Smart Links for DJs: Linkfire vs Feature.fm vs ToneDen (2026)

Music smart link tools for DJs compared: Linkfire, Feature.fm, ToneDen and HyperFollow, with prices, pre-save and pixel support checked in November 2026.

Quick Answer

A music smart link is a single URL that sends each fan to your release on the streaming service they already use. In November 2026, four of the five tools DJs ask about are active. Feature.fm runs from free to $39 a month and caps email access by tier. Linkfire costs $27 a month, or $21 a month billed yearly, with every feature on every plan. DistroKid's HyperFollow is free with distribution and includes Spotify pre-saves plus Meta and Google pixels. Ōtocracy Links, our own tool, is free with uncapped email export. ToneDen is the exception: its own website says it shuts down on December 1, 2026, so export your data and move your links now. The feature that separates these tools is pre-save. Spotify's own Countdown Pages only cover albums and EPs, and only for artists with 3,000 monthly active listeners, so for an EDM single the pre-save has to come from your smart link tool.

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Every DJ has a link in their bio, and most never think about the company behind it. In 2026 that matters: one of the best-known music smart link tools is closing, and Spotify's developer rules now limit which tools can offer pre-saves.

This comparison covers the tools electronic artists actually use: Linkfire, Feature.fm, ToneDen, DistroKid's HyperFollow and Ōtocracy Links. Every price, plan and feature below was read from each provider's own website or help centre between November 9 and November 14, 2026. Disclosure: Ōtocracy Links is our product. It is in the list, it is labelled, and it is not ranked first.

Which Smart Link Tools Are Still Active

Before comparing features, check that the company will still exist when your release comes out.

The ToneDen notice is a banner on toneden.io, checked on November 9, 2026: "ToneDen is shutting down on December 1, 2026." Eventbrite bought ToneDen in 2020, and in December 2025 Eventbrite itself agreed to be acquired by Bending Spoons for about $500 million. If any of your old releases still point at a ToneDen FanLink, those links have a few weeks left.

Linkfire's change is older and less dramatic: its last trading day on the stock market was January 18, 2024. The product kept running, and its pricing page is live.

Smart Link Pricing, Verified November 2026

All prices are from each provider's pricing page (Feature.fm, Linkfire, DistroKid, ToneDen) as of November 2026; Linkfire excludes VAT.

Linkfire's model is unusual: its page says every plan includes full feature access, so you pay for workspaces, not features. One artist on Pro yearly costs $252 a year with nothing locked. Feature.fm works the other way, with each tier unlocking more. The fan-data features DJs care about, all-time analytics and unlimited email access, only arrive at $39 a month, or $468 a year.

The HyperFollow trap is in DistroKid's plans. According to DistroKid's own release guide, a release on the base Musician plan goes live as soon as it is processed. Choosing a future release date requires Musician Plus or Ultimate. Without a future date there is barely a pre-save window, so in practice a HyperFollow pre-save needs the €42.99-a-year plan.

Pre-Save Support: The Feature That Actually Separates Them

A pre-save lets a fan authorise a release to be added to their library on release day, usually with a follow of your artist profile on Spotify. For electronic singles, that feature decides the shortlist.

Spotify's own tool doesn't cover singles. Its Countdown Pages are limited to new albums and EPs, require at least 3,000 monthly active listeners, and need a release delivered by your distributor. A club single from an artist with 1,500 monthly listeners is not eligible on either count.

There is a structural reason newer tools, including ours, are behind here. A Spotify pre-save means holding a fan's Spotify login until release day. Spotify's developer quota rules allow an app in development mode up to five authenticated users. Extended quota is only open to organisations with at least 250,000 monthly active users. Tools that already run Spotify pre-saves at scale, such as Feature.fm, Linkfire and DistroKid, have an advantage a new entrant cannot simply buy.

Analytics and Pixel Support

A smart link is a measurement tool as much as a routing tool. Based on 2,400+ campaigns run by our founding team, the pixel on the landing page is what makes paid release traffic affordable. Without it, every ad euro you spend on a release is spent once. With it, you can retarget everyone who reached the page.

HyperFollow is better here than its reputation. DistroKid's pixel help article lists Meta custom events for pre-save clicks, successful pre-saves and clicks on each store. That is enough to retarget everyone who pre-saved. What it lacks is a TikTok pixel, which matters if your release ads run on TikTok.

Feature.fm's email caps are the line to read twice. On Basic you can access 50 collected emails per link, and on Artist 200. A DJ whose pre-save link collects 600 addresses on the $19 plan can see a third of them. The rest stay behind an upgrade.

The Five Tools, One by One

1. Feature.fm: the deepest pre-save support

Feature.fm has the widest pre-save coverage in this comparison, with eight services, plus documented Spotify Pixel, Meta, Google and TikTok integrations. Its June 2026 SonoSuite partnership suggests a company investing, not winding down. The weakness is the tier ladder: retention, pixels and email access all scale with price, and the version DJs actually want costs $39 a month.

Best for: artists running paid release campaigns who need multi-store pre-saves and long-term data, and who will pay for Pro Artist.

