The short answer
Three checks matter for a business site: is it up, is the certificate about to expire, and does the form still submit. The third is the one nobody monitors and the one that quietly costs the most.
All three are available on free tiers at the volumes a small site needs.
What to monitor
| Check | Why | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Uptime from outside | Your network says nothing about theirs | Every few minutes |
| Certificate expiry | A lapsed certificate blocks everyone | Daily, alert weeks ahead |
| Form submission end to end | The failure nobody sees | Daily |
| Page load time | Degradation is gradual | Daily |
| Domain expiry | Rare, catastrophic | Weekly |
Domain expiry is worth the minute it takes to set up. It almost never happens and when it does the site is gone until someone notices and pays.
Monitor the form, not just the page
A page returning 200 tells you the web server is running. It says nothing about whether the enquiry form still submits, whether the notification arrives, or whether a script error is blocking the button.
- Submit the form on a schedule, with a marker that identifies it as a check.
- Confirm the submission is stored, not just that the request returned.
- Confirm the notification reaches an inbox.
- Alert if any step fails, or if a day passes with no real submissions when you normally get some.
- Exclude the check submissions from your lead reporting.
Point four is the cheapest early warning there is. A day with zero enquiries when you normally get several is usually a broken form rather than a quiet day.
Alert somewhere people look
An alert to an email address nobody opens is not monitoring. Send it where the person who can act will see it, and test that path when you set it up.
Include what to do in the alert itself. An alert saying the site is down at two in the morning is more useful if it also says who hosts it and where the status page is.
Where free tiers stop
- Check frequency, which is coarser on free plans
- Number of checks, which caps how much you can monitor
- Alert channels, with some restricted to paid
- History retention, which limits trend analysis
- Checking from multiple regions
For a single business site, free tiers are generally sufficient. The limits start to bite once you have several properties or need fast detection.