Healthchecks.io is free for 20 cron checks — the most generous free heartbeat tier in the category, and we'll say so plainly. Business is $20/mo for 100 checks (as published July 2026 — verify with the vendor). What no tier includes is active monitoring: uptime probes, SSL expiry, DNS checks, or a public status page. That second tool is where the real comparison starts.
Looking for the feature-by-feature comparison instead? See FourSight vs Healthchecks.io.
The pricing model
Healthchecks.io keeps pricing simple: a free Hobbyist plan with 20 checks and 3 team members, Business at $20/mo with 100 checks and 10 members, and Business Plus at $80/mo with higher limits (as published July 2026 — verify with the vendor). It's also open source — self-hosting is free if you run the infrastructure yourself. There's a Supporter tier for people who simply want to fund the project, which tells you something good about how it's run.
The boundary isn't price — it's scope. Healthchecks.io is deliberately passive: it listens for pings and alerts when they stop. It cannot probe a URL, watch an SSL certificate, detect DNS drift, or host a customer-facing status page. Production teams pair it with an active uptime tool, so the real monthly cost is Healthchecks.io plus that second product.
FourSight prices both halves as one product: Starter $16/mo covers 50 active uptime monitors; Growth $40/mo adds heartbeat/cron monitors (5-field cron expressions, grace periods) alongside 100 monitors across all 8 check types, escalation policies, and 5 status pages.
Price math, July 2026
| Scenario | FourSight | Healthchecks.io |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 20 cron checks, $0 budget |
No free heartbeats Heartbeats unlock on Growth ($40/mo). For free cron-only monitoring, Healthchecks.io is simply the right answer. |
Free — Hobbyist plan 20 checks, 3 team members. The category's most generous free heartbeat tier (July 2026). |
| 100 cron checks |
Growth — $40/mo Heartbeats plus 100 uptime/SSL/DNS monitors, escalations, and 5 status pages in the same plan. |
Business — $20/mo 100 checks, 10 members — still cron-only; the uptime half needs a second tool. |
| Cron + uptime + SSL + a status page |
Growth — $40/mo total One monitor list, one incident pipeline, one bill. |
~$35–50/mo across two tools Healthchecks.io Business ($20) plus a typical uptime/status-page product ($15–30) — two dashboards, two vendors. |
| Self-hosted, compliance-driven |
Not offered FourSight is hosted only. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, that decides it. |
Free — open source Run Healthchecks on your own infrastructure at server cost. A real, honest advantage. |
Healthchecks.io figures as published July 2026 — verify with the vendor. FourSight prices are from our public pricing page (annual billing ≈ 25% off). Full FourSight plan details are on the pricing page.
Honest take
Pricing pages usually pretend the writer's tool is cheaper in every scenario. Here's the fair version — where Healthchecks.io's pricing is genuinely the better deal, and where FourSight's is.
Where Healthchecks.io's pricing genuinely wins:
Where the consolidated plan wins:
FAQ
As published July 2026 (verify with the vendor): free for 20 checks and 3 team members, Business at $20/mo for 100 checks and 10 members, Business Plus at $80/mo with higher limits. The open-source edition is free to self-host.
For cron monitoring, unambiguously yes — 20 free checks versus zero (FourSight heartbeats unlock on the $40 Growth plan). FourSight's free tier covers a different job: 10 active uptime monitors with 4-region quorum consensus and a status page. Different tools win different free comparisons, and we'd rather say that than spin it.
Usually its subscription plus a second product: because it's passive-only, teams add an active uptime/SSL/status-page tool at typically $15–30/mo. That's ~$35–50/mo across two systems versus FourSight Growth at $40/mo for both halves in one — the honest comparison is tool-pair vs consolidation, not tier vs tier.
Yes — a common pattern: leave low-stakes internal scripts on Healthchecks.io's free tier and put revenue-critical jobs, uptime, SSL, and the public status page on FourSight. The tools don't conflict.
Go deeper
More price math
Or read the full FourSight vs Healthchecks.io comparison — features, migration steps, and when Healthchecks.io is the better choice.
Start on the Free plan — 10 monitors, 4-region quorum consensus, commercial use allowed. No credit card.
The boundary isn't price — it's scope. Healthchecks.io is deliberately passive: it listens for pings and alerts when they stop. It cannot probe a URL, watch an SSL certificate, detect DNS drift, or host a customer-facing status page. Production teams pair it with an active uptime tool, so the real monthly cost is Healthchecks.io plus that second product.
FourSight prices both halves as one product: Starter
Where Healthchecks.io's pricing genuinely wins:
Where the consolidated plan wins:
| Scenario | FourSight | Healthchecks.io |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 20 cron checks, $0 budget | No free heartbeats — Heartbeats unlock on Growth ($40/mo). For free cron-only monitoring, Healthchecks.io is simply the right answer. | Free — Hobbyist plan — 20 checks, 3 team members. The category's most generous free heartbeat tier (July 2026). |
| 100 cron checks | Growth — $40/mo — Heartbeats plus 100 uptime/SSL/DNS monitors, escalations, and 5 status pages in the same plan. | Business — 0/mo — 100 checks, 10 members — still cron-only; the uptime half needs a second tool. |
| Cron + uptime + SSL + a status page | Growth — $40/mo total — One monitor list, one incident pipeline, one bill. | ~$35–50/mo across two tools — Healthchecks.io Business (0) plus a typical uptime/status-page product ( 5–30) — two dashboards, two vendors.
|
| Self-hosted, compliance-driven | Not offered — FourSight is hosted only. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, that decides it. | Free — open source — Run Healthchecks on your own infrastructure at server cost. A real, honest advantage. |
As published July 2026 (verify with the vendor): free for 20 checks and 3 team members, Business at 0/mo for 100 checks and 10 members, Business Plus at $80/mo with higher limits. The open-source edition is free to self-host.
For cron monitoring, unambiguously yes — 20 free checks versus zero (FourSight heartbeats unlock on the $40 Growth plan). FourSight's free tier covers a different job: 10 active uptime monitors with 4-region quorum consensus and a status page. Different tools win different free comparisons, and we'd rather say that than spin it.
Usually its subscription plus a second product: because it's passive-only, teams add an active uptime/SSL/status-page tool at typically
Yes — a common pattern: leave low-stakes internal scripts on Healthchecks.io's free tier and put revenue-critical jobs, uptime, SSL, and the public status page on FourSight. The tools don't conflict.