updown
updown.io is a French bootstrapped SaaS that provides low-cost, pay-as-you-go website and service uptime monitoring via HTTP, TCP, and ICMP checks from 11 global locations, serving developers and SMBs through a fully self-serve product.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersParis, France
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What updown does
updown.io is a Paris-based, sole-proprietorship SaaS service founded in 2012 by Adrien Rey-Jarthon that provides website and online-service availability monitoring. Its core product runs HTTP(S), TCP(S), and ICMP checks against customer-specified URLs from 11 globally distributed locations (Los Angeles, Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Roubaix, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Cape Town), with a double-check requirement that confirms downtime from at least two distinct locations before alerting. Complementary features include pulse/cron job monitoring, TLS/SSL certificate expiration alerts (30/14/7/1 day windows), domain expiration alerts via RDAP/WHOIS, body-content string matching, Apdex-based performance scoring, and hosted single- and multi-site status pages.
The platform is built on Ruby on Rails with a MongoDB database, Sidekiq for background jobs, and a custom monitoring daemon; each location runs its own recursive DNS resolver using Unbound to honor TTL values, and the stack has been iteratively optimized with jemalloc and Ruby 3.3 YJIT for memory and CPU efficiency. The product is delivered fully self-serve through a web UI, a documented REST API, and webhooks, with native integrations into Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Discord, Statuspage.io, OpsGenie/Jira Service Management, and Zapier. Notification delivery runs through Postmark/MailerSend for email and Vonage/SMSalert.mobi/Twilio for SMS, while payments are handled by Stripe, PayPal, SEPA, and CoinGate (crypto).
Commercial model is pure usage-based "credit" metering: 1 credit equals 1 check, sold in prepaid packs ranging from 200,000 credits (€5) to 60,000,000 credits (€500), with 100,000 free credits granted to new accounts. SMS alerts are billed separately at ~7,500 credits (~€0.10) per message. There is no sales team, no monthly commitment, no published revenue, and no external funding; the company is bootstrapped and operated by its founder, with named logos on the homepage (Google, GitHub, Stripe, Facebook, Hacker News) representing URLs being monitored for demonstration rather than enterprise customer references.
updown firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- updown
- Legal name
- Adrien Rey-Jarthon (EI)
- Website
- https://updown.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- updown.io is a French bootstrapped SaaS that provides low-cost, pay-as-you-go website and service uptime monitoring via HTTP, TCP, and ICMP checks from 11 global locations, serving developers and SMBs through a fully self-serve product.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
updown industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Website Uptime Monitoring
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Network Performance, Visibility & SLA Monitoring (Managed NPM/Observability) (HDAIAFAI)
Keywords
Where updown is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Paris
- HQ country
- France
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices2 records
Markets served
updown business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Credit-based monitoring: Pay-as-you-go service where users purchase credit packs. 1 credit = 1 check request. Users pay upfront for credits and consume them based on check frequency and number of monitored endpoints. No monthly commitment required. First 100,000 credits free for new accounts.
- SMS Alerts: SMS notifications cost 7,500 credits (approximately €0.10) per message, providing an additional revenue stream beyond basic monitoring.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 200,000 credits pack - €5 (≈ €5.49/month equivalent) |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 500,000 credits pack - €10 (≈ €4.39/month equivalent) |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 1,500,000 credits pack - €25 (≈ €3.66/month equivalent) |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 3,000,000 credits pack - €40 (≈ €2.93/month equivalent) |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 10,000,000 credits pack - €100 (≈ €2.20/month equivalent) |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | 60,000,000 credits pack - €500 (≈ €1.83/month equivalent) |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free trial - 100,000 credits |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels6 records
updown product offering
Product offeringCore offering
updown.io operates a self-serve SaaS website monitoring service that performs periodic HTTP(S), TCP(S), and ICMP check requests against customer URLs from 11 global monitoring locations, sending multi-channel alerts (email, webhook, Slack, Teams, Telegram, SMS, Statuspage, Zapier) when endpoints are down, certificates are expiring, or domain expirations approach. The service is sold via pay-as-you-go credit packs with 1 credit equaling 1 check, and is complemented by a public REST API and WebHooks plus hosted public status pages.
Product overview
updown.io is a simple and inexpensive website monitoring service offered as a unified SaaS platform. The core offering includes HTTP(S), TCP(S), and ICMP monitoring checks, supplemented by Pulse/Cron Monitoring for scheduled task monitoring, TLS/SSL Certificate Monitoring for certificate expiration alerts, and Domain Expiration Alerts. Users can access hosted status pages (both single-site and multi-site variants) for public availability reporting. The platform integrates alerting across multiple channels (Email, Webhook, Slack, Teams, Telegram, SMS, Statuspage, Zapier). All functionality is accessible via the REST API and WebHooks. Pricing follows a credit-based pay-as-you-go model with 100,000 free credits for new accounts.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Website Monitoring Service Self-serve SaaS platform that performs HTTP(S), TCP(S), and ICMP check requests against customer URLs from 11 global monitoring locations (Los Angeles, Miami, Toronto, Roubaix, Frankfurt, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Helsinki, Cape Town, Montreal), with dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 support, configurable check frequency from 15 seconds to 1 hour, and multi-channel alerting. Target users are SMBs, developers, and DevOps teams needing affordable website availability monitoring.
