Core concepts
The eight ideas the rest of ShortZen is built from: links, slugs, domains, workspaces, plans, quotas, clicks, and entitlements.
Reviewed 24 Oct 2026
Why this page exists
ShortZen uses a small number of words in specific ways, and most confusion later traces back to one of them being read loosely here. Eight ideas cover it.
You do not need to read this end to end. Skim the headings, and come back when a word in another article does not behave the way you expected.
Link
A link is the pairing of a short address you hand out and a destination URL it sends people to. The short address stays the same forever; the destination is yours to change whenever you like, and the change takes effect on the very next click.
Why editing a destination works immediately
Slug
The slug is the part after the slash. In your-domain/spring-sale, the slug is spring-sale. Leave it blank and ShortZen generates a short random one; type your own and you get a link people can read, say out loud, and trust.
- Letters, numbers, and hyphens.
- Unique per domain: the same slug can exist once on the shared ShortZen domain and again on your own domain.
- A small set of words is reserved so slugs cannot collide with the app's own pages.
Domain
By default your links live on the shared ShortZen domain. You can connect a domain you own, such as go.yourbrand.com, so links carry your name instead of ours; the Domains page shows how many your plan allows. A connected domain has to be verified through DNS before it starts serving redirects.
Workspace
Everything you create belongs to a workspace, not to you personally. A workspace is created for you when you sign up, so even if you do not invite anyone you already have one. When you do invite people, they see the same links, domains, and analytics you do, subject to their role.
You can belong to more than one workspace. The workspace switcher at the top of the sidebar moves you between them, and the whole dashboard reloads against the one you pick.
Plan, payer, and entitlements
A plan is what you pay for. Entitlements are what that plan unlocks: which features are switched on, and how much of each resource you get.
The workspace payer decides, not the member
Limits and quotas
A limit is a number your plan grants for one resource. Some reset every month (links created, clicks tracked); others are a standing ceiling (domains, bio pages, seats, webhook endpoints).
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| A number | That is the cap. Reaching it blocks the next one until the month rolls over or you upgrade. |
| None | Your plan grants zero of this. It is not a soft nudge: the action is refused. |
| Unlimited | Genuinely no ceiling. Shown only where a plan truly has none. |
Deleting does not refund the month
Clicks and scans
A click is one visit to a short link that we believe came from a person. Traffic we identify as automated is excluded from your analytics, so your numbers are not inflated by crawlers.
A scan is a click that arrived from a QR code. Scans are counted as clicks and also reported separately, so you can tell print performance apart from online performance.
Your links do not stop redirecting because of click volume
Roles
Inside a workspace, what you can do depends on your role.
| Role | Can do |
|---|---|
| Owner | Everything, including billing, ownership transfer, and deleting the workspace. Exactly one per workspace. |
| Admin | Manage links, domains, and members. Cannot transfer ownership. |
| Member | Create and manage links and the day-to-day product surfaces. |
| Viewer | Read-only. Can see links and analytics, cannot change anything. |