $49 once (lifetime) |
| Fees on sales | No Carrd fee found in its docs, only Stripe or PayPal processing | 10% platform fee plus Stripe on tips and locked content. No platform fee on paid subscriptions or on links to your own shop |
| Taking payments | Stripe, PayPal and Gumroad widgets on Pro Standard. Stripe Checkout payment forms on Pro Plus | Tips, subscription tiers and locked content on Pro, paid out through Stripe Connect |
| Custom domain | Yes, from Pro Standard ($19/yr) | Not yet (on the roadmap) |
| Analytics | Connect a third-party tool on Pro Standard and up. No built-in per-link clicks reported | Per-link clicks built in: 7 days free, 90 days on Pro |
| Standout features | Full layout control, multiple sites, forms, password protection and redirects on Pro Plus | Save contact vCard, background music, view counter, music smart links, Linktree importer |
| App | None, browser editing | iOS app (Android on the roadmap) |
Carrd's prices come from carrd.com/pro and its plans documentation, checked October 2026. Check the live page before you decide, because plans change.
Where Carrd is better
- Design freedom. You decide where every element goes, and you can build things that are not link pages at all. lit.bio gives you themes, fonts, button styles and three layouts, but you cannot move blocks anywhere you like.
- Price for what you get. $19 a year buys 10 sites with custom domains, forms and payment widgets. lit.bio Pro is $9 a month or $49 once, so on a yearly basis Carrd is cheaper.
- Custom domains. Carrd supports yourname.com from Pro Standard. lit.bio does not offer custom domains yet.
- Payments with no platform cut. Carrd can take payments through Stripe, PayPal and Gumroad widgets, and Pro Plus adds Stripe Checkout payment forms. We found no Carrd fee in its documentation. lit.bio takes 10% of tips and locked content.
- More than one site. Even the $9 tier covers 3 sites, and Pro Plus adds password protection, redirects and form integrations such as Zapier, Make and Airtable.
- No 10-link ceiling. Carrd's free plan has element limits instead of a link count, and Pro Lite removes them. lit.bio's free plan stops at 10 links.
- Track record. Carrd has been around since 2016. lit.bio is a newer, smaller product.
Where lit.bio is better
- Per-link click analytics. lit.bio shows which link people tapped, 7 days on Free and 90 days on Pro. On Carrd, analytics means connecting a third-party tool, which shows page views rather than taps on each button. Our guide on tracking link in bio clicks explains why that number matters.
- Phone-first editing. lit.bio has an iOS app and pages built for phone screens. Reviewers note that Carrd has no mobile app.
- No design work. Pick a layout (Standard, Hero or Simple), a theme, a font and a button style, and you are done. A frosted glass panel and a glow icon style are one toggle each.
- A Save contact button, free. You fill in your name, title, company, phone, email, website and address, and visitors get a vCard with your photo. No app is needed.
- Music and a view counter, free. Upload an MP3, M4A or OGG as background music with an optional tap-to-enter screen, and switch on a public view counter. Paste a Spotify or Apple Music link to get a "listen anywhere" block.
- A free QR code. On Carrd, QR codes start at Pro Lite.
- Selling without setup. On Pro, tips, subscription tiers and locked content are switched on in the dashboard instead of configured as Stripe widgets. The trade-off is the 10% fee on tips and locked content.
Other sites like Carrd
If you want a different builder rather than a link page, Google's suggestions show people comparing Carrd with Straw.page, Wix, Squarespace, Framer and Neocities. Straw.page is the one that comes up most for "sites like carrd". Third-party directories describe it as a free, phone-friendly drag-and-drop builder, with custom domains on its paid tier. We could not load its pricing page, so check it yourself. For a longer look at the choice between a builder and a link page, read Carrd vs a link in bio page.
Carrd alternatives for artists, Discord and Tumblr
Most artists use a Carrd for commission info, a portfolio link, a shop and socials. On lit.bio that becomes a header photo, up to 10 links and your social icons, with a contact form and a YouTube embed on Pro. For Discord and Tumblr, the page is something you link from your profile, so what matters is a short URL that looks good on a phone. Here is how to add a link to your Discord bio. If you enjoyed the look of an aesthetic carrd, lit.bio's 12 themes, glow icons, glass panel and background music cover a lot of that without placing elements.
How to switch from Carrd to lit.bio
- Sign up and claim lit.bio/yourname.
- Open your Carrd site and copy the URL behind each button. Add them as links: up to 10 on Free, unlimited on Pro.
- Add your socials as icons, then pick a layout, theme and font and upload a profile and header photo.
- Optionally switch on Save contact, background music, the view counter or a location pin.
- Replace your carrd.co link in your Instagram, TikTok, Discord and Tumblr profiles.
- If you sell through Carrd's PayPal or Gumroad buttons, you can add those product pages as ordinary links. lit.bio charges no fee on links to your own shop.
What you lose: your custom layout, your own domain, extra sites, Carrd's form integrations, password protection and the payment widgets on the page itself. If you own a domain pointed at Carrd, keep it there for now, because lit.bio cannot use custom domains yet.
lit.bio's limits, plainly
The free plan holds 10 links. There are no custom domains yet (they are on the roadmap). Tips and locked content carry a flat 10% platform fee plus Stripe processing. Free pages show a small "Create your own free page" link, and there is no Android app yet. lit.bio is also a newer, smaller product than Carrd.
The bottom line
Carrd is excellent value if you enjoy designing and want a domain. If you only need a link page that looks good, shows which links get tapped and works as a contact card too, lit.bio is quicker to set up and free to try. Carrd prices are as of October 2026, so check carrd.com/pro before you decide. Start free