- Hosted Status Pages Hosted public availability and performance status pages providing single-site and multi-site uptime and Apdex performance reports that customers can publish to communicate service status to their own users.
- REST API and WebHooks Public REST API and WebHooks that enable developers to programmatically manage checks, retrieve downtimes and performance metrics, configure webhooks, and automate enable/disable and maintenance windows for the updown.io monitoring platform.
Quantifiable outcome
- Users report switching from Pingdom due to significant cost savings while maintaining comparable or better functionality
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use updown
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
updown technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration9 records
Feature10 records
updown partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core infrastructure and core integration.
- OVH, Vultr, Digital Ocean, Hetzner, Akamai Cloud (Linode)core infrastructureCloud hosting providers for monitoring infrastructure. OVH, Vultr, Digital Ocean, Hetzner, and Akamai Cloud (Linode) provide servers across multiple global locations for sending monitoring requests and storing data.
- Stripe, PayPal, CoinGatecore infrastructurePayment processing providers for credit cards, PayPal, SEPA transfers, and cryptocurrency payments. Stripe and PayPal handle traditional payments; CoinGate handles cryptocurrency.
- Postmark, MailerSendcore infrastructureEmail delivery services for sending notification emails. Postmark is primary provider with MailerSend as fallback.
- Vonage, SMSalert.mobi, Twiliocore infrastructureSMS notification providers. Vonage (formerly Nexmo) is primary, with SMSalert.mobi and Twilio as alternative/failover providers for different countries.
- Slackcore integrationNative OAuth integration allowing users to connect Slack channels for real-time up/down alerts. Simple connection process from settings page.
- Microsoft Teamscore integrationNative integration supporting Teams Inbound Webhook URL for sending alerts to Teams channels.
- Telegramcore integrationNative Telegram bot (@updown_io_bot) integration allowing users to connect to conversations or groups for notifications.
- Zapiercore integrationIntegration via Zapier allowing connection to thousands of applications for workflow automation (Discord, Trello, etc.). Users need Zapier ID from account settings.
- Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSLcore infrastructureCertificate authorities used to issue free and automatic TLS certificates for custom status page domains. Referenced in documentation for CAA record requirements.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
updown competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Better Stack: Modern observability platform combining uptime monitoring, status pages, on-call, and log management; positioned as a faster-moving, venture-backed next-gen updown.
- Cronitor: Cron job, heartbeat, and uptime monitoring that directly overlaps updown's pulse/cron monitoring product line with similar developer-focused positioning.
- Checkly: Developer-focused synthetic monitoring and E2E testing as code service targeting the same engineering persona (DevOps/SRE) as updown with a more code-driven workflow.
Direct peers
- StatusCake: Long-running website uptime and performance monitoring competitor with global check locations and SSL/domain monitoring, overlapping heavily with updown's feature set.
- UptimeRobot: One of the most widely used uptime monitoring services, offering HTTP, port, and ping checks with a freemium model. Direct overlap in target customer (developers/SMBs) and core feature set.
- Oh Dear: Belgian uptime, SSL, and broken-link monitoring SaaS with similar transparent, no-sales-team pricing ethos and developer-friendly feature set.
- Hyperping: Uptime monitoring and status pages SaaS with public/private status pages, targeting SMBs and developers with a similar self-serve, lean product.
Broad incumbents
- Datadog Synthetics: Synthetic monitoring module within the Datadog observability platform; competes with updown for uptime budget that is increasingly consumed inside broader observability suites.
- Site24x7: Zoho's full-stack website and infrastructure monitoring suite, including uptime, application, and server monitoring, competing with updown primarily for SMB and mid-market customers.
- Pingdom: Established uptime and website performance monitoring service owned by SolarWinds, regularly cited by updown customers as the more expensive incumbent they switched from.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
updown social profiles
Digital presenceupdown financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
updown leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
updown funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
updown M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about updown
What does updown do?
updown.io operates a self-serve SaaS website monitoring service that performs periodic HTTP(S), TCP(S), and ICMP check requests against customer URLs from 11 global monitoring locations, sending multi-channel alerts (email, webhook, Slack, Teams, Telegram, SMS, Statuspage, Zapier) when endpoints are down, certificates are expiring, or domain expirations approach. The service is sold via pay-as-you-go credit packs with 1 credit equaling 1 check, and is complemented by a public REST API and WebHooks plus hosted public status pages.
Is updown a public or private company?
updown is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was updown founded?
updown was founded in 2012. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is updown based?
updown is headquartered in Paris, France, in the Europe region.
How does updown make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Credit-based monitoring is the primary driver. The others are SMS Alerts.
Who are updown's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Better Stack, Cronitor and Checkly. Direct peers are StatusCake, UptimeRobot, Oh Dear and Hyperping. Broad incumbents are Datadog Synthetics, Site24x7 and Pingdom.
Does updown have an API?
Yes. REST API and WebHooks for hacking and integrating updown.io. The API allows developers to manage checks, retrieve downtimes and metrics, configure webhooks, and automate check enable/disable and maintenance. Rate limits may apply and are enforced at the discretion of updown.io. Developer documentation is at updown.io/api.
What industry is updown in?
updown's product category is Website Uptime Monitoring. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAIAFAI, Network Performance, Visibility & SLA Monitoring (Managed NPM/Observability). Its NAICS code is 518 and its SIC code is 7372.