Best API Monitoring Tools in 2026: Complete Comparison Guide

Best API Monitoring Tools in 2026: Complete Comparison Guide

Quick Answer: The best API monitoring tools in 2026 are Datadog and New Relic for enterprise observability, Better Stack for startups needing full-stack monitoring, UptimeRobot and Pingdom for simple uptime checks, Checkly for API testing, and API Status Check for real-time status aggregation of 120+ popular APIs without configuration.

The right choice depends on your needs: incident management, synthetic testing, infrastructure monitoring, or status aggregation. This guide breaks down all 12 major tools with honest pros/cons, pricing, and use cases.

Comparison Table: Top 12 API Monitoring Tools

Tool Free Tier Paid Plans Best For Uptime SLA Alert Channels
Datadog 14-day trial $15+/host/mo Enterprise observability ✅ Yes Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, 500+
New Relic 100GB free/mo $99+/user/mo Full-stack APM ✅ Yes Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks
Pingdom 14-day trial $10+/mo Simple uptime monitoring ✅ Yes Email, SMS, Slack, webhooks
UptimeRobot ✅ 50 monitors $7/mo (Pro) Budget-friendly uptime ✅ Yes Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhooks
Better Stack ✅ 1 project $29+/mo Startup incident mgmt ✅ Yes Email, Slack, MS Teams, phone, SMS
Checkly ✅ 10k runs/mo $7+/mo API testing & E2E ✅ Yes Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks
API Status Check ✅ 120+ APIs Free forever Status aggregation ✅ Yes Email, webhooks, RSS, Slack, Discord
Postman Monitors ✅ 1,000 runs/mo $12+/user/mo API development teams ❌ No Email, Slack, webhooks
Runscope 14-day trial $79+/mo API testing & debugging ✅ Yes Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks
Assertible ✅ 1,000 runs/mo $25+/mo CI/CD API testing ✅ Yes Email, Slack, webhooks
StatusCake ✅ 10 monitors $24+/mo Multi-location uptime ✅ Yes Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhooks
Uptime.com 21-day trial $30+/mo Enterprise uptime ✅ Yes Email, SMS, Slack, PagerDuty, phone

Detailed Reviews: 12 Best API Monitoring Tools

1. Datadog — Best for Enterprise Observability

Website: datadog.com

What it is: Full-stack observability platform covering infrastructure, APM, logs, real user monitoring, security, and synthetic API monitoring.

Pricing:

  • Free: 14-day trial only
  • Infrastructure: $15/host/month
  • APM: $31/host/month
  • Synthetics: $5/10k API tests

Key Features:

  • Unified platform: Metrics, traces, logs in one place
  • 700+ integrations (AWS, Kubernetes, databases, etc.)
  • AI-driven anomaly detection
  • Custom dashboards with powerful query language
  • Distributed tracing across microservices
  • Real User Monitoring (RUM)

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • Synthetic API tests from 40+ global locations
  • Multi-step API workflows
  • SSL certificate monitoring
  • Response validation (status codes, headers, body)
  • SLA tracking and uptime reporting

Pros:

  • ✅ Best-in-class for large engineering orgs
  • ✅ Unified observability (no tool sprawl)
  • ✅ Powerful correlation between metrics, logs, traces
  • ✅ Excellent Kubernetes/cloud-native support

Cons:

  • ❌ Expensive at scale ($1,000+/month easily)
  • ❌ Steep learning curve
  • ❌ Overkill for simple uptime checks
  • ❌ No free tier (trial only)

Best for: Engineering teams with 50+ employees, microservices architectures, companies needing unified observability across infrastructure, applications, and APIs.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, Microsoft Teams, OpsGenie, VictorOps, 500+ integrations

2. New Relic — Best for Full-Stack APM

Website: newrelic.com

What it is: Application Performance Monitoring (APM) platform with infrastructure monitoring, browser monitoring, mobile monitoring, and synthetic API testing.

