Your job pings a URL. If the ping stops, you hear about it. Healthchecks.io watches scheduled jobs by waiting for a ping. Your cron job, backup or script calls a URL (curl is enough) when it starts, finishes or fails, and Healthchecks.io alerts you if the ping does not arrive on time. The Hobbyist plan is $0 and covers 20 jobs with 100 log entries per job. Business is $20 a month for 100 jobs and 1,000 log entries per job, and Business Plus is $80 a month for 1,000 jobs, with 20 percent off for annual billing. The page says Business is free for open-source projects and nonprofits on request. Users describe it as simple, cheap and reliable, and note it is open source with a self-hosted option. The Capterra reviews I saw were all vendor-referred with an incentive.
Free tier quotas
Plan
Hobbyist, $0 a month
Jobs
20
Log entries
100 per job
Ping methods
HTTP requests to a unique URL, for example with curl, with start, finish and failure signals
Open source and nonprofits
Business plan free on request, per the pricing page
Self-hosting
Reviewers and forum posts say it is open source and can be self-hosted
Last sniffed Oct 20, 2026. Always confirm on the official pricing page.
👍 Good boy
+The Hobbyist plan is free for 20 jobs, which covers most home servers and small projects.
+Business is $20 a month for 100 jobs and 1,000 log entries per job, with 50 SMS and WhatsApp credits and 20 phone call credits.
+A Hacker News commenter said it works well for cron jobs and that the /start and finished endpoints add insights such as runtime.
+A Capterra reviewer said it is extremely easy to use and that curl makes it comfortable to add to almost any existing script.
+A reviewer on Capterra wrote that it is open source and you can self-host the platform, and that the free tier had everything they needed.
+An r/homelab commenter called it one of their favorite pieces of software, said pricing is reasonable for bigger users and that a full self-hosted option exists.
+The Business plan is free for open-source projects and nonprofits on request, per the pricing page.
👎 Watch out
−Hobbyist is limited to 20 jobs and 100 log entries per job, so busy jobs lose log history quickly.
−SMS, WhatsApp and phone call credits are listed starting on Business at $20 a month, not on Hobbyist.
−A Capterra reviewer called the website a little barren, though they said everything just works.
−One Capterra reviewer said they lost access to a few alerts tied to PagerDuty and found no way to delete or reconfigure them.
−One reviewer wished they could share down and up notifications with family members.
−Every Capterra review I saw was labeled 'Vendor Referred - Incentive Offered', so the 5.0 rating from 106 reviews is a weaker signal than it looks.
−Healthchecks.io waits for pings, so it does not check your public site from outside the way an uptime monitor does. An r/sysadmin thread contrasts the two kinds of tools.
The catch
The free plan is built for hobby and personal use: 20 jobs and 100 log entries per job. The pricing page offers the Business plan free to open-source projects and nonprofits, which is a real perk if you qualify.
It is a ping-based check. If a job does not call in, you get an alert. That fits cron jobs, backups and scheduled scripts well. It does not replace an uptime monitor that probes your public site.
The pricing page does not state a card requirement for Hobbyist, and I did not find a commercial use clause. The open-source and self-host claims come from reviewers and forum posts, so check the project repository for the licence before you deploy.
What’s included
✓Cron job monitoring by ping
✓Start, finish and failure signals
✓Runtime tracking
✓Grace periods
✓Check auto-provisioning on first ping
✓Many alert integrations
✓Teams and ownership transfer
✓Self-hosting option
Free tier value
Generosity
A
Estimated value
Free monitoring for 20 cron jobs
Feature parity
Business is $20 a month for 100 jobs, 1,000 log entries per job and SMS credits.
100 jobs, 1,000 log entries per job, 50 SMS and WhatsApp credits, 20 phone call credits and email support. $192 a year when paid annually.
Business Plus, $80 a month
1,000 jobs, 1,000 log entries per job, 500 SMS and WhatsApp credits, 100 phone call credits and priority email support. $768 a year when paid annually.
Free Business for open source and nonprofits
The pricing page says to contact them to get set up.
Common questions
Is Healthchecks.io free?
Yes. Hobbyist is $0 and covers 20 jobs with 100 log entries per job.
Can I self-host it?
Reviewers and forum posts say it is open source and can be self-hosted. Check the project repository for the licence.
How do I send a ping?
A Hacker News commenter and Reddit posts describe calling a URL with curl when a job starts, finishes or fails.
Is there a discount for open source projects?
The pricing page says the Business plan is free for open-source projects and nonprofits. Contact them to set it up.
Are the reviews independent?
Every Capterra review I saw was labeled vendor referred with an incentive. Reddit and Hacker News comments are independent.
Change history
Checked October 22, 2026
Pricing page read. Capterra, Hacker News and Reddit read as excerpts. The $5 entry in the page text could not be tied to a plan name and is not listed. Card requirement, licence and commercial use not confirmed.
