A shared timer with nothing to run out of.
Copy the link, send it to as many people as you like — everyone counts down to the same instant. No viewer limit, no account, no paid tier, because there's no server to pay for.
For classrooms, exams, webinars, workshops, standups, game nights and auctions.
Set your countdown
Why doesn't CountLink limit viewers like competitors do?
Real-time competitors like ShareMyTimer and Stagetimer push live control changes to every open viewer, which needs a server holding a connection open per viewer — that cost is why their free tiers cap devices and timers. CountLink works differently: the countdown's end time is written into the link itself, so each device just checks its own clock against that timestamp. No ongoing connection, no per-viewer cost, no reason to cap viewers.
Common questions
- Set it on the board itself. Hover or tap a pair of digits and small up and down arrows appear over them — click those, use the arrow keys, scroll over the digits, or drag them up and down on a touchscreen. You can also just type the time: typing 7 0 0 gives 7:00, the same way a microwave works, and typing 9 0 0 0 gives 1:30:00 because 90 minutes is an hour and a half. Rolling the minutes past 59 adds an hours pair automatically, and a small +hr control to the left of the digits adds or removes hours directly. Once a countdown is running the board locks, so nobody opening your shared link can change what the room sees.
- Yes. The board has a seconds pair, so 7:30 or 1:30:00 are set the same way as any other time — roll the seconds with the arrows, or type the whole thing. You can also paste a duration like 1:30:00, 90m or 45 straight onto the board.
- Yes — no viewer limit, no device limit, no paid tier. Syncing happens in the link itself, so one more viewer costs nothing.
- No. Nobody — neither the person who starts the timer nor anyone who opens the shared link — ever needs an account.
- The countdown's end time is a timestamp written into the shared link, not stored on a server. Every device that opens the link counts down to that same timestamp using its own clock.
- No — there's no server in the sync path, so there's nothing to go down. Each device does its own local math against the shared timestamp.
- By default, not live for everyone already viewing — there's no ongoing connection to push a change through, so Stop and Restart on the board only affect your own screen. Turn on phone control before you start (the checkbox above) and pause, ±1 minute, and stop all push live to every screen that has the countdown open. Without that, start a fresh countdown (Restart reuses the same duration) and re-share the new link.
- Accuracy depends on each device's own clock, typically within a second. The countdown itself doesn't drift — any difference you see comes from the devices' clocks, not from CountLink.
- Set the duration, press start, then copy the link and send it to whoever needs it. Every screen that opens that link shows the same countdown, hitting zero at the same moment — a projector and thirty phones, or two laptops in different countries. There is nothing to install and no room to join: the deadline is encoded in the link itself, so opening it is the whole setup.
- A synced timer normally means a server holding a live connection to every viewer, which is why most of them cap how many people can watch. CountLink syncs a different way: the link carries the exact end time, and each device counts down to that instant using its own clock. No connection to keep open means nothing to cap, nothing to install, and no account on either end — and it keeps working if the Wi-Fi drops after the page has loaded.
- They are built for different jobs, and the honest short version is that CountLink is simpler and they are more powerful. Both of those run a real-time server, so they can push a live pause or a per-viewer message to everyone at once — and they charge, or cap viewers, to pay for it. CountLink has no viewer cap and no paid tier because there is no server to fund, with an opt-in phone control for the common case of one person driving. The full comparison sets out pricing, limits and what each is actually for.
How do I set the timer?
Can I set a countdown that isn't a whole number of minutes?
Is CountLink free?
Do I need to sign up or make an account?
How does the timer stay in sync across devices?
Can the timer go down or lose sync if a server has an outage?
Can I pause or extend a countdown that's already running?
What if two people's device clocks are slightly different?
How do I get the same timer on multiple screens?
How do I sync a timer across devices without an app?
How does CountLink compare to ShareMyTimer or Stagetimer?
Beyond the link
The same no-server mechanism also runs a few things that don't get much billing up top: an overlay mode for OBS and other stream browser sources (transparent background, no watermark), a QR code for the share link when typing a URL isn't practical (in the setup panel above, next to Copy sync link), an installable app — add CountLink to your home screen or dock from the browser's install prompt, still with nothing synced through a server — and opt-in phone control: check the box before you start a countdown and you get a second link that pauses, adjusts, or stops it live from your phone, on every screen that has it open. That last one is the one exception to "no server" on this whole site — see the About page for why that trade-off is worth it, and everything else covered here.