How Much Should You Pay for Cron Monitoring?

When you're evaluating cron monitoring tools, it's hard to know if you're getting a fair deal. Is $50/month reasonable? Is $15/month too cheap to be reliable? Without industry benchmarks, pricing feels arbitrary. This guide establishes what reasonable cron monitoring pricing looks like, so you can budget appropriately and avoid overpaying.

Market Pricing Benchmarks

Based on current tool pricing, here's what the market charges:

Cost Per Monitor

Looking across the industry:

• Budget tools: $0.30-0.50 per monitor/month
• Mid-market tools: $0.50-1.00 per monitor/month
• Premium tools: $1.00-2.00 per monitor/month
• Enterprise tools: $2.00+ per monitor/month

For example:

• Healthchecks.io at $20/month for 100 monitors = $0.20/monitor
• CronSignal at $5/month flat (unlimited monitors) = near $0 at scale
• Cron Crew at $15/month for 50 monitors = $0.30/monitor
• CronRadar at $1/monitor/month = $1.00/monitor
• Sentry Crons at $0.78/monitor/month
• Cronitor Business at $2/monitor/month

Typical Monthly Spend by Business Size

Enterprise vs. SMB Pricing

Enterprise spending: $100-500+/month

• Includes compliance features (SOC 2, SSO)
• Dedicated support
• Custom contracts
• SLA guarantees

SMB spending: $15-50/month

• Core monitoring features
• Standard integrations
• Self-service support
• No compliance overhead

Don't pay enterprise prices for SMB needs. Understanding these benchmarks helps you avoid hidden costs that can inflate your bill.

Free Tier Comparison

Before paying anything, check what's available for free:

For side projects and early-stage products, these free tiers handle most needs.

Pricing Models Explained

Not all pricing models work the same way. Understanding them helps you calculate true costs.

Per-Monitor Pricing

How it works: Pay based on number of monitors.

Examples:

• Cronly: ~$1/monitor
• Cron Crew: $15/mo for 50 monitors ($0.30 each)
• Healthchecks.io: $20/mo for 100 monitors ($0.20 each)

Pros:

• Simple to understand
• Scales predictably
• Pay for what you use

Cons:

• Expensive at high volumes (some tools)
• May discourage monitoring everything you should

Best for: Teams with clear monitor counts and stable needs.

Per-User Pricing

How it works: Base price plus cost per team member.

Examples:

• Cronitor: $5/user/month on top of base
• Better Stack: $29/responder/month

The math gets bad quickly:

• Cronitor Starter: $20/month for 1 user
• With 5 users: $20 + (4 x $5) = $40/month
• With 10 users: $20 + (9 x $5) = $65/month

Pros:

• Works for small teams
• Often includes more features

Cons:

• Punishes team growth
• Discourages collaboration
• Hard to budget

Best for: Very small teams (1-3 people) with stable headcount. For a deeper dive into how these pricing models compare, see our per-monitor vs per-seat pricing analysis.

Flat Tier Pricing

How it works: Fixed price for a bundle of features/limits.

Examples:

• Healthchecks.io: $20 (100 monitors), $80 (1000 monitors)
• UptimeRobot: $7 (50), $29 (100), $54 (200)

Pros:

• Very predictable
• Simple to budget
• Usually generous limits

Cons:

• May overpay if you don't need the full tier
• Jumping to next tier can be expensive

Best for: Teams who want predictable bills and don't mind paying for headroom.

Hybrid Pricing (Complex)

How it works: Combination of monitors + users + features.

Example: Cronitor

• Base: $20/month for 10 monitors + 1 user
• Additional monitors: $2/monitor
• Additional users: $5/user
• Features: Locked by tier

Calculating real cost:

• 25 monitors, 5 users
• Base: $49/month (Pro tier)
• Users: Included (3), extra: 2 x $5 = $10
• Total: $59/month

Pros:

• Flexibility

Cons:

• Complex to calculate
• Easy to underestimate
• Surprises on the bill

Best for: Teams who love spreadsheets.

