# Source: src/lib/business/vs-pages.ts → vsPages[betterstack]. Keep in sync.

# SiteGuardian vs Betterstack (2026)

> SiteGuardian vs Betterstack. Betterstack ships uptime plus on-call, but does not crawl your site for broken links, does not probe your checkout path, and does not probe your forms. SiteGuardian ships uptime, SSL expiry, broken-link coverage, checkout-failure monitoring, and form-failure monitoring on every paid plan, in one loud email.

URL: /vs/betterstack
Canonical page: /vs/betterstack
Site index: /llms.txt
Hub of all comparisons: /vs/all
Updated: 2026

## TL;DR
- SiteGuardian wins for the four checks; Betterstack wins for the rotation. Betterstack is a modern uptime-plus-incident-management product with status pages, on-call schedules, escalation chains, and an AI SRE assistant — paid Responder seats from $34/mo monthly, $29/mo yearly, plus status-page add-ons and additional monitor packs.
- When Betterstack: you want an on-call rotation, an incident timeline, and a free status page alongside uptime, and you do not need the four SG-killer checks.
- When SiteGuardian: you want one loud email that covers uptime, broken links on the URL list, checkout, forms, and SSL expiry — and you do not yet have the on-call rotation.
- The verdict: SiteGuardian for the four checks; Betterstack for the rotation.

## Pricing at a glance
- SiteGuardian Starter — $19/mo — 1 site, 10 URLs, every-5-min probes.
- SiteGuardian Pro — $39/mo — 3 sites, 50 URLs, every-1-min probes.
- SiteGuardian Lifetime — $299 once — 1 site, 50 URLs, every-5-min probes, every future update included.
- Betterstack Free — $0/month — 10 monitors, 10 heartbeats, 1 status page, Slack + email alerts.
- Betterstack Responder (monthly) — $34/month — Uptime + Telemetry access, on-call scheduling, escalation chains.
- Betterstack Responder (yearly) — $29/month, billed annually — Yearly discount on the responder seat, same feature set as monthly.
- Betterstack +50 Monitors — $25/month — Adds 50 monitors and 50 heartbeats on top of the 10 included.
- Betterstack Additional Status Page — $15/month — Public status page beyond the first included with the seat.

## How they differ
- Probe cadence (paid) — SiteGuardian: Every minute; Betterstack: Every 30 seconds (paid).
- Probe cadence (free tier) — SiteGuardian: not available; Betterstack: Every 3 minutes.
- Alert destination — SiteGuardian: One inbox; Betterstack: Email, SMS, Slack, MS Teams, webhooks.
- Public status page — SiteGuardian: not available; Betterstack: included.
- Custom slow threshold per URL — SiteGuardian: On every plan; Betterstack: Global only.
- Free tier — SiteGuardian: not available; Betterstack: 10 monitors, 10 heartbeats, 1 status page.
- Pricing model (paid) — SiteGuardian: $19/mo Starter, $39/mo Pro, $299 once Lifetime; Betterstack: Free; paid responders $34/mo (or $29/mo yearly), +$25/mo per 50 monitors.
- AI-powered root cause — SiteGuardian: Not yet available; Betterstack: AI SRE token-priced, included on paid.
- SSL expiry alerts — SiteGuardian: included; Betterstack: On paid responders.
- Broken-link coverage — SiteGuardian: Watches your configured URL list; Betterstack: not available.
- Checkout-failure monitoring — SiteGuardian: included; Betterstack: not available.
- Form-failure monitoring — SiteGuardian: included; Betterstack: not available.

## When each is the right fit
- SiteGuardian — A 1-person Shopify / WordPress / Squarespace shop that wants the four SG-killer checks on the same email and has no on-call rotation.
- Betterstack — A team with at least three on-call engineers and a need for status page + timeline + rotation shipped in one place, who can tolerate writing Playwright scripts for the checkout probe.