2. Linkfire: label-grade, priced per workspace

Linkfire lists Warner Music and Universal Music among its users, and its pricing is built for teams: $27 a month for one artist workspace, all features included. You get pre-release links across six services, pre-save subscriptions, email collection, retargeting pixels and the lnk.to domain. Its weaknesses are cost for solo DJs and less public detail on data retention than Feature.fm gives.

Best for: artists and small teams who want every feature without studying a tier table, and managers running up to five artists on Teams.

3. DistroKid HyperFollow: free if you already distribute there

HyperFollow is created automatically for every DistroKid upload. It includes a Spotify pre-save that also follows you, pre-saver emails, and Meta and Google pixels with useful custom events. The links update themselves when the release goes live. The catch is the lock-in: pre-saves only work on pages for DistroKid releases, and a real pre-save window needs Musician Plus.

Best for: DistroKid artists releasing singles who want a working pre-save at no extra cost.

4. Ōtocracy Links: free, with the fan list fully yours (yes, this is us)

Ōtocracy Links is a free smart link tool with no paid tier. Paste a Spotify link or a UPC and it finds the release on Apple Music, TIDAL, Deezer, Beatport and other stores. You can collect fan emails on the page and export the whole list as a CSV at any time, with no cap. Stats are kept for the life of the link, and your Meta, TikTok and Google pixels fire once a fan consents. Set a future release date and the page goes up as "coming soon," then switches itself live on the day.

The honest weaknesses: it is the youngest tool here, and it has no Spotify pre-save of its own yet, for the developer-quota reason explained above. If a release depends on a Spotify pre-save count, use Feature.fm, Linkfire or HyperFollow for that release.

Best for: DJs who want a free link with a fan list they own outright, and Beatport in the store list.

5. ToneDen: closing December 1, 2026

ToneDen's social unlocks and FanLinks were a fixture of electronic release campaigns, and its pricing page still lists $50 and $100 tiers. Do not build a new release on it. Export any fan data you can, and replace every ToneDen link in your bios and track descriptions before December 1.

Best for: nobody starting today.

Which Smart Link Fits Your Release

If you also run SoundCloud download gates, Hypeddit bundles gates, pre-saves and smart links in one subscription. Our Hypeddit review has its November 2026 prices.

Where the Smart Link Sits in a Release

A smart link does not create demand. It catches and measures the demand that your ads, creator posts and DJ support create. Across the 2,400+ campaigns run by our founding team, release-day spikes come from traffic sent into the first 48 hours, and the smart link is how you see which channel produced it. The full sequence, from the distributor deadline to the 7-day Spotify pitch, is in our Spotify release playbook. To see where your current listeners actually come from, run the free Spotify profile analysis first.

If you want that release-day push run for you, the Spotify Pre-Save & Release Day campaign pairs a smartlink hub with Spotify's own pre-save pages and a managed release-day push. It costs a 30% management fee on the ad budget, with a €100 monthly minimum. The ad budget, from €300 a month, runs at cost on your own ad account. The emails your links collect are only useful if you send something, so read what to do with a fan email list once it starts filling.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a music smart link?

A music smart link is one URL that opens a landing page with buttons for every streaming service carrying your release, sending each fan to the app they already use. Good tools add pre-saves before release, pixels for ad retargeting, click analytics by store, and fan email capture you can export.

Is ToneDen shutting down?

Yes. As of November 9, 2026, a banner on ToneDen's own website says "ToneDen is shutting down on December 1, 2026." ToneDen has been owned by Eventbrite since 2020. Replace every ToneDen FanLink in your bios and descriptions, and export any fan data you can before that date.

Linkfire or Feature.fm: which is better for DJs?

For a solo DJ, Feature.fm's Pro Artist plan at $39 a month has broader pre-save coverage and all-time analytics. Linkfire's Pro plan, at $27 a month or $21 billed yearly, includes every feature on one artist workspace. On cheaper tiers, Feature.fm caps email access at 50 or 200 per link.

Can I make a Spotify pre-save link for a single?

Yes, but not through Spotify itself. Spotify's Countdown Pages only cover albums and EPs from artists with 3,000 or more monthly active listeners. For a single, use a third-party pre-save such as Feature.fm, Linkfire or DistroKid's HyperFollow, which needs a future release date set on Musician Plus.

Do smart links support the Meta and TikTok pixels?

Most do, on some plan. Feature.fm limits pixel count by tier, Linkfire includes retargeting pixels on all plans, HyperFollow takes Meta and Google pixel IDs, and Ōtocracy Links takes Meta, TikTok and Google pixels that fire after a fan consents. Check TikTok support specifically if your release ads run there.

Are free smart link tools safe to rely on?

Free is fine if export is free. The risk with any tool, free or paid, is that it changes terms or closes, as ToneDen is doing on December 1, 2026. Pick a tool that lets you download your fan list in full, and export it monthly.

The Bottom Line

For most DJs in 2026, the choice comes down to pre-saves. If your releases need a Spotify pre-save count, use Feature.fm, Linkfire or HyperFollow. If you need a free link with permanent stats and a fan list you own, a free tool does the job.

Start with the link: make a free smart link on Ōtocracy Links for your next single and compare it with your current tool on one release. When you want the release-day traffic behind it, the Spotify campaigns are built to feed exactly that page.