Price at Scale: Real Numbers

Here's what you'd actually pay across different monitor counts:

The gap widens dramatically at scale. Flat-rate tools like CronSignal stay at $5 whether you have 25 or 100 monitors, while per-monitor tools like Cronitor jump from $50 to $200.

What You Should Pay by Team Size

Here's what makes sense at each stage:

Solo Developer: $0-15/month

Typical needs:

• 5-15 monitors
• Just you accessing dashboard
• Email + Slack alerts
• Basic features

Recommendations:

• Use free tiers as long as possible
• Healthchecks.io free (20 monitors)
• Cron Crew free (15 monitors)
• Upgrade only when you hit limits

Don't pay for:

• Per-user fees (it's just you)
• Enterprise features
• Unlimited monitors you won't use

Small Team (2-5 people): $15-30/month

Typical needs:

• 15-30 monitors
• Team access
• Email + Slack alerts
• Maybe SMS for critical jobs

Recommendations:

• Cron Crew Starter ($15/mo, unlimited users)
• Healthchecks.io Hobbyist ($20/mo, 3 users)
• Avoid per-user pricing at all costs

Don't pay for:

• More monitors than you have jobs
• Per-user fees that multiply
• Enterprise compliance features

Growing Team (5-15 people): $30-80/month

Typical needs:

• 30-60 monitors
• Full team access
• Multiple alert channels
• Some automation (API)
• Environment separation (staging/prod)

Recommendations:

• Cron Crew Pro ($29/mo, unlimited users)
• Healthchecks.io Business ($80/mo, 1000 monitors)
• UptimeRobot Pro + Enterprise ($29-54/mo)

Watch out for:

• Per-user fees adding $50+/month
• Responder licenses (Better Stack)
• Feature tiers that force expensive upgrades

Scale-Up (15-50 people): $80-200/month

Typical needs:

• 60-150 monitors
• Full team access with roles
• Advanced integrations
• API for automation
• Longer data retention
• Better support

Recommendations:

• Healthchecks.io Business ($80/mo)
• Cron Crew Business (custom pricing)
• Consider enterprise features if needed

Evaluate carefully:

• Per-user costs at team size
• Whether you need enterprise compliance
• Value of additional features

Enterprise (50+ people): $200-500+/month

At this scale, you likely need:

• SSO/SAML
• Audit logging
• SOC 2 compliance
• SLA guarantees
• Dedicated support
• Custom contracts

Talk to vendors directly. Published pricing often doesn't apply.

Red Flags: You're Overpaying If...

Watch for these signs that you're spending too much.

Paying Per-Seat AND Per-Monitor

Some tools charge both. The math gets painful:

• 30 monitors at $1 each = $30
• 8 users at $5 each = $40
• Total: $70/month

For the same coverage, flat-tier tools might cost $20-30.

Fix: Switch to tools with no per-user fees.

Paying for Features You Don't Use

Enterprise tiers include:

• SSO (do you have an identity provider?)
• Audit logging (do you have compliance requirements?)
• 24/7 phone support (do you ever call support?)
• Dedicated account manager (have you ever needed one?)

If you're paying for features you've never used, you're on the wrong tier.

Fix: Downgrade to a tier that matches your actual needs.

Enterprise Tier for 10 Monitors

If you have fewer than 20 monitors, you should rarely need an enterprise plan.

Signs of over-buying:

• Paying $100+/month for basic monitoring
• Using 10% of your monitor quota
• Features you can't even name
• Sales calls for your "account review"

Fix: Use a free or starter tier. Upgrade when you grow.

Paying for SMS Credits You Never Use

Some tools include or charge for SMS credits that expire monthly.

Reality check:

• Most alerts are non-urgent
• Email + Slack handles 95% of cases
• SMS is for true emergencies (maybe 1-2/month)

If you're paying $20/month for SMS and using 0 credits, reconsider.

