Linktree is the category-leading link-in-bio platform with a global community of over 70 million Linkers including content creators, businesses, and influencers sharing everything they are in one simple link. Seeking an identity solution that better aligned with their scaling needs, Linktree’s engineering team began a path toward migration. Here’s how Descope helped Linktree migrate tens of millions of users while freeing their developers to focus on what really matters: empowering creators and businesses.
About Linktree
Founded in 2016, Linktree is the platform that solved social media’s most frustrating challenge: only having one link in your bio. Today, with over 70 million users worldwide, Linktree helps creators, businesses, publishers, influencers, and artists better control their online presence, making their content more shareable, discoverable, and more likely to convert.
The challenge of stagnant identity
Linktree desired an identity solution that could meet their scaling needs. As Linktree’s user base grew, they faced the following challenges:
Pricing not aligned with value: The cost for Linktree’s burgeoning user population had escalated well beyond what their team felt they were getting in return.
Rate limits impacting creators: Despite the premium they paid, Linktree hit rate limits regularly, causing authentication failures that affected real creators and businesses and their audiences.
Building and maintaining custom auth: Linktree previously had to build and maintain their own user management layer, construct outbound connections for social platforms manually, and write custom rules to handle authentication logic.
Zachary Lin, Senior Software Developer at Linktree, said:
“Obviously, hitting rate limits that affected users led us to reassess our strategy. The bigger issue was building and maintaining custom auth infrastructure—tying up engineering resources and leading to a highly complex architecture.”
The Descope experience
Linktree was initially drawn to Descope by a shared “builder philosophy”: both valued developer-first experiences, believing that tools made for engineers shouldn’t stagnate or fall into a holding pattern.
Zero-downtime migration at scale
With tens of millions of users and years of homegrown workarounds, Linktree’s migration called for thoughtful implementation. Descope was replacing an entire identity stack that Linktree had been investing in for years, and it was essential to retain their investment.
Highlights of the migration:
Bring Your Own Screen (BYOS) allowed Linktree to keep the authentication UX they’d put so much time and effort into. Using Descope’s BYOS approach, their user-facing screens remained identical while the backend was replaced with Descope Flows.
Flows replaced custom rules in a move that gave Linktree the flexibility of visual, drag-and-drop workflows. The custom JavaScript logic previously required would no longer slow their engineering-heavy team down; they could iterate faster, without touching application code.
Full user migration took place gradually, transitioning their entire user pool to Descope and eliminating the parallel user management layer they’d previously maintained.
Arkose Labs fraud prevention was a service Linktree had previously leveraged. Descope built an Arkose Labs connector, enabling Linktree integrate fraud signals derived from the service directly into their Flows and trigger actions based on risk scores.
The auth methods and flows users knew were recreated in Descope, matching their former provider (but with all the advantages of the Descope ecosystem). Creators and businesses authenticate on Linktree using a variety of methods: passwords (which can be securely reset using magic links), passwordless OAuth social login, and email one-time passwords (OTPs).
Multi-factor authentication with SMS OTPs and authenticator app TOTPs allow creators and businesses to add an extra layer of security to their accounts. Users can choose between text-message based OTPs or use the authenticator app of their choice (Google Authenticator, Authy, 2FAS).
Zachary Lin, Senior Software Developer at Linktree, said:
“We were skeptical about Descope Flows at first. Many dev-focused tools can limit velocity for more experienced teams. But when we saw how fast it can move, without any unnecessary hand-holding, we were fully bought in.”
Outbound connections and token management
Beyond the core migration and authentication use case, Linktree is using Descope’s Outbound Apps to manage the token lifecycle for connections to third-party applications. Because Linktree helps creators and businesses share everything they do across the internet, that means connecting external platforms like YouTube, Instagram, X, and TikTok so they can pull in their latest content automatically.
Each connection requires OAuth token management: consent flows, token exchange, secure storage, and refresh. Linktree had built all of this themselves, one provider at a time, and maintaining it as APIs changed became a constant drain on developer time. As an out-of-the-box capability for Descope, it replaces yet another piece of homegrown infrastructure Linktree had been obligated to create.
Building better identity experiences for creators and businesses
Linktree’s Descope implementation meets all the goals that drove the migration:
Engineering time reclaimed: Linktree no longer maintains parallel user management, custom OAuth connections, or JavaScript rules. That identity infrastructure now lives in Descope, where it can be maintained with fewer resources than before.
Reliability at massive scale: The rate limit issues that caused consistent authentication failures for end users are no longer a concern.
Preserved frontend/UX investment: BYOS let Linktree keep the authentication experience they’d worked so hard to build while completely replacing the backend.
Zachary Lin, Senior Software Developer at Linktree, said:
“We had immediate, real-time access to engineers with Descope’s team, who were already ready to resolve edge cases quickly. Descope made support easy, and they were responsive whenever we reached out.”
As Linktree continues empowering creators and businesses to share everything they are with the world in a single link, Descope provides the identity infrastructure that empowers their engineering team to deliver the best experience possible. Moving forward, their developers can focus on building the things that make Linktree great, rather than on maintaining authentication workarounds.
Robert Erdin, VP of Engineering at Linktree, said:
“Descope is a true design partner to our CIAM team. We value the simplicity of their platform, the speed at which they ship product innovations, and their responsive, hands-on support. Their ability to move quickly and collaborate closely has helped us accelerate product development without compromising on quality.”
Descope is a flexible drag & drop CIAM platform that helps organizations easily add authentication, authorization, and identity management to their apps, AI agents, and MCP servers. Customers use us for initiatives such as passwordless authentication, SSO, identity federation, strong MFA, fraud prevention, and agentic identity.
To get started with Descope, sign up for a Free Forever account. If you have questions about our platform, book time with our auth experts.
