What I built
A LinkTree-style page — same photo, bio, and stack of buttons that point at your other socials, your booking page, your menu, your YouTube channel, whatever. Hosted on my own domain at cohoonconsulting.com/links.html, edited from my own project, and free to run. Anyone with a phone, an Instagram bio, or a little card at the front counter can use the exact same pattern for their own business.
The page itself isn't the interesting part. The interesting part is what it replaces.
What it replaces (and what those tools actually cost)
The link-in-bio category exists because Instagram and TikTok only let you put one URL in a profile. Every tool below solves that one problem. They charge for it monthly:
| Tool | Typical cost | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| LinkTree | $5–$24/mo $60–$288/year |
Real analytics locked behind paid tiers; "Powered by LinkTree" footer; their URL, not yours |
| Beacons | $10–$25/mo | Watermarked free tier; design caps; data lives on their servers |
| Stan Store | $29/mo | Page disappears the day you stop paying |
| Carrd (yearly) | $9–$49/year | Cheaper, but still rented — and still their templates |
| Build your own | $0–$12/year ($0 to host on Netlify; ~$12/yr if you want a custom domain) |
Nothing. You own the page, the data, and the analytics. |
Across five years, that's roughly $300 to $1,400 in subscription cost for a page that is — physically — a list of buttons. That math is the whole reason I made the video.
Why it matters for a local business
- Real analytics, not paywalled analytics. Google Analytics is free and tells you who clicked which button, where they came from, what device, and what time of day. Most LinkTree-style services hide that behind a paid tier.
- Lives on your domain.
links.yourbusiness.cominstead oflinktr.ee/yourbusiness. Every flyer, business card, and Google Business Profile points at you, not someone else's brand. - Editing it takes 30 seconds. Open the file, change a link, save. No platform UI to learn, no "upgrade to Pro to add a 6th button" upsell.
- Stop paying = nothing happens. The page keeps working. You're not hostage to a subscription to keep your bio link alive.
- It's the gateway to actually owning your online presence. Same workflow that builds the bio page builds a real website. You learn one tool once.
How it actually works
For someone who isn't a developer, it's much less technical than it sounds. The whole stack is four pieces:
- One HTML file. Your photo, your bio, your buttons. That's the page.
- GitHub. Free. Holds the file and keeps a history of every change.
- Netlify. Free. Watches your GitHub for updates and pushes them live to the internet automatically.
- Cursor. The editor I work in. You tell it in plain English what to change ("swap the order of these two buttons," "add my new YouTube link") and it edits the file for you.
Once that's set up, updating the page is genuinely a 30-second job. No "log in, find the right tab, click the right pencil icon, save, wait" dance.
Want to build it yourself?
I wrote a free step-by-step guide that walks you through it. Drop your email and I'll send it over → — you'll end up with a downloadable PDF you can work through at your own pace.
Want me to build it for you?
A link-in-bio page is a small piece of a bigger picture. If you'd rather skip ahead to a real website that you also own outright, the 7-Day Liftoff covers that — and the bio page is included. If you're not sure what you need yet, book a free 30-minute conversation and I'll tell you straight.