Mark Zuckerberg announces Instagram now lets users add up to five links to their account bios, challenging Linktree, Beacons, and other “link in bio” services
I am delighted for you that for the moment Meta has given you the ability to put up to to 5 links in your bios. How long they will allow that will be interesting to see. Maybe it will stay. … Tweets: @linktree_ : 💀 https://twitter.com/... Kaya Yurieff / @kyurieff : The day has come! INBOX: Instagram Announces Ability to Include Multiple Links in Bio Greg Baroth / @gbaroth : @liahaberman RIP all the link in bio companies @gabrielnocode : @Techmeme @sarahintampa Another masterful innovation from Zuck. Just taking everybody's bread @joshconstine : @alexeheath Native links perform better, and most creators have a primary platform. If TikTok allows multiple links, the startups here lose customers. If only IG does this, creators will probably show their top links natively, cram the rest into a Linktree, and the startup tools lose traffic Richard Hemmer / @stormgrass : Fascinating to see how companies which a decade ago brandished themselves as fast-moving disruptors are now moving at such glacial speed, that adding a minor feature like this one has become newsworthy. RIP linktree etc, though. https://twitter.com/... Andy Sternberg / @andysternberg : Meta has done so much damage to internet culture. How many companies got millions in funding to offset walled gardens with... lists of links? https://twitter.com/... @lyeuhm : Why would anyone stop using link in bio services when they can use a single link across their social platforms lol https://twitter.com/... @michaelkitticai : Honestly, link in post would have been much better. That said, I feel for Meta for pouring billions of dollars into the Metaverse as the next big thing, only for AI to disrupt https://twitter.com/... @anildash : “Link In Bio” was always a slow knife. https://www.anildash.com/... https://twitter.com/... @tweet : More links-in-bio in Insta. How about links-in-captions... https://twitter.com/... Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : “your startup could've been a feature” moment https://twitter.com/... Juan Ortiz Freuler / @juanof9 : Linktree's business model is that of a ladder that allows creators to smuggle eyeballs out of the IG walled garden. What if instead of taking over the ladder business, IG takes the wall down and allows people to link on their posts? https://twitter.com/... Jack Barham / @jackbarham : Link in bio's billion industry is about to be nuked by Instagram adding four extra form fields. https://twitter.com/... @dcoolican : we wanted flying cars. instead we got five links https://twitter.com/... @dangrover : @Techmeme @sarahintampa WeChat did this 10 years ago. I felt like this was obvious move when I was at FB (seeing the latent behavior of using these services), but political obstacle at time was all the teams trying to add specific buttons for bespoke features for specific verticals/integrations. Mic King / @ipullrank : This is great. Also, still get your own damn website and build a landing page with whatever you want to link to. https://twitter.com/... @joshconstine : @robleathern Yep, I learned this covering Facebook. The Page Management companies in particular were constantly trying to stay one step ahead of the steamroller. It's also why I loved FB's Operation Developer Love & Slack's public roadmap, which were designed to warn devs what not to build Rob Leathern / @robleathern : @JoshConstine This was always similar to the issue being a marketing developer / ads api partner. Anything good, they're going to build bigger and better with less friction for users Alex Heath / @alexeheath : @JoshConstine I don't see this competing with Linktree at all really? Whole point is to have a hub for all your links you can put anywhere.. I'm not going to link my IG profile with links on LinkedIn/Twitter etc. Zak Kukoff / @zck : I'm going to start an app that allows up to 6 links in bios and eat instagram's lunch https://twitter.com/... @gabrielayuso : The only link-in-bio services that make sense are crypto aware (verified digital identities/assets). The rest will be obsolete by product changes such as this one. https://twitter.com/... Matt / @mpopv : yet no links in posts still. perhaps, someday, we will develop the technology to enable this... https://twitter.com/... @toure : We still can't we just put a link in the caption? Why? https://twitter.com/... Jordan Kutzer / @jordankutzer : This is a worse link in bio feature. You shouldn't use it. The