Pricing:

  • Free: 100 GB data ingest/month, 1 full platform user
  • Standard: $99/user/month (unlimited data)
  • Pro: $349/user/month (advanced features)

Key Features:

  • APM with distributed tracing
  • Real user monitoring (browser + mobile)
  • Infrastructure monitoring (servers, containers, Kubernetes)
  • Synthetic monitoring (API + browser tests)
  • AI-powered incident intelligence
  • Custom queries with NRQL (New Relic Query Language)

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • Synthetic API checks from 20+ locations
  • Multi-step API workflows
  • Response time tracking
  • SSL certificate monitoring
  • Scripted tests with Node.js

Pros:

  • ✅ Generous free tier (100GB/month)
  • ✅ Excellent APM and tracing
  • ✅ Strong correlation between frontend and backend
  • ✅ Good for Node.js, Ruby, Python, Java, Go

Cons:

  • ❌ Complex pricing model (per-user + data)
  • ❌ Synthetic monitoring costs extra
  • ❌ UI can be overwhelming
  • ❌ Not ideal for simple uptime monitoring

Best for: Development teams building modern web applications, companies needing APM + synthetic monitoring, orgs already invested in New Relic ecosystem.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, OpsGenie, VictorOps, xMatters

3. Pingdom — Best for Simple Uptime Monitoring

Website: pingdom.com (owned by SolarWinds)

What it is: Classic uptime monitoring service focused on website and API availability from global checkpoints.

Pricing:

  • Free: 14-day trial
  • Starter: $10/month (10 uptime checks)
  • Advanced: $36/month (50 checks, RUM)
  • Professional: $72/month (100 checks)

Key Features:

  • Uptime monitoring from 100+ global locations
  • Real User Monitoring (RUM)
  • Page speed monitoring
  • Transaction monitoring (multi-step)
  • Root cause analysis
  • Public status pages

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS uptime checks
  • Response time from multiple locations
  • SSL certificate expiration alerts
  • Basic response validation (status codes, keywords)
  • Simple multi-step transactions

Pros:

  • ✅ Easy setup (5 minutes)
  • ✅ Clean, intuitive UI
  • ✅ 100+ monitoring locations
  • ✅ Trusted brand (20+ years)
  • ✅ Good mobile app

Cons:

  • ❌ No free tier (trial only)
  • ❌ Limited API testing capabilities
  • ❌ Basic alerting (no on-call schedules)
  • ❌ Expensive for many checks

Best for: Small to medium businesses needing reliable uptime monitoring, teams wanting simple setup, companies already using SolarWinds products.

Alert Channels: Email, SMS, Slack, webhooks, PagerDuty, VictorOps, OpsGenie

4. UptimeRobot — Best Free Option

Website: uptimerobot.com

What it is: Budget-friendly uptime monitoring with a generous free tier.

Pricing:

  • Free: 50 monitors, 5-minute intervals
  • Pro: $7/month (50 monitors, 1-minute intervals)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • HTTP, keyword, ping, port monitoring
  • 13 monitoring locations (free) / 90+ (paid)
  • Public status pages
  • Incident timeline
  • Maintenance windows
  • Mobile apps (iOS/Android)

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS endpoint checks
  • Custom HTTP headers
  • Response time tracking
  • Basic response validation (keywords, status codes)
  • SSL certificate monitoring

Pros:

  • ✅ Best free tier (50 monitors!)
  • ✅ Simple, no-nonsense UI
  • ✅ Affordable paid plans ($7/month)
  • ✅ Status pages included
  • ✅ Good mobile app

Cons:

  • ❌ 5-minute intervals on free (slow for critical APIs)
  • ❌ Limited monitoring locations on free
  • ❌ Basic alerting (no on-call schedules)
  • ❌ No multi-step API testing
  • ❌ Limited integrations

Best for: Indie developers, side projects, startups on a budget, simple uptime monitoring needs, anyone wanting 50 free monitors.

Alert Channels: Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhooks, Telegram, push notifications

5. Better Stack (Better Uptime) — Best for Startups

Website: betterstack.com

What it is: Modern incident management platform combining uptime monitoring, on-call scheduling, and status pages.

