Which Velprove Plan for Your Site? Free, $19, and $49 by Site Shape
Quick rundown: every Velprove plan, including Free, includes a browser login monitor that logs in like a real user, which is the check that catches a broken login page when a basic HTTP check still passes. The plans are Free at $0 per month, Starter at $19 per month, and Pro at $49 per month, with no credit card required for Free. The right plan is not a feature-grid question, it is a build question: what monitors and status page does your specific site actually need, and what is the lowest plan whose caps fit that build. This guide walks four real site shapes (a solo blog, a small WooCommerce or Shopify store, an early SaaS with a login and an API, and a solo freelancer with a handful of client sites), shows the exact build and the cap math for each, and names the trigger that moves you up a plan. Agencies fit this too: Velprove Pro is a 10-client unit at $49 flat, and beyond 10 clients we build a custom plan around your specific client book. If you are an enterprise with SOC 2 procurement or a bulk hosting reseller, Velprove is not the pick and we route you out honestly at the end.
Pick by what you would actually build, not by a feature grid
The full feature comparison lives on the pricing page, and this post deliberately does not reproduce it. A feature grid tells you what each plan contains. It does not tell you which one your site needs. The useful question is the build question. Decide the exact set of monitors and the status page your site requires, then pick the lowest plan whose caps fit that build. When a cap forces you up, that is your real upgrade trigger, not a marketing nudge.
Four site shapes cover almost every reader who lands here: a solo blog or marketing site, a small WooCommerce or Shopify store, an early-stage SaaS with a login and an API, and a solo freelancer maintaining a handful of client sites. Each one has a different load-bearing failure mode, so each one has a different build and a different right plan. One detail worth fixing up front: a Velprove region is selected per monitor, and each monitor runs from one of 5 global regions. To cover several regions you create one monitor per region. No plan checks from all 5 at once on a single monitor.
Solo blog or marketing site → Free
The profile is narrow. One personal site, a marketing site, or a side project. You want to know when the homepage is down and when the SSL certificate is about to expire, with an alert you will actually read. There is no paying-customer SLA and no on-call rotation behind this site.
The build: one or two HTTP monitors covering the homepage and one key page at the 5-minute interval, SSL certificate monitoring (it is built into the HTTP monitor), and one browser login monitor at the 15-minute interval only if the site actually has a login worth watching. Add the single status page so you can point someone at it when they ask whether the site is down for them too. Email alerts.
The cap math against Free: that is 2 to 3 monitors against a 10-monitor cap, 1 browser login monitor against a 1-browser cap, the 5-minute HTTP floor, the 15-minute browser login floor, and 1 status page with the Velprove badge against the 1-page cap. Email is the Free alert channel. Every part of this build fits inside Free with room to spare.
The cost is $0. No credit card required. The upgrade trigger is specific: you move to Starter when you need Slack, Discord, Teams, or webhook alerts instead of email only, when 5-minute HTTP checks are too slow, or when you need a second browser login monitor. Until one of those is true, paying for this site is wasted money. The full free stack for indie hackers and side projects walks the Free build in more depth.
Small WooCommerce or Shopify store → Starter $19
A store changes the failure mode. Your homepage can be green while the checkout API is returning 500s and customers are bouncing on the payment step. A basic HTTP check on the homepage will not catch that, and a missed checkout on a busy day is real lost revenue, not a cosmetic bug. Plug your average order value, conversion rate, and peak-hour traffic into the downtime cost calculator to see whether the $19 Starter plan pays for itself in the first missed hour.
The build: an HTTP monitor on the homepage at the 1-minute interval, a browser login monitor on the customer-account flow so you catch the partial outage where the store is up but logged-in customers cannot reach order history, and a multi-step API monitor that chains the cart and checkout calls where each step depends on a token from the previous one. SSL monitoring is built into the HTTP monitor. Route alerts to Slack or Discord, and put the store on a status page with the Velprove badge removed.
The cap math against Starter: roughly 3 to 5 monitors against a 30-monitor cap, 1 to 2 browser login monitors against a 3-browser cap, a multi-step chain inside the 5-step limit, the 1-minute HTTP floor, and the 10-minute browser login floor. Starter raises the status page allowance from 1 on Free to 3, and removes the Velprove branding. For a single store you usually need just one page, so the branding removal is the part you feel first, but the extra pages are there if you run more than one storefront.
The cost is $19 per month. The upgrade trigger to Pro: you need 30-second HTTP checks, PagerDuty, a custom-domain status page, a chained API monitor longer than 5 steps, or more than 3 browser login monitors. A typical small store does not hit those, so Starter is usually the durable answer here.
Early SaaS with a login and an API → Pro $49
An early SaaS has the most distinctive surface of the four shapes. The homepage is rarely the failure mode. The login page rendering, the OAuth or token exchange, and the API are. An HTTP check on the login URL can pass while the login form is broken, because the HTML still contains the keyword. The monitors that matter here are a real browser login and a chained API auth check.
The build: an HTTP monitor on the app at the 30-second interval, a browser login monitor that logs in on the actual login page at the 5-minute browser login floor, and a multi-step API monitor that requests a token, uses that token to make an authenticated call, and asserts the response shape, chained up to 10 steps. Route alerts through PagerDuty plus Slack, and give customers a status page on your own domain they can self-check. For the full model of what a SaaS should actually be monitoring across its layers, see the uptime monitoring guide for SaaS founders.
The cap math against Pro: a handful of monitors against the 100-monitor cap, 1 to 2 browser login monitors against the 10-browser cap, an auth chain inside the 10-step limit, the 30-second HTTP floor, the 5-minute browser login floor, and up to 10 status pages with a custom domain. The two caps that pull a SaaS onto Pro specifically are the PagerDuty alert channel and the custom-domain status page, neither of which exists below Pro. The 30-second interval and the 10-step chains are the supporting reasons.
