Expiry warnings, not CT log monitoring

Cert Spotter watches for certificates you did not order

This is a comparison between two different jobs. Cert Spotter monitors certificate transparency logs to tell you when a certificate is issued for your domain — including ones you did not authorise. We warn you before your own certificate expires. Both matter; they are not substitutes.

Start monitoring See pricing

From $5 a month · No check quotas · Set up in under a minute

On this page
  1. Quick verdict
  2. Why people switch
  3. SSLMate Cert Spotter vs MonitoringDaddy
  4. What SSLMate Cert Spotter does better
  5. What you get
  6. Switch or stay
  7. Pricing
  8. Migration, step by step
  9. How we compared
  10. FAQ

Is MonitoringDaddy a real Cert Spotter alternative?

Honestly, no — not for what Cert Spotter is for. It watches certificate transparency logs for unauthorised issuance, which is a security control we do not offer in any form. If that is your requirement, buy Cert Spotter. We are an alternative only if what you actually wanted was an expiry warning.

The trigger

Why people look for a SSLMate Cert Spotter alternative

Confusing two problems

Certificate transparency monitoring and certificate expiry monitoring are both "SSL monitoring" and are completely different. People often arrive looking for one and find the other.

Expiry is the more common need

For most small teams the realistic risk is their own certificate lapsing, not an attacker obtaining one for their domain.

Wanting both without two bills

Which is not something we solve — see the verdict above.

Side by side

SSLMate Cert Spotter vs MonitoringDaddy

Green marks the stronger option on that row. Third-party pricing and limits change without notice — treat the SSLMate Cert Spotter column as a starting point and confirm current figures on their site before you decide.

Feature SSLMate Cert Spotter MonitoringDaddy
Certificate transparency log monitoring Yes — its entire purpose No — we do not monitor CT logs at all
Alerts on unauthorised issuance Yes No
Certificate expiry warnings Yes Yes — attached to any monitor, no extra allowance
Uptime monitoring No Yes, on every plan
Domain expiry monitoring No Yes, attached to a monitor
Website change detection No Yes, with word-level diffs
Cron / heartbeat monitoring No Yes — up to 100 on Pro
Hosted status page No Yes, included
API for certificate data Yes, well documented Limited — monitor data only
Free plan Free tier for a small number of domains — verify Free forever: 1 monitor with SSL and domain warnings
Fair comparison

What SSLMate Cert Spotter does better

Every comparison page on the internet claims the author's product wins on everything. Here is where it does not.

  • Certificate transparency log monitoring — a genuine security control that we do not offer and are not trying to replace.
  • Alerts when anyone obtains a certificate for your domain, authorised or not.
  • A well-documented API and a strong reputation among security teams.
  • Operated by people who specialise in the certificate ecosystem.

If any of those are load-bearing for your team, staying put is the correct decision and this page has done its job. Monitoring you actually trust beats monitoring that is marginally cheaper.

The product

What you actually get with MonitoringDaddy

Six monitor types and one dashboard. No add-on products, no separate SKUs for the features you assumed were included.

Uptime monitoring

HTTP checks from external infrastructure, as often as every 60 seconds, with downtime and recovery alerts. See the uptime setup guide.

SSL certificate expiry

A dedicated monitor type with configurable advance warnings, so a certificate never lapses because nobody owned the renewal. See SSL expiry monitoring.

Domain expiry

Registration expiry tracked as its own monitor, warning you months ahead. The outage nobody has a runbook for. See domain expiration monitoring.

Content change detection

Alert when a phrase appears or disappears on a page — defacement, stock changes, silent policy edits. See website change detection.

Price monitoring

Watch a competitor or supplier price string and get told the moment it moves. See the price monitoring guide.

Hosted status pages

Public status pages included on every plan, hosted independently of your infrastructure so they stay up when you do not. See hosted status pages.

Alerts from any of these can be routed to email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, Flock or a generic webhook, and a single monitor can carry several channels at once. Everything is available through the REST API on paid plans, so monitors can be created and torn down programmatically rather than clicked through a form.

The decision

Who should switch — and who should stay

Switch if…

  • What you actually wanted was an expiry warning rather than CT log monitoring.
  • You need uptime, domain, cron or content monitoring as well.
  • You are paying for certificate tooling you are not using.

Stay on SSLMate Cert Spotter if…

  • You need to know when a certificate is issued for your domain — we cannot tell you that.
  • Unauthorised issuance is part of your threat model.
  • You use the API to feed certificate data into other systems.
Pricing

What MonitoringDaddy costs

Flat monthly tiers. No per-seat charges, no credit top-ups, no usage meters — the number below is the whole bill. There is no free plan; every tier can be cancelled at any time.

PlanMonitorsFastest intervalAlert channelsAPIPrice
Starter25Every 5 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$5/mo
Basic10Every 10 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$8/mo
Growth50Every 5 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$19/mo
Pro100Every 60 secondsEmail + webhook & chatYes$34/mo

Annual billing is cheaper on every paid tier. The pricing page is the authoritative list.

Migration, step by step

Moving from SSLMate Cert Spotter without a gap in coverage

There is no automated importer — monitors are re-created by hand, or scripted through the API. Budget about a minute per monitor. These are the real screens.

