Get Instant Alerts When Your Website Goes Down

Why fast alerting matters

Every minute of undetected downtime costs money and damages trust. Studies show that the average time to detect an outage without monitoring is 5-10 minutes — and that's if someone notices. With automated alerts, detection drops to seconds. The faster you know, the faster you can respond.

Status Shuttle sends alerts the moment a check fails. On the Plus plan with 30-second intervals, you can be notified within 30 seconds of an outage starting. Compare this to manually checking your site or waiting for customer complaints.

Supported alert channels

Telegram

Create a bot via @BotFather on Telegram, get the Bot Token, and find your Chat ID (you can use @userinfobot). Status Shuttle sends formatted messages with monitor name, status, and response time. Works for personal chats and group notifications.

Discord

Create a Webhook URL in your Discord server settings (Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks). Alerts are posted as embedded messages with color-coded status indicators. Ideal for team channels.

Webhook

Send alerts to any HTTP endpoint. The webhook payload includes monitor name, status, status code, response time, and error message. Use this to integrate with Slack (via Incoming Webhooks), Microsoft Teams, or custom systems.

Email

Requires a Resend API Key (free tier available at resend.com). Alerts are sent as formatted HTML emails with monitor details. Supports multiple recipient addresses.

How to set up downtime alerts

1. Navigate to Alert Channels — in the dashboard, click “Alert Channels” in the sidebar, then “Add Channel”.
2. Choose channel type — select Telegram, Discord, Webhook, or Email. Each type has specific configuration requirements.
3. Enter credentials — for Telegram, enter Bot Token and Chat ID. For Discord/Webhook, enter the URL. For Email, enter the Resend API Key and recipient address.
4. Name your channel — give it a descriptive name (e.g., “Engineering Telegram”, “On-call Email”) to identify it later.
5. Test the channel — click “Test” to send a test message. Verify you receive it before enabling production alerts.
6. Enable the channel — toggle the channel to enabled. All monitors will now send alerts to this channel when they detect downtime.

Avoiding false-positive alerts

• Use appropriate intervals — 5-minute checks are sufficient for most services. Sub-minute checks can trigger on transient network issues.
• Set expected status codes correctly — if your API returns 201 on success, configure that instead of the default 200 to avoid false failures.
• Use keyword monitoring wisely — checking for a specific string (e.g., "status":"ok") catches application-level errors that HTTP status codes miss.
• Configure timeouts appropriately — the default timeout is 30 seconds. Services that are slow but functional won't trigger false alerts.
• Monitor multiple endpoints — if you monitor both your main site and a health endpoint, a single false positive on one won't cause panic.

Frequently Asked Questions

What alert channels does Status Shuttle support?

Status Shuttle supports 4 alert channels: Telegram (requires Bot Token from @BotFather and a Chat ID), Discord (requires a Webhook URL from server settings), generic Webhook (any HTTP endpoint), and Email (requires a Resend API Key). Each channel can be independently enabled, disabled, and tested.

How fast will I be alerted when my site goes down?

Alert speed depends on your check interval: Free plan detects issues within 5 minutes, Pro plan within 1 minute, and Plus plan within 30 seconds. Alerts are sent immediately after a failed check is confirmed — typically within seconds of detection.

How many alert channels can I create?

Free plan: 2 alert channels. Pro plan: 10 channels. Plus plan: unlimited channels. You can mix channel types (e.g., 1 Telegram + 1 Email on the Free plan) and each monitor's alerts are sent to all enabled channels.

Can I test alerts before enabling them?

Yes. Every alert channel has a 'Test' button that sends a test message immediately. This verifies your credentials are correct and the channel is working before you enable it for production alerts.

How does Status Shuttle compare to PagerDuty for alerts?

PagerDuty starts at $21/user/month and is designed for enterprise incident management with on-call scheduling and escalation policies. Status Shuttle focuses on simplicity: Pro plan is $5/year (not per user) and includes 10 alert channels with 1-minute detection. For indie developers and small teams, Status Shuttle provides the essential alerting without the enterprise complexity or cost.