In general, it takes less than a second for our system to generate a Bitly Link. Much less than a second.
It may take a little extra time depending on where you are in the world and the strength of your internet connection, but even so, it's generally in the tens of milliseconds.
The Bitly Link is active as soon as it's created, so there's no additional delay after you shorten the link. This is the case with QR Codes and buttons on your Bitly Page, too — they're also ready to be shared right away!
As of May 2024, we've renamed the core parts of our product: Short Links are Bitly Links, QR Codes are Bitly Codes, and Link-in-bio pages are Bitly Pages. These changes reflect how the different parts of the Connections Platform work together and the many ways you can use our platform.