CountLink
The short answer
If you want a countdown that a group watches together and you would rather not pay or sign up, CountLink does everything ShareMyTimer's $6/month Pro tier does, for nothing, with no cap on how many people watch. If you want live pause-and-adjust control pushed to viewers with no setup step at all, and you want it from a native iOS app, ShareMyTimer is the more finished product in that specific respect.
Side by side
| CountLink | ShareMyTimer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, permanently. No paid tier exists. | Free tier; Pro $6/month; Single Event $9 one-time (15 days) |
| Account required | No, there is nothing to sign up for | No signup for the free tier |
| Viewers | Unlimited | 3 free · 90 on Pro · 150 on Single Event |
| Timers | Unlimited | 3 free · 20 on Pro · 100 on Single Event |
| Sound alerts | Free | Pro and Single Event only |
| Live pause / adjust pushed to viewers | Free, unlimited screens (opt in before starting) | Yes, on every tier |
| Message to every viewer | Free (flash message, via phone control) | Yes, including on the free tier |
| Join code | Free: five characters, e.g. /j/K3M7Q | Yes |
| QR code | Free | Yes |
| Count up / stopwatch | Free | Yes |
| OBS / stream overlay | Free, transparent, no watermark | Yes, including on the free tier |
| Website embed (iframe) | Free, no watermark | Not offered |
| Agenda of named segments | Free | Not offered |
| Interval / round timer | Free | Not offered |
| Calendar (.ics) export | Free | Not offered |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Yes: countlink.app/mcp | Not offered |
| Native iOS app | No, an installable web app instead | Yes |
| Can the service go down mid-countdown? | There is no server to go down | Sync runs through their servers |
ShareMyTimer figures verified against their own pricing page on 12 September 2026. Prices and limits change, so check theirs before deciding.
What ShareMyTimer does better
Live control with no setup step. ShareMyTimer is built around a controller/viewer split, so pause, resume and adjust reach every viewer by default. CountLink can do the same thing, without charging for it or capping the screens it reaches, but you have to tick phone control before you start the countdown. Forget to tick it and the countdown is fixed, because there is no connection to send a command down. If you routinely need to change a timer mid-run, theirs is the less error-prone model.
A native iOS app. CountLink installs from the browser as a web app, which covers the same ground for most people, but it is not the same as an App Store download and there is no point pretending otherwise.
Viewer messaging is on their free tier and is a first-class feature. CountLink's equivalent rides on phone control, so it is one more thing to have switched on in advance.
What CountLink does better
Nothing is metered. The reason ShareMyTimer counts your viewers is that each one holds a connection open on their servers, and connections cost money: three free, ninety for $6. CountLink writes the countdown's end time into the link itself, so every device does its own arithmetic locally and nothing is held open for anyone. A viewer costs us nothing, so there is no cap and nothing to sell you.
Sound is free. A timer that cannot make a noise at zero is doing half its job, and it sits behind their $6/month tier.
There is more of it. Agendas that advance themselves, interval and round timers, website embeds, README badges, calendar export, printable posters, an offline copy you can download, and an MCP server so an AI assistant can build you a timer directly. ShareMyTimer offers none of these. The full list is on the features page.
Nothing can go down. There is no server in the path after the link is sent, so there is no outage that can interrupt a countdown people are already watching.
Which one should you use?
Pick ShareMyTimer if you need to pause and adjust a running timer often and would rather that be the default behaviour than an option you remember to enable, or you specifically want a native iOS app.
Pick CountLink if more than three people need to watch, or you want sound at zero, or you would rather not create an account or a subscription for a countdown.
Common questions
Is CountLink actually free, or free-for-now?
Free permanently, and there is no paid tier to upgrade to. That is a consequence of the architecture rather than a promotion: viewers cost nothing to serve because nothing is held open per viewer, so there is no per-user cost that would eventually need covering.
Can CountLink pause a countdown for everyone, like ShareMyTimer does?
Yes, if you tick phone control before starting. That opens a live channel for that one countdown and gives you a second link that pauses, adds or removes a minute, and stops it on every screen at once, free, with no cap on the number of screens. The difference is that it is opt-in rather than always on.
Why does ShareMyTimer limit free viewers to three?
Their sync runs through a server that holds a connection open for each viewer, so each additional viewer has a real cost. That is a reasonable engineering choice, and the viewer caps follow from it directly.
Do I need to move my existing timers?
There is nothing to migrate. A CountLink countdown is just a link: set the duration, press start, and send the link you get.