Hear when nothing happens
Set an expected interval and a little grace for normal delays. If your job never reports in, your owl has something to say.
HomeCron jobs & heartbeats
A LITTLE SIGNAL. A LOT LESS GUESSWORK.
Your jobs work quietly.Silence should not keep you guessing.
Your website can be wide awake while last night’s backup never ran. Heartbeat monitoring watches the work behind the scenes: your job reports in, and UptimeOwl notices when the expected signal is missing.
Start free. No card required.
NIGHTLY BACKUP
A sign of life.
A steadier morning.
- 02:00 · Job startedYour owl is listening.
- 02:04 · Backup verifiedSuccess signal received.
- The next run has a lookoutMissing, failed or taking too long? We keep watch.
Notice jobs that linger
Pair a start signal with success or failure. See the recorded runtime and hear when a job has not finished within its runtime limit plus grace.
Keep one calm watch
Heartbeats share your monitor allowance, permissions, incidents and notification connections. A dedicated view keeps job signals separate from endpoint checks.
A MOMENT FROM EVERYDAY MONITORING
The backup that slept through its alarm.
Your nightly backup should finish around 02:00. Tonight, a scheduling mistake means it never starts. The website still looks fine. When the expected heartbeat and grace period pass, UptimeOwl records an incident so your team can investigate before anyone needs that missing backup.
A heartbeat confirms what your job reports. Send success only after checking the result—for a backup, that means verifying the backup finished, not merely launching it.
SMALL SIGNALS, EVERYDAY WORK
What could your owl listen for?
Backups with a bedtime
Let the backup send success after its checks pass. A missing signal tells you the night shift needs a closer look.
Reports ready for breakfast
Watch the daily report job. If it fails or never reports, find out before the team starts asking where the numbers went.
Data that keeps its appointments
Have an import or synchronization job report after processing its batch. A cheerful website cannot tell you the inventory sync got stuck.
Billing jobs, fewer surprises
Track a scheduled invoice-processing job. Report success after checking the batch outcome; a heartbeat does not verify individual payments for you.
Batches that make it home
Send start and completion for a queue-processing batch. Catch a run that stalls without pretending this measures the health of the entire queue.
A tidy nest, on schedule
Watch archive jobs, log rotation or scheduled cleanup. Quiet work still deserves a small sign that it finished.
FROM FIRST STEP TO STEADY WATCH
Find your footing in three steps.
Give your job a perch
In Monitors, choose Job heartbeats or Add monitor → Watch a scheduled job. Set the expected interval, grace and optional runtime limit.
Teach it to report in
Generate a private credential, then install the success command in your job. Add start and failure signals when you want lifecycle tracking.
Resume your watch
New heartbeat monitors start paused. Resume when your job is ready and connect your preferred notifications.
ROOM FOR YOUR WATCH
Included from your first Free nest.
Free: 3 monitors, checks from 5 minutes · Starter: 10 monitors, checks from 3 minutes · Team: 30 monitors, checks from 1 minute · Business: 100 monitors, checks from 30 seconds. Enterprise allowances are arranged with Blastup.
Slack, Teams and mobile push on every plan. Monitor email alerts on paid plans.
A few things you might be wondering.
How is this different from uptime monitoring?
Endpoint monitors make requests to your public service. A heartbeat waits for an authenticated request from your job. Use both: one watches availability, the other watches scheduled work.
Can my job stay inside a private network?
Yes, if it can make an outbound HTTPS request to UptimeOwl. You do not need to expose the job through a public inbound endpoint. Your own outbound firewall rules still apply.
Does UptimeOwl run or restart my job?
No. It receives signals, records results and alerts through your configured integrations. Your scheduler and job remain under your control.
Which plans include heartbeats and alerts?
All plans include heartbeat monitoring within their existing monitor allowance and minimum interval. Slack, Teams and mobile push are included on every plan. Monitor email alerts require a paid plan.
Can several jobs share a heartbeat monitor?
Use a separate monitor for independent or overlapping jobs. One monitor follows one active run. Sharing it could let one successful job hide another job’s missing signal.
Is runtime the same as response time?
No. Runtime is the time between receiving a start signal and its matching completion, including delivery delays. It stays separate from HTTP response-time charts.
A HELPING WING
Ready for the practical details?
Browse more monitors & detections guides in the help center.