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Frequently asked questions

• What is Checkly best at?

  Monitoring as code. Browser checks are real Playwright scripts, the CLI tests and deploys monitoring straight from your repo, and the Terraform and Pulumi providers are official. For engineering teams testing full user flows in CI/CD, it is excellent. Pulsetic approaches monitoring differently: uptime checks and status pages at one flat price, no pipeline required. For a user flow, Pulsetic's AI monitors follow plain-English steps in a real browser instead of a Playwright script.

• How much does Checkly actually cost?

  Checkly sells three separately billed products. Detect (monitoring) is $0, $24 or $64 per month billed annually, plus custom Enterprise; status pages live in the separate Communicate product at $9 or $30 per month; AI root-cause analysis (Resolve) is another $12 or $39. Overages are billed per check run. Pulsetic is one flat price: $9, $19 or $49 per month, status pages included.

• Does Checkly have a free plan?

  Yes, and it is genuinely useful for developers: 10 uptime monitors, 1,000 browser check runs and 10,000 API check runs per month. The limits sit elsewhere: 2-minute intervals at fastest, zero SMS credits and 7-day raw data retention. Pulsetic's free plan includes 10 monitors with status pages and custom domains, free for commercial use.

• How long does Checkly keep monitoring data?

  Raw results last 7 days on the Hobby and Starter plans, 30 days on Team and 180 days on Enterprise; aggregated statistics are kept longer. Pulsetic keeps monitoring data for up to 5 years, and its pricing page lists the history each plan includes.

• Can I customize a Checkly status page?

  Within limits, and mostly on the higher add-on tier: custom colors, password protection and custom CSS sit in the Communicate Team add-on at $30 per month, on top of the monitoring plan, and removing Checkly branding takes Enterprise. On Pulsetic, colors, logos, layouts and CSS are customizable, and branding can be removed entirely. Pages can be translated on every plan, the free one included.

• Does Checkly send SMS and phone call alerts?

  Phone call alerts start with the Team plan at $64 per month billed annually, which includes 200 calls; the free plan has zero SMS credits and Starter includes 100 SMS per month. Pulsetic includes SMS and voice-call credits, and its pricing page lists how many each plan includes.

• Does Checkly monitor domain expiry or integrate with Zapier and n8n?

  Per its documentation, mostly no: DNS record monitoring exists but domain-expiry monitoring does not, and neither Zapier, Mattermost nor n8n are documented, with generic webhooks as the workaround. Checkly did add an MCP server in June 2026. Pulsetic includes domain monitoring, Zapier, Mattermost, an n8n integration and an MCP server.

• When should I switch from Checkly to Pulsetic?

  The usual triggers: your need is uptime monitoring and a status page rather than scripted browser flows; the three-product math outgrew the value; you want monitoring history longer than 7 days without a $64 plan; or you want phone call alerts from $9. Pulsetic covers uptime, SSL, ports, domains and cron monitoring with status pages and a year of history, in one flat price.