$29 per responder, plus $21 per 50 monitors, plus status-page add-ons. Or just $29.
Better Stack is a genuinely capable observability platform, priced à la carte so you only pay for what you use. This is the honest comparison for the moment you just want uptime and a status page, and would rather read one plan card than assemble a bill.
- —You want logs, traces, metrics, error tracking, and session replay in the same platform as uptime
- —You need real on-call — mobile apps, phone calls, SMS, AI-assisted post-mortems
- —You're monitoring POP3/IMAP/SMTP, generic TCP, or want real Playwright browser transaction checks
- —Your team is small enough that per-seat and per-pack pricing stays cheap
- —You want one number on the pricing page to be the number you actually pay
- —You don't want on-call and incident tooling gated behind a per-seat license
- —HTTP(S) and SSL are genuinely all you're monitoring — you don't need a bundled logs/traces/metrics platform
- —You want enforced org SSO included in a plan price, not a $250/mo add-on on top of per-user fees
Side by side
Where each one actually is today, not a wishlist.
Better Stack pricing and features last verified against betterstack.com, September 2026
| Feature | Better Stack | HeimPulse |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | À la carte — a per-responder on-call seat, monitors sold in packs of 50, and status-page features (branding, password auth, SSO) each priced as separate monthly add-ons | Three flat tiers. Whatever a tier includes, it includes — nothing to add up separately |
| Starting price | Free (10 monitors, 1 status page, no on-call). On-call features start at $29/mo per responder seat (annual) plus $21/mo per additional 50 monitors | Free, then $29/mo flat (Pro) |
| Team/seat pricing | Telemetry-only members are free; a Responder seat (on-call + incident tools) is $29–34/mo per person who actually takes alerts | 10 members included flat on Pro ($29/mo), 50 on Business ($99/mo) — no per-seat charge for anyone |
| Check types | Web page, API, ping, SSL, domain expiration, POP3/IMAP/SMTP, DNS, generic TCP, plus Playwright-based transaction monitoring and cron heartbeats | HTTP(S) — status, latency, header, and body assertions, plus a separate SSL/TLS certificate check. DNS and gRPC are planned, not shipped yet |
| Check frequency | 3-minute checks on the free plan, 30-second checks once you're on a paid setup | 5-minute on Free, 1-minute on Pro ($29/mo), 30-second on Business ($99/mo) |
| Status pages | 1 included; each additional page is $15/mo. Custom CSS/JS, white-labeling ($250/mo), password auth ($50/mo), IP allowlisting ($250/mo), and SSO on the page ($250/mo) are all separate add-ons | 1 (Free), 3 (Pro, $29/mo), 25 (Business, $99/mo) — custom domain and branding included, no per-feature add-on fees |
| Incident/on-call tooling | Mobile apps, unlimited calls and SMS, escalations, AI-generated post-mortems, and a usage-billed "AI SRE" for root-cause analysis — all behind the per-responder seat | Email on every plan; webhook (HMAC-signed, SSRF-guarded) and Slack on Pro/Business, with retry/backoff and dead-lettering. PagerDuty forwarding is coming soon. No calls, SMS, or AI tooling |
| Beyond uptime | A full observability platform — logs, traces, metrics, error tracking, session replay, and web analytics, each billed on usage | Scoped to uptime and status pages only — nothing else to price or configure |
| SSO | Google sign-in included; Azure or Okta SSO is $5/user/month; SAML is enterprise-priced; adding SSO to a status page itself is a further $250/mo | Google sign-in on every plan; enforced org-wide SSO (any OIDC provider) is included flat on Business ($99/mo) — no per-user fee |
| MCP server monitoring | Ships its own open-source MCP server so AI agents can query your Better Stack account — the reverse direction. Doesn't monitor a customer's own MCP server for uptime or schema drift | Watches your MCP server like any other endpoint — uptime, latency, plus schema-drift detection that catches a renamed tool or changed input shape before an agent silently breaks on it (Pro/Business, beta) |
| A realistic starting bill | Around $50/mo for one on-call responder plus a monitor pack for a small team — before any status-page add-ons or telemetry usage | $29/mo flat for the whole Pro plan — the number on the pricing page is the number you pay |
- A genuinely full observability platform — logs, traces, metrics, error tracking, session replay, and web analytics sit alongside uptime, not bolted on separately.
