Alerts

Alerts have two parts:

1. Alert contacts — where alerts go (an e-mail address, a phone number, a Slack channel…). Manage them in Alert contacts.
2. Alert rules — which monitors alert which contacts, after how long and how often. Set them on each monitor's page under Alert rules.

What triggers an alert#

Monitors in an active maintenance window don't change status and don't alert.

Alert contacts and channels#

URLs for Slack, Discord, Teams and Google Chat must use https://. Treat webhook URLs like passwords: anyone who has one can post to your channel.

Verification#

E-mail, SMS and voice contacts must be verified before they receive alerts — this stops alerts (and costs) going to a mistyped number. After you save the contact, enter the 6-digit code we sent. If it didn't arrive, request a new code from the contact. Codes expire; an expired or wrong code is rejected with a clear message.

Testing#

Press Test next to a contact to send a test alert. The result tells you whether the channel accepted the message (for example "HTTP 404" when a webhook URL is wrong).

Channels that need platform setup#

SMS, voice calls and Telegram are delivered through providers configured by the isituprightnow operators. If one of them is not available yet, saving or testing such a contact shows a "not available yet" message instead of failing silently.

SMS and voice credits#

SMS and voice alerts use prepaid credits: one credit per SMS by default, a voice call twice the SMS cost of the destination (some countries cost more). Some plans include monthly credits, and you can buy credit packs in Billing — see Billing. When the balance reaches zero, SMS and voice alerts are skipped (other channels still work) and the account owners and admins get a "credits low" e-mail, at most once a day. The same e-mail is sent when the balance drops to 5 or less.

Alert rules#

Open a monitor and add a rule per contact under Alert rules:

Reminders stop when the monitor recovers or when someone acknowledges the incident.

Escalation patterns#

Because every rule has its own delay, a few rules make an escalation policy:

Delivery and retries#

If a channel fails to accept an alert (for example a webhook answers 500), we retry up to 5 times with growing pauses (1, 2, 4, 8 minutes…). Alerts are written in the language of the recipient: e-mail alerts follow the language of the team member who owns the address; chat, SMS, voice and webhook messages follow the account owner's language.

Webhooks#

A webhook contact sends an HTTP request to your URL for every alert. Configure:

• Method — POST (default), PUT, PATCH or GET (without a body).
• Headers — e.g. Authorization: Bearer … so your endpoint can authenticate us.
• Body template — optional; leave it empty for the default JSON payload.

Requests time out after 10 seconds, don't follow redirects, use the user agent IsItUpRightNow-Webhooks/1.0 (+https://isituprightnow.com) and count as delivered on any 2xx answer. Like checks, webhooks can only reach public internet addresses.

Default payload#

{
  "event": "monitor.down",
  "monitor": {
    "id": "8b0c7d3e-3f5a-4a49-9a51-2f1f0f4c6a10",
    "name": "Website — homepage",
    "target": "https://www.example.com/"
  },
  "status": "Down",
  "title": "Website — homepage is DOWN",
  "message": "isituprightnow: Website — homepage is DOWN: HTTP 503 (https://www.example.com/)",
  "locale": "en",
  "occurredAt": "2026-10-03T14:05:12.000Z",
  "cause": "HTTP 503",
  "regions": ["eu-central", "us-east"],
  "incidentId": "5e1f2a9b-77c4-4d3e-9a0f-6b2d8c1e4f55",
  "downtimeSeconds": null,
  "responseMs": null,
  "expiresAt": null,
  "link": "https://isituprightnow.com/app/incidents/5e1f2a9b-77c4-4d3e-9a0f-6b2d8c1e4f55"
}

Fields that don't apply are null. Titles and messages are examples — don't parse them; use event, status and the ids.

Custom body templates#

Write your own body with {{placeholders}}. When the template starts with { or [, it is sent as application/json and every value is JSON-escaped; otherwise as text/plain.

For example, to create a ticket in a system that expects its own format:

{
  "summary": "{{title}}",
  "description": "{{message}} ({{cause}}, regions: {{regions}})",
  "severity": "{{status}}",
  "external_id": "{{incidentId}}",
  "url": "{{link}}"
}

Mobile push notifications#

Team members who use the mobile app get a push notification on their phone for every down and recovery of the account's monitors — no alert rule needed. Down alerts can ring like an alarm, even during quiet hours.

E-mail preferences and in-app notifications#

Besides alerts, isituprightnow sends a few other messages. Choose which ones you get in Settings → Notifications:

Changing these never affects alerts.

• Unsubscribe link. Every report and product news e-mail ends with an Unsubscribe link and a link to your preferences. The page it opens asks you to confirm with a button — opening the link alone changes nothing — and lets you change both preferences without signing in. Mail apps that support one-click unsubscribe show their own button too.
• No tracking. These e-mails contain no tracking pixels and no tracked links.

In-app notifications#

Announcements from the isituprightnow team also appear in the dashboard: the bell at the top of every page shows how many are unread and opens the latest ten. See all notifications opens the full list, where you can filter unread ones, Mark as read one at a time or Mark all as read. Product news only appears there if you opted in to it. Notifications are kept for 180 days.