## The verdict
- SiteGuardian for the four checks; Betterstack for the rotation.
- Pick SiteGuardian if: A one-founder Shopify / WordPress / Squarespace shop that wants uptime, broken-link coverage, checkout-failure monitoring, form-failure monitoring, and SSL expiry in one loud email and has no on-call rotation.
- Pick Betterstack if: A team with at least three on-call engineers, a Slack-first incident workflow, and a need for status-page + timeline + escalation + AI SRE in one stack — and a willingness to script and pay per Playwright minute for the checkout probe.

## Buying-time FAQ
- Q: Does SiteGuardian have a free tier like Betterstack?
  A: No. SiteGuardian is paid from the first URL. Starter is $19 a month, Pro is $39 a month, Lifetime is $299 once. Betterstack still runs a free tier (10 monitors, 10 heartbeats, 1 status page as of July 2026). Choose SiteGuardian when you want the smallest tool and four checks in one inbox; choose Betterstack when the free plan and the on-call rotation matter alongside uptime.
- Q: Is the probe cadence the same as Betterstack?
  A: On Betterstack paid (responder seats), probes check every 30 seconds. On the Betterstack free tier the cadence is 3 minutes. SiteGuardian probes every minute on Pro and every five minutes on Starter and Lifetime. There is no free-tier downgrade in cadence on SiteGuardian.
- Q: Does SiteGuardian support a public status page like Betterstack?
  A: No. SiteGuardian is intentionally the smallest product; status pages are something you would pair alongside it, not a feature we ship. If a public status page is a buying-time requirement, Betterstack’s free status page is the better fit.
- Q: Can I keep using Betterstack’s free tier while I try SiteGuardian?
  A: Yes. Run both for a fortnight. The second alert is louder than the first. Pick the one that fits the way you want to be notified — and only if you do not need the SG-killer checks.
- Q: Which one is cheaper for one storefront?
  A: Betterstack Free is cheaper at $0. SiteGuardian Starter at $19/mo is roughly half of a single Betterstack responder seat at $34/mo and less than the $29/mo yearly rate; and it ships four checks (broken-link coverage, checkout failure, form failure, SSL expiry) on every plan that Betterstack does not run on any tier.
- Q: Does SiteGuardian monitor SSL expiry like Betterstack's paid responders?
  A: Yes. SiteGuardian ships SSL expiry monitoring on every paid plan, included — no add-on. Betterstack lists SSL monitoring as a feature on its paid uptime tier, not on the free tier.
- Q: Does SiteGuardian crawl my site for broken links like Oh Dear?
  A: Partially, and in a different way. SiteGuardian does not ship a full site crawler. SiteGuardian does watch the URL list you configured during setup and re-probes it for broken links on the same cadence. Oh Dear ships a deeper crawler that follows links off the list.
- Q: Can SiteGuardian tell me when my checkout breaks?
  A: Yes. Configure your checkout URL on SiteGuardian and a separate probe runs against it on the same cadence as your uptime checks. Betterstack offers Playwright-based transaction monitoring billed at $1 per minute — you can simulate a checkout that way, but the cost is per execution and requires writing and maintaining the script.
- Q: Can SiteGuardian watch my contact form and report it when it stops sending?
  A: Yes. Add the form URL as a probe or wire a heartbeat monitor, and SiteGuardian pings it on the same cadence as your other URLs. Betterstack ships the same HTTP layer for uptime but does not ship a form-path probe or a heartbeat to the form destination.

## Freshness
- Pricing and features last checked July 2026. Competitor offerings may change.

## Related reads
- /vs/all — every comparison in one matrix.
- /vs/better-stack — SiteGuardian vs Better Stack (on-call pitch).
- /vs/uptime-robot — SiteGuardian vs UptimeRobot.
- /broken-link-monitor — Broken link monitor.
- /ssl-expiry-monitor — SSL expiry monitor.
- /checkout-failure-monitoring — Checkout failure monitoring.
- /form-failure-monitoring — Form failure monitoring.
- /online-store-uptime — Online store uptime.
- /pricing — See plans & pricing.
- /audit — Free URL audit.

# Parent cluster: Research → /research