Use Cases
Enterprise Integration Example
When you place an order in the KFC app, you receive a confirmation email (or SMS) with a short link to check your order status. Have you ever wondered — does KFC have staff manually creating a short link for every single order? That would be incredibly inefficient.Of course not. These short links are generated via API. Once you complete your order, KFC’s backend calls the PicSee API to shorten the order URL and sends the short link to you.
As a side note, KFC Taiwan’s kfcclub.tw domain is also a PicSee branded short domain.
Individual Use
For individual users, no coding is required. After enabling the API, you also get access to:- Create a short link for the current page with one click in your browser: Install the browser extension (supports Chromium-based browsers) and click it to instantly convert the current page into a short link with a QR Code.
- Create short links and view analytics in ChatGPT: You can even generate analytics reports or batch-shorten all URLs in an Excel file.
- Integrate with AI agent workflows: Let agents like OpenClaw and Claude Cowork create short links and retrieve analytics.
- Create your own short link macro in Excel: See this guide for instructions.
Using the PicSee API
Feature Overview
For full details, refer to the API documentation. The most comprehensive tier, API Advanced, includes:- Create short links: Short links created via the API can be found under the "Batch Records" tab on the Links page
- Edit and delete short links
- List and search short links
- Short link analytics, daily clicks, click sources, devices, and countries/regions
- Batch create short links
Get Your API Token
After completing phone verification, free registered users can obtain an API Token as follows. Each account gets 800 free API calls per year, reset annually:- Click your account avatar in the top right and go to "Settings".
- Switch to the "API Settings" tab on the left to see your current plan.
- Click "Activate for Free" in the "API Token" section to view your current API plan.
- Click the eye icon in the API Token field to reveal your token.
Usage Notifications and Monitoring
You can check your current usage via the API or directly on the PicSee website:- Click your account avatar in the top right and go to "Settings".
- Switch to the "API Settings" tab on the left.
- Your current usage is shown in the "Usage" section. Paid plan users can set up an email notification when usage reaches 90%.
Additional Notes
The API overview page includes an FAQ section. Here are some additional notes:- Keep your API Token secure: Anyone with access to your API Token can use it to create links, view analytics, delete records, and more under your account. If it is ever compromised, click the eye icon then the reset icon to generate a new token.
- Occasional API call errors: Due to network conditions and the free tier’s rate limit of 2 calls per second, we recommend adding a retry mechanism to your integration to handle failures gracefully.
- 401 error when querying analytics: Free plan users lose access to analytics after 10,000 clicks. Upgrade to a paid API plan or subscribe to any membership plan to unlock this.
- Can I have multiple API Tokens? Yes — multiple API Tokens can be created under the same account and they share the same quota. To track usage by department, include the externalId parameter when creating short links and query /v4/my/api/usage to view usage broken down by externalId.