- Far more monitor types — POP3/IMAP/SMTP, generic TCP, domain expiration, and Playwright-based transaction monitoring, on top of web page/API/ping/SSL/DNS.
- Real incident-response tooling — mobile apps, unlimited calls and SMS, AI-generated post-mortems, and a usage-billed "AI SRE" for root-cause analysis. HeimPulse ships email/webhook/Slack today, with none of the incident-response tooling itself.
- A faster free-plan check interval — 3 minutes vs HeimPulse's 5.
- One flat price per plan, not a stack of line items — extra status pages, custom branding, password protection, IP allowlisting, and SSO-on-a-page are all separate $15–250/mo add-ons on Better Stack; they're just included at whichever HeimPulse tier unlocks them.
- No per-seat licensing — Better Stack's on-call and incident tooling requires a $29–34/mo responder seat per person who takes alerts. HeimPulse's team-member counts are flat and included.
- A bill you can predict before you sign up — Better Stack's practical starting cost for a small team with on-call runs around $50/mo before touching status pages or telemetry usage. HeimPulse's Pro plan is $29/mo flat, in full.
- MCP schema-drift monitoring for a server you run — catches a tool silently renamed or an input shape that changed underneath your agents, in beta on Pro/Business. Better Stack's own MCP server runs the other direction: agents querying Better Stack, not Better Stack watching your MCP server.
If you're moving from Better Stack
What actually changes, not just what's on the comparison table.
POP3/IMAP/SMTP, generic TCP, domain-expiration, and Playwright transaction checks don't have a home yet. HeimPulse only checks HTTP(S) endpoints and SSL/TLS certificates today, so anything watched with one of Better Stack's other monitor types stays wherever it is until HeimPulse ships that check type.
Logs, traces, metrics, error tracking, session replay, and web analytics go away entirely. HeimPulse is scoped to uptime and status pages, not a broader observability platform. If you're relying on Better Stack for those, that's a separate tool to keep, not something HeimPulse replaces.
On-call goes from a dedicated per-seat product to email/webhook/Slack. Better Stack's responder seats come with mobile apps, phone calls, SMS, and AI-generated post-mortems. HeimPulse's channels are email, webhook, and Slack, with PagerDuty forwarding coming soon on Pro/Business. If your team pages via phone call today, that's a real gap to plan around.
Status pages stop being priced per feature. Custom branding, password protection, and SSO on a page are included at whichever HeimPulse tier unlocks status pages generally, not separate add-ons billed per page.
Frequently asked questions
Is this page trying to talk you out of Better Stack?
No. Better Stack is a genuinely broader product — a real observability platform with logs, traces, metrics, and AI-assisted incident response sitting alongside uptime monitoring, priced so you only pay for the modules you use. If you want one tool for uptime, logs, and error tracking together, or real on-call with phone/SMS escalation, it covers ground HeimPulse doesn't. This page is for teams that specifically want uptime and status pages, and would rather read one plan card than assemble a bill from several add-ons.
What monitor types does HeimPulse actually support today?
HTTP(S) checks — status code, latency, header, and body assertions — plus a separate SSL/TLS certificate expiry check that does a real handshake against a host independent of any HTTP monitoring. POP3/IMAP/SMTP, generic TCP, domain-expiration, and Playwright-based transaction checks aren't built yet. If you need those today, Better Stack already has them.
Does Better Stack have SSL certificate monitoring?
Yes — it's listed among its general monitor types ("Monitor everything ... SSL, domain expiration ..."). HeimPulse also does a dedicated SSL/TLS check, but as its own separate check type rather than one option among many, and only on Pro/Business, not Free.
Why is Better Stack's pricing so modular?
Because it's built as a full observability platform — logs, traces, metrics, uptime, incident response, and web analytics — priced à la carte so a team only pays for the modules it actually uses. The tradeoff is that estimating your real monthly bill means adding up several line items (responder seats, monitor packs, status-page features, telemetry usage) rather than reading a single plan card, which is the gap this page is about.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — 3 services with 3 endpoints each, one region, one status page, and a day of check history, no credit card required.
Full feature breakdown → · See the full pricing page → · More on MCP schema-drift monitoring → · More alternatives →
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