Updated 25 October 2026 · By the Upcertain team
The short version
- Pick Instatus if the status page is the main thing: large subscriber lists, SMS and call alerts on higher plans, on-call members and a free plan.
- Pick Upcertain if monitoring comes first: six check types including heartbeats, confirmation before alerts, 30-second checks with unlimited members, and status pages that explain each outage.
Side by side
| Upcertain | Instatus | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry option | Basic: 10 monitors, 60 s | Starter: 15 monitors, 2-minute checks, 200 subscribers, no custom domain |
| Middle plan | Team: 100 monitors, 30 s, custom domains | Pro: 50 monitors, 30-second checks, 1+ custom domain, 5,000 subscribers |
| Larger plan | Business: custom limits | Business: 1,000 monitors, 25,000 subscribers, SAML SSO |
| Team members | Unlimited on Team and Business | 5 on Starter, 50 on Pro |
| Alerts | Email, Slack, Teams, Discord, Google Chat, webhooks | Email; SMS on Pro; SMS and calls on Business |
| Monitor types | HTTP, keyword, ping, port, SSL, heartbeat | Not detailed on the pricing page |
Instatus's figures come from the latest archived copy of its pricing page, captured on 16 October 2026, because the live page did not load for us on 25 October 2026.
Where Instatus does more
Instatus offers larger subscriber allowances, SMS and call alerts on its paid plans, on-call members and SAML SSO on Business, and a free Starter plan.
Where Upcertain is different
- Monitoring depth: keyword, ping, port, SSL and heartbeat checks next to HTTP.
- Confirmation checks per monitor, so short failures do not reach the page or the pager.
- Outages explained: grouped incidents with each service's downtime, and brief outages folded per day.
- Unlimited members on Team, and an MCP server for AI agents.
Questions to ask before you switch
- Which checks do you rely on today that Upcertain does not run, such as browser checks or checks from several regions?
- Who needs a login, and who only needs alerts? Notify-only contacts cover the second group.
- How long do your deploys fail for? That decides your confirmation settings.
- Which status page domain and subscribers will move, and how will you tell subscribers?
Moving from Instatus
- List your Instatus monitors: URLs or hosts, intervals and expected status codes.
- Import them with a CSV file or a list of URLs, up to 200 rows at a time (CSV import).
- Add alert channels and send a test to each.
- Rebuild the status page and move your subdomain's CNAME to
pages.upcertain.com(custom domains). - Run both for a week, then switch the old monitors off.
Questions
Is there a free plan?
Upcertain is in early access: billing is not enabled, accounts start on the Basic plan and plans are assigned from the account.
Sources
- Instatus pricing (Wayback Machine capture of 16 October 2026) (read 25 October 2026)