Fix: Downgrade to a plan without SMS, or use SMS only for critical monitors.

Calculate Your Actual Needs

Before choosing a plan, do this math:

Step 1: Count Your Production Cron Jobs

Go through each production system and list every cron job:

• Database backups
• Billing/payment jobs
• Customer-facing syncs
• Email queues
• Reports
• Maintenance tasks

Write down the number: _____

Step 2: Add 20% Buffer for Growth

You'll add more jobs over time. Don't want to upgrade every month.

Current jobs x 1.2 = Required monitors: _____

Step 3: Factor in Team Size

Who needs dashboard access?

• Just you: 1
• Small team: 3-5
• Growing team: 5-15
• Full engineering org: 15+

Write down the number: _____

If this number is >3, avoid per-user pricing.

Step 4: List Required Alert Channels

Check what you actually need:

• Email (basically free everywhere)
• Slack (usually included)
• SMS (often paid extra)
• Phone calls (usually paid)
• PagerDuty/Opsgenie (often paid tier)
• Webhooks (sometimes limited)

Match to tiers that include your requirements.

Step 5: Calculate and Compare

Example:

• 25 monitors needed
• 6 team members
• Email + Slack + SMS required

Option A: Cronitor Pro

• $49/month (25 monitors, 3 users)
• Extra users: 3 x $5 = $15
• Total: $64/month

Option B: Cron Crew Starter

• $15/month (50 monitors, unlimited users)
• SMS: Included
• Total: $15/month

Option C: Healthchecks.io Hobbyist

• $20/month (100 monitors, 3 users)
• Extra users: Need higher tier
• Total: $80/month (Business tier)

Same needs, very different costs.

The ROI Perspective

Monitoring isn't just a cost. It prevents larger costs. According to industry research, small businesses face $137-$427 per minute in downtime costs, with the average website experiencing three hours of downtime monthly. Catching a failed cron job 2 hours earlier could save $16,000-$51,000 per incident.

Cost of One Missed Billing Job

Consider a billing job that fails silently:

• 100 customers not billed for 3 days
• Average invoice: $200
• Delayed revenue: $20,000
• Cash flow impact: Significant
• Customer apology emails: Priceless

Prevention cost: $15-30/month for monitoring. Learn more about calculating your cron monitoring ROI to justify monitoring investments

Developer Time Saved

Without monitoring:

• SSH into server to check logs
• Manually verify job ran
• Debug when something seems wrong
• Respond to customer complaints

Time spent per incident: 30 minutes to several hours

With monitoring:

• Check dashboard (30 seconds)
• Get alerted immediately
• Know exactly when it failed
• Fix proactively

Time saved per month: Hours

Customer Trust

Silent failures erode trust:

• "Why wasn't I billed?"
• "Why didn't my order sync?"
• "Why didn't I get the report?"

Each incident requires explanation and damages confidence.

Monitoring cost: $15-30/month Cost of losing a customer: Much more

Conclusion

Reasonable cron monitoring pricing:

• Free for side projects and small usage
• $15-30/month for most SMBs
• $30-80/month for growing teams
• $80-200/month for scale-ups
• $200+/month for enterprise needs

Red flags that you're overpaying:

• Per-user AND per-monitor fees
• Enterprise tier for basic needs
• Unused SMS credits
• Features you can't name

How to calculate what you need:

1. Count production cron jobs
2. Add 20% growth buffer
3. Count team members (avoid per-user if >3)
4. List required integrations
5. Compare total cost across tools

For detailed pricing comparisons, see our Cron Monitoring Pricing Comparison. For tool recommendations, check our Best Cron Monitoring Tools guide.

Ready to get started? Try Cron Crew free with 15 monitors, unlimited users, and no surprise fees. Upgrade to 50 monitors for just $15/month when you need more.