Pricing:

  • Free: 1 project, 10 monitors, 1 status page
  • Basic: $29/month (unlimited monitors, 2 team members)
  • Team: $49/month (10 team members)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • Uptime monitoring from 20+ locations
  • On-call scheduling with rotations
  • Incident management workflows
  • Phone call alerts
  • Beautiful status pages
  • Log management (Better Stack Logs)
  • Heartbeat monitoring

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS endpoint checks
  • Custom headers and authentication
  • Response time tracking
  • Response validation (status, body, headers)
  • SSL certificate monitoring
  • Heartbeat URLs for cron jobs

Pros:

  • ✅ Modern, beautiful UI
  • ✅ Excellent on-call management
  • ✅ Phone call alerts included
  • ✅ Fast setup (10 minutes)
  • ✅ Great documentation
  • ✅ Active development

Cons:

  • ❌ Free tier limited to 1 project
  • ❌ Fewer monitoring locations than competitors
  • ❌ No multi-step API testing
  • ❌ Young product (less battle-tested)

Best for: Startups needing incident management + uptime monitoring, teams wanting beautiful status pages, companies outgrowing free tools but not ready for enterprise pricing.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, phone calls, SMS, Discord, webhooks, Telegram

6. Checkly — Best for API Testing

Website: checklyhq.com

What it is: Monitoring and testing platform focused on APIs and E2E browser checks, built for developers.

Pricing:

  • Free: 10,000 check runs/month
  • Developer: $7/month (50k runs)
  • Team: $80/month (500k runs)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • API monitoring with assertions
  • Browser checks (Playwright-powered)
  • Multi-step API workflows
  • CLI for CI/CD integration
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
  • Global monitoring locations
  • Detailed performance metrics

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • RESTful API testing with full request/response validation
  • GraphQL support
  • Authentication (OAuth, JWT, API keys)
  • Chained requests (use response data in next request)
  • Performance budgets
  • Schema validation (JSON, XML)

Pros:

  • ✅ Best API testing capabilities
  • ✅ Developer-first (CLI, IaC, Git-based)
  • ✅ Great for CI/CD pipelines
  • ✅ Generous free tier (10k runs)
  • ✅ Playwright for E2E testing
  • ✅ Excellent documentation

Cons:

  • ❌ Not ideal for simple uptime checks (overkill)
  • ❌ Requires technical setup (not for non-devs)
  • ❌ Limited incident management features
  • ❌ No status pages

Best for: Engineering teams building APIs, companies with CI/CD workflows, teams needing comprehensive API testing, developers comfortable with code-based configuration.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, Discord, OpsGenie, Microsoft Teams

7. API Status Check — Best for Status Aggregation

Website: apistatuscheck.com

What it is: Real-time status aggregation for 120+ popular APIs and SaaS platforms. We monitor vendor status pages AND test actual endpoints so you don't have to.

Pricing:

  • Free: Forever, no credit card
  • Alert Pro: $9/month (Slack/Discord webhooks, custom alerts)
  • Team: $29/month (team dashboards, 10 members)
  • Developer: $49/month (API access, unlimited webhooks)

Key Features:

  • 120+ APIs monitored (GitHub, Stripe, OpenAI, AWS, Vercel, etc.)
  • Real endpoint testing every 60 seconds
  • Vendor status page aggregation
  • Email/webhook alerts
  • RSS feeds per service
  • MCP server for Claude Desktop
  • Public API
  • Zero configuration required

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • Pre-configured monitoring for popular APIs
  • Real endpoint pings (not just status scraping)
  • Instant incident detection
  • Historical uptime data
  • Status page aggregation

Pros:

  • ✅ Zero setup (sign up = instant monitoring)
  • ✅ Free forever
  • ✅ Clean, simple UI
  • ✅ Great for monitoring SaaS dependencies
  • ✅ MCP integration with Claude
  • ✅ Honest about what we do (status aggregation)

Cons:

  • ❌ Can't monitor your own APIs (only pre-configured services)
  • ❌ Limited to 120+ APIs (not custom endpoints)
  • ❌ No synthetic multi-step testing
  • ❌ Basic alerting (no on-call schedules)

Best for: Developers building on popular APIs (Stripe, GitHub, Auth0), teams monitoring SaaS dependencies, anyone wanting instant status without configuration, complementing other monitoring tools.

Alert Channels: Email, webhooks, RSS, Slack (paid), Discord (paid)

8. Postman Monitors — Best for API Development Teams

Website: postman.com

What it is: API monitoring built into the Postman API development platform. Run collections as scheduled tests.

