We set up uptime monitoring and configure alert routing so the right person actually gets notified the moment your site goes down — and because this keeps running after we leave, the same ownership question applies as any persistent monitoring: we configure the alerting, but noticing and acting on an alert is yours, not something we watch on your behalf indefinitely.
A monitor that quietly stops reporting is the actual failure mode to worry about
The real risk with uptime monitoring isn’t a false alarm, it’s the monitor itself silently failing — a free-tier account lapsing, a notification channel getting disconnected, a service quietly discontinuing checks — and nobody noticing for months, all while believing the site is being watched. We’ll set this up correctly and document how to periodically confirm it’s still actually running, but that periodic confirmation is a habit you need to keep, not something we do for you ongoing.
Uptime monitoring setup & alert routing
Uptime monitoring and alert routing set up — with a plain warning about the monitor that goes quiet.
- Full backup taken before we start
- If we can’t fix it, you get your money back
- We never ask for your own password
What we need from you
- An account with your chosen uptime monitoring service, or confirmation you’d like a recommendation
- Confirmation of what should trigger an alert, and how sensitive the checks should be
- Confirmation of who should actually receive alerts, and through which channel
This or something else?
| You want uptime monitoring configured with alerts routed to the right person | This fix covers it |
| You want a broader third-party monitoring service configured generally, not specifically uptime checks | Uptime & monitoring service configuration, in the Integrations & Automation bucket, a closely related setup with the same underlying service type |
| You want error tracking for application-level errors, not site availability specifically | Security event logging & alerting, or a broader error tracking integration, a different kind of monitoring |
| Your site is down right now and needs fixing, not monitoring set up | Site Down & Critical Errors category fixes — an urgent, different need |
What we do
- Confirm your chosen monitoring service and alert preferences
- Configure the service to check your site at an appropriate interval
- Set up alerting to the correct recipients and channels
- Test the alerting by simulating a check failure where the service allows
- Verify normal, healthy checks don’t produce false alerts
- Document how to periodically confirm the monitoring itself is still active
What is included
- Uptime monitoring configured for your site
- Alerting set up to your specified recipients and channels
- Tested confirmation of alert delivery
- Written documentation on confirming ongoing, continued operation
Not included
- Ongoing, indefinite monitoring of the monitor’s own continued operation by us — that responsibility transfers to you
- Paying for or managing the monitoring service’s subscription itself, which remains yours directly with the provider
- Actually fixing an issue the monitoring detects — a separate, related fix when needed
- Application-level error tracking, a separate, different kind of monitoring
Questions about this fix
How would I actually know if this silently stopped working?
This is genuinely the hardest failure mode to catch, since there's no error telling you the monitor itself failed — we document a specific way to periodically confirm it's still active, and building that check into someone's routine is worth taking seriously rather than assuming you'd notice a real outage some other way.
Once this is set up, does responsibility for watching it ever shift back to you?
No — it starts with you and stays with you; we build and test the alert routing, but there's no point in this arrangement where ongoing observation becomes something we're doing on your behalf.
Does the alert routing itself have any cost beyond the monitoring service's own subscription?
No, routing alerts to email, SMS, or a tool like Slack typically uses functionality already included in the monitoring service's plan — the subscription itself, at whatever tier you need, is the only ongoing cost involved.
Is this the same as the broader monitoring service configuration in a different category?
They use a similar type of service, but this fix is specifically framed around uptime checks and alert routing; the other is a broader configuration of whatever monitoring service you choose, which can include but isn't limited to uptime specifically.
What if I want to change who gets alerted after this is already set up?
That's a quick, small adjustment — updating the recipient or channel for existing alert routing doesn't require rebuilding the monitoring setup itself.
Related fixes
If this is the second time this year
A bad update breaking the site is a symptom of updates not being tested first. Care plans run every update on a staging clone before it reaches your live site, which is the actual fix for this happening again.
Your access, your rules
Create a separate admin account for us and delete it when we are done. For anything else, we get in touch and agree a method — never a form field on this site, never by reply to an email.
We back up first, always
Before anything is touched we take a full backup and keep it for 30 days. If a fix goes wrong, we put the site back exactly as it was.
If it is not what you bought
If the problem turns out smaller than what you ordered, we refund the difference. If it is bigger, we stop and send a quote before doing any extra work.
If we cannot fix it
You get back what we received. Diagnosis is on us — you only pay when the problem is actually solved. The payment processor takes its fee before the money reaches us, so we never hold it and it is not ours to return. That is true here as everywhere else.
If it comes back
Reply within seven days of delivery and we put it back on the bench at no cost. The fix is not finished until it holds.
What we are responsible for
If something goes wrong with a fix, our responsibility is limited to what you paid for it. We take a full backup first so mistakes can be undone, and we tell you before doing anything outside what you bought.