SMS downtime alerts

Add an SMS Channel with your phone number, and when your site goes down, You Up? sends you a text message saying which Monitor is down. When it is back, a second text says so. An SMS alert needs a paid Plan and Credits, so it is not on Free.

Only for an outage

A text reaches your phone only for a real outage, confirmed from other locations before anything is sent. A slow page, or a certificate that expires next month, waits for the daily email digest and never reaches your phone. So a text from us means something is down now.

Setting it up

1. In your Project’s settings, add an SMS Channel.
2. Type your number. We text it a code, to make sure the number is yours.
3. Type the code, and choose which alerts go to it in a Notification rule.

A rule that sends a text also sends to an email Channel, so an alert is never only on a phone. The number must be a mobile number in a country we text: the dialog says so when it is not.

The SMS Channel, in the Docs

What it costs

A text costs Credits, and how many depends on the country of the number. The dialog says what each message to a number costs before you add it, and the Credits screen lists the price in each country. The code that proves the number costs the same as a text to it.

Every paid Plan includes Credits each month, from 25 on Small to 750 on Extra Large, and you can buy more in packs that never expire. When the Credits run out, texts stop, and your email Channel keeps sending and says which phones missed it.

The price of a text in each country, in the Docs How Credits work, in the Docs

Questions

Is SMS on the Free plan?

No. SMS needs a paid Plan and Credits, and Free includes no Credits. Free alerts by Email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams and Webhook.

Can an outage of many Monitors spend all my Credits?

No. We cap how many paid messages go out in an hour, for your whole Organization and to each number. A message over the cap is never thrown away: it waits and is sent as soon as the cap allows.

Do warnings come by text?

No. Warnings never reach a phone, so they never cost Credits. Only alerts, their reminders and the message that says the site is back do.

Is WhatsApp cheaper?

In some countries. A WhatsApp message costs 1 credit wherever the number is, and a text to some countries costs more.

The WhatsApp Channel