1. List what you actually monitor

Export or write down every active check in SSLMate Cert Spotter: the URL, how often it runs, what counts as a failure and who gets alerted. Most teams find checks nobody needs any more — this is the moment to drop them.

2. Re-create the important ones first

Open Monitors → SSL → New SSL monitor, enter the https:// address and pick the warning window — 1 to 60 days before expiry. One monitor per hostname you had in SSLMate Cert Spotter.

New SSL monitor form with warning window options from 1 to 60 daysThe SSL form and its warning windows.

Then click + under Alert channels and add the same destinations your team watches today — email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Flock, Telegram or a webhook.

Alert channel options: Email, Webhook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Flock and TelegramAlert channels available on every monitor.

3. Run both tools in parallel for a week

The SSL list shows every certificate's expiry date and days left — check the dates match what SSLMate Cert Spotter shows for the same hosts.

SSL monitoring list with expiry dates, days left and warning windowsExpiry dates side by side, ready to compare.

4. Point your status page and cancel

Move any public status page across, confirm a full week of clean overlap, then cancel SSLMate Cert Spotter. Keep the export from step 1 — it is the easiest way to prove nothing was left behind.

Start monitoring Read the setup guide
Methodology

How this comparison was put together

This page is written by the team that builds MonitoringDaddy, so treat it as an informed argument rather than a neutral audit. What we can promise is that the claims about our own product are checked against what the software actually does, and the rows where SSLMate Cert Spotter is stronger are marked as such rather than quietly omitted.

Details about SSLMate Cert Spotter come from their public pricing and documentation at the time of writing. Monitoring vendors change plan limits and prices frequently and without announcement, so every third-party figure here carries a "verify on their site" caveat and you should take it seriously before making a decision on cost.

One thing worth stating plainly, because most comparison pages fudge it: MonitoringDaddy checks run from our own infrastructure, which is external to yours, but from a single origin rather than a global probe network. That is enough to catch outages and content changes independently of your stack. It is not enough to tell you a site is down in Frankfurt but up in Ohio. If regional verification is a hard requirement, a larger platform will serve you better and we would rather you knew that now.

Found something out of date or wrong? Tell us and we will correct it.

See it

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.

competitor.com/pricing Watching: Pricing table
− Pro plan — $49 per month
+ Pro plan — $39 per month
+ Save 20% with annual billing

Price fell from $49 to $39, and an annual discount was added.

2 words added · 1 removed · 4.1% of the watched region

retailer.com/product/… Watching: Availability
− Out of stock
+ In stock — ships tomorrow
+ Add to basket

The item is available again and the basket button returned.

6 words added · 3 removed · 12.5% of the watched region

supplier.com/subprocessors Watching: Subprocessor list
~ Data is processed in the EUthe EU and the United States
+ Added: Northwind Analytics Inc. (United States)

A new subprocessor was added in another jurisdiction.

9 words added · 2 removed · 1.8% of the watched region

Worked example — not live data. Start monitoring
Alerts

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.

Email Before and after images inline
Browser push On a phone or desktop lock screen
RSS feed Every recorded change, as a feed
SlackPaid Through an incoming webhook
Microsoft TeamsPaid Through an incoming webhook
DiscordPaid Through an incoming webhook
TelegramPaid Straight to a chat or channel
FlockPaid Through an incoming webhook
WebhooksPaid Post to anything you run yourself

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.

FAQ

SSLMate Cert Spotter alternative: your questions answered

What is certificate transparency monitoring?

Public logs record every certificate issued by participating authorities. Monitoring them tells you when a certificate is issued for your domain — including one obtained by someone else. Cert Spotter does this; we do not.

Should I use Cert Spotter or MonitoringDaddy?

If unauthorised issuance is your concern, Cert Spotter, without hesitation. If your concern is your own certificate quietly expiring, that warning is included with every monitor here.

Do you monitor CT logs at all?

No. It is a genuinely different capability and we would rather say so than imply partial coverage.

What SSL monitoring do you actually do?

Expiry warnings. We check the certificate on a monitored site and warn you as expiry approaches, well before renewal becomes urgent.

Is expiry monitoring enough?

For most small sites, yes — the realistic failure is a renewal that did not happen. For anyone whose domain is a target for impersonation, CT monitoring is a separate and worthwhile control.

Can I use both?

Yes, and for a security-conscious team that is the correct answer rather than a compromise.

Does the free plan include certificate warnings?

Yes — one monitor with SSL and domain expiry warnings attached, at no cost and with no card.

Do you alert on a changed issuer?

No. We warn on approaching expiry only.

Keep reading

Compare other monitoring tools

Last updated August 4, 2026 · Written by Amit Gupta, founder of MonitoringDaddy

AG
Written by

Amit Gupta

Amit Gupta is the founder of MonitoringDaddy , a website and infrastructure monitoring platform built by TotosLocal One Private Limited. He writes about uptime, change detection, SSL and domain monitoring, and helps teams keep their websites fast, secure and online.

Try it before you cancel anything.

Set up a monitor on your most important URL and run it alongside SSLMate Cert Spotter for a week. Plans from $5 a month, cancel any time.

Start monitoring