Quickstart

Copy page

Quickstart

Make your first Shortimize API call in three steps.

• Base URL: https://api.shortimize.com
• Authentication: Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>
• Format: JSON requests and responses

1. Get an API key

Sign in at app.shortimize.com and open your settings. The API key is shown there (see Obtaining API Access). Treat it like a password and keep it out of source control.

The examples below read the key from the SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY environment variable:

Code
export SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY="<YOUR_API_KEY>"

2. Make your first call

Count the accounts your organisation tracks. This call needs no request body and confirms your key works.

curl

Code
curl https://api.shortimize.com/total/accounts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY"

JavaScript

Code
const res = await fetch("https://api.shortimize.com/total/accounts", {
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY}` },
});
console.log(await res.json());

Python

Code
import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.shortimize.com/total/accounts",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY']}"},
)
print(res.json())

The response has this shape (the number is an example):

Code
{ "account_count": 25 }

A 401 means the key is missing or wrong. A 429 means you hit your rate limit; wait the number of seconds in the Retry-After header.

3. Track an account and read it back

Start tracking an account by its profile URL. Send Content-Type: application/json with a link:

Code
curl -X POST https://api.shortimize.com/accounts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"link": "https://www.tiktok.com/@example"}'

Code
await fetch("https://api.shortimize.com/accounts", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ link: "https://www.tiktok.com/@example" }),
});

Code
requests.post(
    "https://api.shortimize.com/accounts",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY']}"},
    json={"link": "https://www.tiktok.com/@example"},
)

Then list your tracked accounts:

Code
curl "https://api.shortimize.com/accounts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SHORTIMIZE_API_KEY"

Plans and limits

Limited (trial) and Basic keys receive 1 result with masked metrics on read endpoints; Premium keys receive full data. Rate limits are per organisation and depend on your plan; see the API reference for the table.

Next steps

• API reference: every endpoint, parameter and response.
• MCP server: use the same data from Claude, Claude Code, Cursor and other AI assistants.