Find out before the client rings to tell you their site is down
Agencies get judged on response time to problems they did not cause. A client's certificate expires, their site goes down on a Sunday, or someone in their marketing team edits a page and breaks the layout — and the call arrives before you have any idea.
From $5 a month · No check quotas · Set up in under a minute
How should an agency monitor client websites?
One monitor per client site for outages, certificate and domain expiry warnings attached to each, and a content watch on any client who edits their own site. The economics only work if the tool prices by site rather than by check, because an agency with thirty clients needs thirty monitors and no per-check budget.
For most agencies monitoring is not a product decision, it is a reputation one. You are not paid to run a client's infrastructure, but you are the number they call, and "we did not know either" is a bad answer twice over.
The awkwardness is cost. Per-site pricing on most monitoring tools makes thirty clients expensive enough that agencies either monitor nothing or monitor only the biggest accounts and hope.
This page covers what to set up per client, how to catch the two entirely preventable outages, and how to stop being surprised by changes the client made themselves.
What to set up for each site
Three things, and the second two cost no extra allowance.
One uptime monitor on the main site
Checked every five minutes. For clients with a checkout or booking flow, monitor that page too and add a keyword check, because a broken booking form returns a perfectly healthy 200.
Certificate and domain expiry warnings
The two outages that are entirely preventable and still happen constantly. Both attach to the monitor you already created and use no extra allowance. A client whose domain lapses because nobody was watching is a client you lose.
A content watch on self-editing clients
If the client's team edits their own site, watch the homepage and one template. When they break something you find out from an alert rather than a phone call, and you have the before-and-after to show them.
A heartbeat on anything scheduled you run for them
Nightly backups, feed imports, report generation. A job that stops being invoked produces no error at all.
Thirty clients at one monitor each fits inside the $19 Growth plan, with fifty monitors, fifty watched pages and fifty heartbeats. On Pro it is a hundred of each for $34.
Set up client monitoring, step by step
The same four checks for every client site, organised so each client stays separate.
1. Name every monitor after the client
Start each name with the client: "Riverside Dental — homepage". Alerts, lists and status pages then read correctly without extra context.
The monitor name is what the alert says first.
2. Group each client into a workspace
The Monitors page has a New workspace box. One workspace per client keeps their monitors together and filterable.
Workspaces are created from the Monitors page.
3. Add SSL and domain expiry for each site
Renewals are where agencies get blamed for things they did not own. Put each client's certificate and domain on their own monitors.
Domains with expiry dates and warning windows.
4. Give the client a status page
A password-protected status page per client answers "is it down?" before they email you.
Password protection per client page, with an optional custom domain.
What agencies usually ask for that we do not have
Three of these come up often enough to state plainly.
White-labelled client reporting
There is no branded PDF report to send clients each month. Status pages can carry your branding and a custom domain, and change history can be exported as CSV, but a client-facing monthly report is something you would assemble yourself.
Separate client accounts under one login
This is one account with many monitors, not a multi-tenant console with a workspace per client. If you need genuine per-client separation with individual billing, a tool built for managed service providers will suit you better.
Multi-region checking
Checks run from a single origin. If a client needs proof their site is reachable from specific countries, a larger platform is the right answer.
Phone and SMS escalation
Not available on any plan. Alerts reach email, browser push, Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, Flock and webhooks.
How an agency should set up client monitoring
Cover every client site for outages, expiry and unannounced changes.
Add one monitor per client site
Five-minute checks, using the client name so alerts are immediately identifiable.
Turn on SSL and domain expiry for each
Both attach to the monitor and cost no extra allowance. These are the two outages you can prevent entirely.
Add a keyword check on transactional pages
Checkout, booking or contact forms — a string that only appears when the page genuinely works.
Watch the homepage of self-editing clients
So a change they made reaches you as an alert with a before-and-after rather than as a complaint.
Invite the delivery team
Team seats give each person their own login without access to billing.
Route alerts to account managers
Per-monitor alerting means each person gets their own clients rather than everyone getting everything.
Typically about 15 minutes from start to finish.
What it costs
Uptime monitors, watched pages and heartbeats each get their own allowance, so adding a page watch never costs you a monitor. SSL and domain checks ride along with the monitor they belong to and use nothing extra.
| Plan | Monitors | Watched pages | Heartbeats | Fastest interval | Alert channels | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 25 | 25 | 25 | Every 5 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $5/mo |
| Basic | 10 | 10 | 10 | Every 10 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $8/mo |
| Growth | 50 | 50 | 50 | Every 5 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $19/mo |
| Pro | 100 | 100 | 100 | Every 60 seconds | Email + webhook & chat | $34/mo |
Annual billing is cheaper on every paid tier. The pricing page is the authoritative list.
What an alert actually looks like
Every recorded change is compared word by word and kept with a before-and-after image. This is the real output, shown with worked example data.
Price fell from $49 to $39, and an annual discount was added.
The item is available again and the basket button returned.
A new subprocessor was added in another jurisdiction.
Where we can reach you
The free plan sends to one email address. Every paid plan adds the chat and webhook channels below, with 2 to 10 destinations depending on the plan. However many alerts you receive, the price does not change — nothing here is metered or charged per alert.
There are no voice calls and no SMS. If a phone call at 3am is a hard requirement, say so before you subscribe — we would rather tell you now than refund you later.
Agency monitoring questions
How many client sites can I monitor?
25 on the $5 Founding Member plan, 50 on Growth at $19 and 100 on Pro at $34. Watched pages and heartbeats have separate allowances of the same size, so content watching never costs you a monitor.
Does monitoring certificates cost extra per site?
No. SSL and domain expiry warnings attach to a monitor you have already created and use no additional allowance. Given that an expired certificate or lapsed domain is an entirely preventable outage, this is the highest-value thing an agency can switch on.
Can my team have their own logins?
Yes. Team seats give each person their own login that can see and manage monitors but never billing — 3 on the $5 plan, 10 on Growth, 25 on Pro. It removes the shared-password problem entirely.
Can I get white-labelled reports for clients?
Not as a generated monthly PDF. Status pages carry your branding and a custom domain, and history exports as CSV, but a client-facing report is something you would assemble. If automated white-label reporting is a requirement, we are not the right tool.
Can I separate clients into their own workspaces?
No. This is one account containing many monitors, not a multi-tenant console with per-client billing. Agencies needing genuine separation should look at tools built for managed service providers.
How do I catch clients breaking their own site?
Watch the homepage and one page per template. When their team edits something you get an alert with the before and after, which is both an early warning and a useful thing to have in the conversation that follows.
What about client sites in other countries?
Checks run from a single origin, so we confirm a site is reachable from outside your and the client's infrastructure but cannot verify regional reachability. If a client specifically needs that, a larger platform is the honest answer.
Is there phone or SMS alerting for out-of-hours?
No. Browser push reaches a phone lock screen, and Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, Flock and webhooks are all available, but there are no voice calls or SMS on any plan.
Related monitoring guides
- Uptime monitoringKeyword checks and intervals
- SSL expiry monitoringThe preventable outage
- SEO change monitoringWhen a client edit costs rankings
Last updated August 4, 2026 · Written by Amit Gupta, founder of MonitoringDaddy
Cover every client for the price of one.
25 sites for $5/mo, 50 for $19, 100 for $34 — certificates and domains included. Free plan to try it.