feature launches links in the IG in-app browser. In-app browsers kill conversion when sending users to native apps of Discord, Youtube and App Stores on mobile. This is a step in the wrong direction. https://twitter.com/... Alexis Ohanian / @alexisohanian : So wild that this is shipped as a “new” feature, but here we are. 5 links in bio! I wonder how many PMs this took? https://twitter.com/... Turner Novak / @turnernovak : Apple: “we're starting a bank” Microsoft: “we're building our own chips” Google: “we're re-architecting our entire business around AI” Facebook: https://twitter.com/... Sar Haribhakti / @sarthakgh : Never understood how this was an entire startup category globally that got hundreds of millions in funding https://techcrunch.com/... Amjad Masad / @amasad : Innovation is not dead after all. Linking technology just 5xd! https://twitter.com/... @dansodergren : @Techmeme @sarahintampa Why they didn't do this years ago I will never know... Austen Allred / @austen : I'm sympathetic to the “don't discount the value of products because of simplicity” argument It's absolutely crazy to me that there's a “link in bio” industry. Linktree has 40m+ users, has raised at >$1B valuation. And Meta is nuking it all with the tiniest product change ever. https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : As if we needed more proof, this is why I've been saying ‘link in bio’ startups are not worth $1 billion. https://twitter.com/... @josephflaherty : There was a long period in tech where founders could hand wave past the threat of competition from incumbents. Larger players were focused on the most massive growth opportunities. As tech reaches a saturation point, the size of markets attractive to incumbents will shrink https://twitter.com/... Josh Constine / @joshconstine : Tough morning for Linktree et al 😕 Build too close to the incumbent's sensible roadmap, or inspire them, and you can get caught under the steamroller. https://twitter.com/... Lia Haberman / @liahaberman : Curious how they'll roll this out to avoid looking spammy Kaya Yurieff / @kyurieff : Link in bio companies, your move! 👀 Paul Bae / @realpb : Path to “everything app” - I'd been wondering if IG would try to disrupt the Link In Bio space. Lots of potential to provide utility and revenue potential as so many LIB companies like Koji and C8ke are doing. https://twitter.com/... @francisokc : This is a bit of a blow to Linktree and other link in bio sites 👁️ https://twitter.com/... Matt Navarra / @mattnavarra : Instagram now lets you add up to 5 links in your profile bio This is how it will look: https://twitter.com/... Thomas Maxwell / @tomaxwell : Linktree was a ZIRP https://twitter.com/... Facebook: Instagram is FINALLY allowing us to ... - Jenn's Trends: Instagram is FINALLY allowing us to have more than one link in the bio. …
Context & Ripple Effects
This change directly targets a constraint that earlier coverage showed had enabled link-in-bio businesses such as Carrd, Linktree, and Bio.fm to emerge. Making several outbound destinations available inside the profile shifts that basic utility back into Instagram.
It also fits Meta's broader effort to make its social apps more self-contained and discovery-led, reflected in plans to make Facebook more like TikTok through recommendations beyond a user's existing network.
First-order effects
- Creators and businesses can place several destinations on an Instagram profile without relying on a separate link hub for that baseline function.
- Linktree, Beacons, and similar services lose an important acquisition and retention hook: solving Instagram's one-link limitation.
Second-order effects
- Link-in-bio providers will need to compete more on capabilities Instagram does not supply directly, such as richer landing pages, link management, analytics, and cross-platform use.
- Meta gains more control over the profile-to-destination path, while creators may weigh the convenience of native links against the flexibility of an independent landing page.
Third-order effects
- If platforms continue absorbing utility layers built around their product restrictions, third-party creator tools will be pushed toward specialized workflows rather than simple interface workarounds.
- The move reinforces a platform-dependency dynamic: businesses built on a social network's limitations can be rapidly reshaped when that network changes its defaults.
The trend: Social platforms are consolidating creator-facing utilities into native products, narrowing the space for standalone tools built around platform friction.