Pricing:

  • Free: 1,000 monitoring runs/month
  • Basic: $12/user/month (10k runs)
  • Professional: $29/user/month (100k runs)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • Run Postman collections as monitors
  • Pre-request scripts and tests
  • Environment variables
  • Multi-step API workflows
  • Integration with Postman ecosystem
  • Global monitoring regions

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • Full request/response validation
  • Chained API calls
  • Authentication flows
  • JavaScript-based assertions
  • Performance testing
  • Contract testing

Pros:

  • ✅ Perfect if already using Postman
  • ✅ Reuse existing collections as monitors
  • ✅ Powerful scripting capabilities
  • ✅ Great for complex API workflows
  • ✅ Team collaboration features

Cons:

  • ❌ No uptime SLA tracking (not designed for uptime)
  • ❌ Limited alerting (basic email/Slack)
  • ❌ Pricing per user can get expensive
  • ❌ Overkill if not already in Postman ecosystem

Best for: Teams already using Postman for API development, QA engineers running scheduled API tests, companies needing to validate complex API workflows.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, webhooks (limited)

9. Runscope — Best for API Debugging

Website: runscope.com (owned by BlazeMeter/Broadcom)

What it is: API monitoring and debugging platform focused on multi-step API testing.

Pricing:

  • Free: 14-day trial
  • Starter: $79/month (1 million requests)
  • Growth: $249/month (5 million requests)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • Multi-step API test sequences
  • Request/response capture and debugging
  • Environment variables
  • Pre-request scripts
  • Integration testing
  • Global test locations

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • Complex API workflows
  • Authentication testing (OAuth, JWT)
  • Data-driven testing
  • Response validation (headers, body, timing)
  • Pass/fail criteria
  • Detailed request inspection

Pros:

  • ✅ Excellent debugging capabilities
  • ✅ Good for integration testing
  • ✅ Multi-step workflows
  • ✅ Request inspection tools

Cons:

  • ❌ Expensive ($79/month minimum)
  • ❌ No free tier
  • ❌ Product feels dated (acquired by BlazeMeter)
  • ❌ Uncertain roadmap post-acquisition
  • ❌ Limited recent updates

Best for: Teams needing deep API debugging, integration testing across multiple services, companies with budget for specialized tools (though consider Checkly as modern alternative).

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, HipChat (deprecated)

10. Assertible — Best for CI/CD API Testing

Website: assertible.com

What it is: Automated API testing platform optimized for continuous integration and deployment pipelines.

Pricing:

  • Free: 1,000 test runs/month
  • Starter: $25/month (10k runs)
  • Business: $100/month (50k runs)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • Post-deployment API testing
  • GitHub/GitLab integration
  • Scheduled monitoring
  • Environment management
  • Team collaboration
  • Test result history

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS endpoint testing
  • Response validation (status, headers, body, JSON schema)
  • SSL certificate checks
  • Performance thresholds
  • Multi-step workflows
  • Deployment webhooks

Pros:

  • ✅ Great CI/CD integration
  • ✅ Simple, focused product
  • ✅ Good for post-deployment validation
  • ✅ Reasonable pricing
  • ✅ Free tier available

Cons:

  • ❌ Limited monitoring locations
  • ❌ Basic UI
  • ❌ Small team (slower feature development)
  • ❌ Less comprehensive than Checkly
  • ❌ Limited integrations

Best for: Startups with CI/CD pipelines, teams needing post-deployment API validation, companies wanting simple automated testing.

Alert Channels: Email, Slack, webhooks

11. StatusCake — Best for Multi-Location Uptime

Website: statuscake.com

What it is: Uptime and performance monitoring from 45+ global locations.

Pricing:

  • Free: 10 uptime tests, 1-minute intervals
  • Superior: $24/month (unlimited tests, 30-second intervals)
  • Business: $75/month (10-second intervals, priority support)

Key Features:

  • Uptime monitoring (HTTP, TCP, ping, DNS)
  • Page speed monitoring
  • Server monitoring (CPU, memory, disk)
  • SSL certificate monitoring
  • Virus scanning
  • 45+ monitoring locations

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS endpoint checks
  • Custom headers and authentication
  • Response time tracking
  • Status code validation
  • Keyword/regex matching
  • Multi-location testing

Pros:

  • ✅ Good free tier (10 monitors)
  • ✅ 45+ monitoring locations
  • ✅ Fast check intervals (1-minute free, 10-second paid)
  • ✅ Server monitoring included
  • ✅ Affordable

Cons:

  • ❌ Dated UI
  • ❌ Limited advanced features
  • ❌ Basic alerting
  • ❌ No multi-step API testing
  • ❌ Fewer integrations than competitors

Best for: Agencies monitoring client sites, companies needing multi-location checks, teams wanting server monitoring + uptime in one tool.

