Compared: UptimeRobot
An UptimeRobot alternative that watches certificates
UptimeRobot and ExpiryOwl compared on price, SSL and domain expiry alerts, channels and status pages, with every UptimeRobot fact sourced.
What UptimeRobot is
UptimeRobot is an uptime monitoring service that checks websites, APIs and other endpoints and alerts you when something goes down. Its site says more than 3.4 million users trust it, and it offers HTTP, keyword, ping, port, cron job, DNS, SSL and domain expiry monitoring plus status pages.
uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26Side by side
Everything in the UptimeRobot column was read on UptimeRobot's own website on the date shown next to it. Prices and plans change; follow the link to see today's version. Where we couldn't confirm something, we say so instead of guessing.
| Topic | UptimeRobot | ExpiryOwl |
|---|---|---|
| Starting paid price | Solo starts at $108/year: $9/month on annual billing or $10/month on monthly billing, for 10 monitors. Solo with 50 monitors is $19/month on annual billing or $22/month on monthly billing.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-28 | Freelancer: $9/month or $90/year for 50 domains and 10 clients. |
| Free plan | Free: 50 monitors at a 5-minute interval, described as good for hobby and non-profit projects. SSL monitoring is included only in paid plans.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | Free: 5 domains, 1 client, 1 seat, uptime every 15 minutes and a read-only API. |
| SSL certificate expiry | Alerts 30, 14 and 7 days before the certificate expires, or when there is a problem with it. Paid plans only.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | Every certificate checked every 6 hours: issuer, SANs, chain and hostname match. Alerts at 30, 14, 7, 3, 1 and 0 days (chat and webhook channels start at 14 days unless you choose otherwise). |
| Domain expiry | Domain expiration monitoring (paid plans only) alerts 30, 14 and 7 days before the domain expires.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | Daily RDAP lookups: expiry date, registrar, statuses, transfer lock and nameservers, plus DNS change alerts. Some country-code registries (.io, .co, .de, .es) publish no expiry date; we show it as unknown. |
| Pricing model | Plans by monitor count and seats: Team is $35/month on annual billing ($41 monthly) with 100 monitors and 3 login seats; extra login seats are $15/19 per month.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | Flat per agency, sized by domain count, with no per-check, per-page or per-client fees: Agency is $29/month for 250 domains, unlimited clients and 5 seats. |
| Alert channels | Email, SMS, voice call and Email2SMS; Google Chat, Discord, Pushover, Pushbullet, Splunk, Slack, Mattermost, Telegram, MS Teams, webhook, Zapier and PagerDuty, depending on plan. The Free plan has 5 integrations.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | Email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, signed webhooks (Zapier, Make, n8n) and an iCal feed of expiry dates. |
| Status pages | 1 status page on Free, 3 on Solo with your own domain, 100 white-label pages on Team, unlimited on Scale.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26 | White-label client status pages and an embeddable widget on Agency ($29/month); custom domains on Agency Pro ($79/month) are coming soon. |
| API | An API, plus a hosted MCP server to list, create and update monitors and investigate incidents from AI agents.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-27 | REST API and an MCP server on paid plans; a read-only API on Free. |
When UptimeRobot is the better choice
- You need many monitor types beyond websites: keyword, ping, port, cron job, API and UDP monitoring are all on the plan list.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26
- You want a large free tier for personal work: 50 monitors at a 5-minute interval for hobby and non-profit projects.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26
- You value a long-running, widely used service. UptimeRobot says more than 3.4 million users trust it.uptimerobot.com · verified 2026-09-26
When ExpiryOwl fits better
- ExpiryOwl is organised around clients: group domains per client, send each one a white-label monthly PDF report and give them a status page. Unlimited clients from Agency ($29/month).
- We look for renewals that should have happened. ACME certificates (Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL, Google Trust Services) normally renew when about a third of their lifetime remains; when one passes that point we flag it as renewal overdue. For Let's Encrypt we use its ACME Renewal Information (ARI) window. That is usually weeks before the certificate expires.
- A 47-day readiness score per domain for the CA/B Forum SC-081 schedule: maximum certificate lifetime dropped to 200 days on 15 March 2026 and drops to 100 days on 15 March 2027 and 47 days on 15 March 2029.
- Flat pricing per agency, with no per-check, per-page or per-client fees: Agency is $29/month or $290/year for 250 domains, and Agency Pro is $79/month for 1,000.
UptimeRobot is a trademark of its owner. We are not affiliated with them. If something here is out of date, email [email protected] and we'll correct it.
Start with five domains, free.
The free plan watches 5 domains for one client: certificates, domain registration, DNS and uptime every 15 minutes. No card, no trial clock.