The cost is $49 per month. One honest boundary: if procurement now demands SOC 2, SAML SSO, or a Terraform provider from your monitoring vendor, Velprove is not the pick and the route-out section below points you to the right one. Velprove Pro is calibrated for an early SaaS where the bar is technical, not enterprise compliance.
Freelancer or agency with client sites → Starter $19 or Pro $49
The profile here is anyone running client sites under retainer, whether that is one freelancer with a few clients or an agency with a book of them. The build is simple and repeats per client: one or two HTTP monitors per client site with SSL monitoring built in, one browser login monitor proving that client's login or portal actually works, a couple of API checks, a couple of multi-step chains, and one branded status page per client on the client's own domain.
The cap math, and this is the unit that matters: Velprove Pro is a 10-client unit. Roughly 10 monitors per client across 10 clients sits well inside Pro's 100-monitor cap, with 10 browser login monitors (one per client) and 10 status pages on custom domains with no Velprove badge (one per client). That is $49 flat per month, which is $4.90 per client per month. Starter at $19 per month is the same shape at 3 clients: 30 monitors total, up to 3 browser login monitors, 3 status pages. The Starter to Pro trigger is the fourth client, a client wanting a custom-domain status page, or needing more than 3 browser login monitors.
Beyond 10 clients you do not leave Velprove. We build a custom plan around your specific client book. Email support@velprove.com with the rough shape of your roster and we will tailor it. The one boundary that still routes you out is the same one the cPanel and WHM monitoring guide draws: bulk programmatic provisioning across hundreds of accounts is a different shape, and there HetrixTools is the fit, not Velprove.
When Velprove is not the answer
Two site shapes sit deliberately outside every scenario above, and pretending otherwise would waste your time. If you are a SaaS or company whose procurement requires SOC 2, SAML SSO, or a Terraform provider from the monitoring vendor itself, Uptime.com or Site24x7 are calibrated for that bar and Velprove is not. If you are a large or bulk-provisioning hosting reseller pushing thousands of monitors programmatically as accounts come online, HetrixTools is the right pick. Agencies are no longer on this list: a client book is a Velprove Pro fit at $4.90 per client per month up to 10 clients, with a custom plan built around the book beyond that. The full vendor routing guide covers exactly which of those vendors fits which case, so start there if you are not sure Velprove is even the right vendor for you.
One reframe before the FAQ. If you are weighing whether the $19 or $49 plan is worth it, the honest comparison is not plan against plan, it is the plan against the cost of the outage it catches. What an outage actually costs a small business is the flip side of this decision, and it usually makes the paid plan look cheap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the free Velprove plan really enough for a small site?
For a solo blog or marketing site, yes. The Free plan includes 10 monitors total at a 5-minute interval, one of which can be a browser login monitor at a 15-minute interval, plus multi-step API monitors up to 3 steps, email alerts, SSL certificate monitoring, and 1 status page with a Velprove badge, all from any of 5 global regions. No credit card required. A one-or-two-page personal site needs only a couple of those 10 monitors, so the free plan covers it comfortably. You outgrow Free when you need alerts beyond email, HTTP checks faster than 5 minutes, or a second browser login monitor.
When should I move from Free to Starter?
Move to Starter at $19 per month when any one of these becomes true: you need Slack, Discord, Teams, or webhook alerts instead of email only; you need HTTP checks faster than the 5-minute Free floor (Starter allows 1-minute); you need more than 1 browser login monitor (Starter allows 3 at a 10-minute floor); you want the Velprove badge removed from your status page; or you need more than 1 status page. Free includes 1 status page with a Velprove badge. Starter raises that to 3 status pages and removes the Velprove branding, so the Free to Starter difference is both more pages and the badge coming off.
When is Pro worth $49 over Starter $19?
Pro at $49 per month is worth it when you need 30-second HTTP intervals (Starter floors at 1 minute), PagerDuty on-call routing (Starter tops out at Slack, Discord, Teams, and webhooks), a custom-domain status page or more than 3 status pages (Starter allows 3 with no custom domain, Pro allows 10 on custom domains), multi-step API chains longer than 5 steps (Pro allows 10), or more than 3 browser login monitors (Pro allows 10 at a 5-minute floor). For an early SaaS whose login page, OAuth flow, and API are the load-bearing surface, those Pro caps are usually the reason to upgrade.
Can Velprove handle a freelancer or agency with several client sites?
Yes, and not just a solo freelancer. Velprove Pro is built as a 10-client unit: roughly 10 monitors per client (a few HTTP, 1 browser login monitor proving that client's login or portal works, a couple of API checks, a couple of multi-step chains), 1 branded status page per client on its own custom domain with no Velprove badge, all inside Pro's 100-monitor cap. That is $49 flat per month, which works out to $4.90 per client per month. Starter at $19 per month is the same shape at 3 clients: 30 monitors total, up to 3 browser login monitors, 3 status pages. Beyond 10 clients we build a custom plan around your specific client book. Email support@velprove.com with the rough shape of your roster and we will tailor it. The only hard boundary is bulk programmatic provisioning across hundreds of accounts, where HetrixTools is the better pick.
If your site is one of the first four shapes, the fastest way to confirm the plan is to build it. Start a free Velprove account. The Free plan includes 10 monitors total across 5 global regions, one of which can be a browser login monitor for your account or checkout flow, plus multi-step API monitors up to 3 steps and a status page. No credit card required. If a cap forces you up later, you will know exactly which one and why.