$20 gets you started. The next step up shouldn't cost $300.
Instatus is a genuinely capable tool with more check types than HeimPulse ships today. This isn't a takedown of it — it's an honest comparison for the moment you need SSO or a private status page and discover there's no plan between $20 and $300.
- —You need cron/heartbeat, TCP, UDP, or DNS checks today
- —$20/mo Pro covers everything you need, and you don't expect to need SSO or a private page soon
- —You want SMS or phone-call alerts, or Discord/Teams/Google Chat integrations
- —Single-location, round-robin checking across a handful of regions is enough
- —You want SSO without jumping to a $300/mo plan
- —You want a dedicated SSL/TLS certificate-expiry check, not just an HTTPS check that happens to fail once a cert is already dead
- —You want detection that tells "degraded" apart from "down," and resolves itself
- —You want checks running from a named region you pick, not a round-robin across a broad zone
Side by side
Where each one actually is today, not a wishlist.
Instatus pricing and monitor types last verified against instatus.com, September 2026
| Feature | Instatus | HeimPulse |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free, then $20/mo (Pro) | Free, then $29/mo (Pro) |
| Next tier up | $300/mo (Business) — a 15x jump from Pro, the only way to get private status pages or SSO | $99/mo (Business) — SSO and programmatic API access, no quote needed to get there. Custom plans exist above Business for teams that outgrow it, but you'd contact support for those, not self-serve |
| Check types | Website/API, cron/heartbeat, ping, TCP, UDP, DNS | HTTP(S) — status, latency, header, and body assertions, plus a separate SSL/TLS certificate check. DNS and gRPC are planned, not shipped yet |
| SSL/TLS certificate expiry | Not listed among Instatus's own documented monitor types | A dedicated check against the host itself — real TLS handshake, independent of any HTTP monitor, on Pro/Business |
| Check locations | One location per check, round-robin across US, Canada, Europe, and Asia | Runs from your choice of 1 region on Free, every live region on Pro/Business - Frankfurt and New Jersey today, Singapore/São Paulo/Tel Aviv/Sydney on request |
| Incident detection | Create an incident and notify subscribers when a check fails; auto-resolve when it recovers | Sliding-window detection that separates a real outage from a single blip, plus a distinct degraded-performance signal, with the same auto-resolve behavior |
| Status pages | 1 public page on Free; private, authenticated pages require Business ($300/mo) | 1 page on Free, up to 25 on Business ($99/mo) — all public today, no private/authenticated option yet |
| Notification channels | Email on Free; SMS on Pro; SMS and phone calls on Business, plus Slack, Discord, MS Teams, and Google Chat | Email on every plan; webhook (HMAC-signed, SSRF-guarded) and Slack on Pro/Business, with retry/backoff and dead-lettering on failed deliveries. PagerDuty forwarding is coming soon (Pro/Business). No SMS or phone calls |
| Team access | 5 members on Free, 50 on Pro, unlimited on Business | 3 on Free, 10 on Pro, 50 on Business — org-based from day one, with a per-org audit log |
| SSO | Business plan only ($300/mo) | Business plan only ($99/mo) |
- More check types today — cron/heartbeat, ping, TCP, UDP, and DNS are all real monitor types on Instatus. HeimPulse is HTTP(S)-first; if your stack needs those checks now, Instatus already covers them.
- More notification channels — SMS, phone calls, Discord, MS Teams, and Google Chat, on top of email and Slack. HeimPulse ships email, webhook, and Slack today, with PagerDuty forwarding coming soon.
- A lower entry price for the paid tier — $20/mo vs HeimPulse's $29/mo, if you're comparing the first paid step and don't need what Business unlocks on either side.
- SSO without the cliff — HeimPulse's Business plan is $99/mo and includes it; Instatus's equivalent plan is $300/mo, a 15x jump from its $20/mo Pro tier, for SSO or a private status page.
- A dedicated SSL/TLS certificate-expiry check — a real handshake against the host itself, so you find out before a certificate expires, not after an HTTPS check starts failing.
- Automatic incident detection that distinguishes a real outage from a single failed check, tracks degraded performance separately from a full outage, and resolves itself once things recover.
- Org-based access from day one: teammates get their own login, and every change lands in a per-org audit log.
If you're moving from Instatus
What actually changes, not just what's on the comparison table.
Cron/heartbeat, TCP, UDP, and DNS monitors don't have a home yet. HeimPulse only checks HTTP(S) endpoints today, so anything you're watching with one of those other Instatus monitor types stays wherever it is until HeimPulse ships that check type.
Regions become an explicit choice, not a round-robin. Instatus rotates a single check location across a broad zone (US, Canada, Europe, Asia). On HeimPulse you pick specific regions per plan — one on Free, every live region on Pro/Business (Frankfurt and New Jersey today, more on request) — and every check for a service runs from the regions you've selected, not wherever the round-robin lands next.
Private status pages aren't available on either side, but the tradeoff is different. Instatus gates private, authenticated pages behind its $300/mo Business plan. HeimPulse doesn't have a private status page option at all yet — every page is public. If that's a hard requirement, neither tool covers it the way you need today.
SMS and phone-call alerts go away. HeimPulse's notification channels are email, webhook, and Slack, with PagerDuty forwarding coming soon on Pro/Business. If you're relying on Instatus's SMS or phone-call escalation for on-call paging today, that's a gap to plan around until then, not a like-for-like swap.
Frequently asked questions
Is this page trying to talk you out of Instatus?
No. Instatus covers more check types than HeimPulse does today — cron/heartbeat, TCP, UDP, and DNS checks are all real gaps for HeimPulse right now. If you need those specific check types, or you're happy on its $20/mo Pro plan and don't expect to need private status pages or SSO soon, it's a solid choice as-is.
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. Cron/heartbeat, TCP, UDP, and DNS check types aren't built yet. If you need those today, Instatus already has them.
Does Instatus have SSL certificate monitoring?
Not as a documented, dedicated monitor type — Instatus's own help docs list Website, API, cron/heartbeat, ping, TCP, UDP, and DNS as monitor types, with no separate SSL/TLS certificate-expiry check among them. An HTTPS website check will still fail if a certificate has already expired, but that's different from getting warned before it does, which is what HeimPulse's dedicated certificate check is for.
Why is Instatus's Business plan $300/mo?
That's the plan that unlocks private, authenticated status pages and SAML SSO — there's no tier between it and the $20/mo Pro plan, so a team that only needs one of those two features still pays the full 15x jump. HeimPulse's equivalent (SSO) is part of its $99/mo Business plan instead, alongside a higher service/endpoint count, more status pages, and programmatic API access.
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 → · More on SSL certificate monitoring → · More alternatives →
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