Alert Channels: Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhooks, push notifications, phone calls

12. Uptime.com — Best for Enterprise Uptime

Website: uptime.com

What it is: Enterprise-grade monitoring platform covering websites, APIs, servers, and infrastructure.

Pricing:

  • Free: 21-day trial
  • Basic: $30/month (10 checks, 1-minute intervals)
  • Professional: $80/month (50 checks, 30-second intervals)
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Key Features:

  • API monitoring from 30+ locations
  • Real User Monitoring (RUM)
  • Transaction monitoring (multi-step)
  • Infrastructure monitoring
  • Status pages
  • Incident management
  • SLA reporting

API Monitoring Capabilities:

  • HTTP/HTTPS endpoint testing
  • Multi-step API workflows
  • Response validation (headers, body, certificates)
  • Performance metrics
  • Global location testing
  • Advanced authentication

Pros:

  • ✅ Enterprise-grade reliability
  • ✅ Strong SLA features
  • ✅ Good for compliance (SOC 2, ISO)
  • ✅ Dedicated support
  • ✅ Public API for automation

Cons:

  • ❌ No free tier (trial only)
  • ❌ Expensive for small teams
  • ❌ Complex setup
  • ❌ UI not as modern as competitors

Best for: Enterprise companies with compliance requirements, large engineering teams, organizations needing SLA tracking and reporting, companies willing to pay for premium support.

Alert Channels: Email, SMS, Slack, PagerDuty, phone calls, webhooks, Microsoft Teams

Best API Monitoring Tool for Each Use Case

🆓 Best Free Option: UptimeRobot

Why: 50 free monitors with basic alerting. Perfect for indie developers and side projects. Runner-up: API Status Check (free forever, but only for pre-configured APIs)

🚀 Best for Startups: Better Stack

Why: Modern UI, on-call management, phone alerts, status pages—all for $29/month. Built for growing teams. Runner-up: Checkly (if your team is dev-heavy and wants API testing)

🏢 Best for Enterprise: Datadog

Why: Unified observability, 700+ integrations, scales to thousands of services. Worth the investment for large orgs. Runner-up: New Relic (if APM is priority) or Uptime.com (if compliance is key)

🧪 Best for API Testing: Checkly

Why: Purpose-built for API testing with assertions, chaining, CI/CD integration. Developer-friendly. Runner-up: Postman Monitors (if already in Postman ecosystem)

📊 Best for Status Aggregation: API Status Check

Why: We monitor 120+ popular APIs with zero setup. Free forever. Perfect for tracking SaaS dependencies. Alternative: StatusGator ($29/month, more services but no endpoint testing)

💰 Best Value: StatusCake Superior ($24/month)

Why: Unlimited uptime tests, 45+ locations, server monitoring included. Great price-to-feature ratio. Runner-up: Better Stack Basic ($29/month with on-call)

🔧 Best for DevOps: Datadog or New Relic

Why: Full observability stack. Metrics, logs, traces, and synthetics unified. Budget option: Better Stack + Checkly combination

How We Built This List (Methodology)

This comparison is based on:

  1. Hands-on testing: We signed up for and tested each platform
  2. Pricing research: Compared free tiers, paid plans, and enterprise pricing
  3. Feature analysis: Tested API monitoring, alerting, integrations
  4. Developer feedback: Surveyed 50+ developers about their monitoring setups
  5. Market research: Analyzed G2, Capterra, Reddit discussions
  6. Use case validation: Tested tools for different company sizes and needs

What we don't do:

  • ❌ Sponsored rankings (we don't accept payment for placement)
  • ❌ Affiliate bias (API Status Check is free; we have no incentive to mislead)
  • ❌ Marketing fluff (we'll tell you when competitors beat us)

Disclaimer: API Status Check is our product. We've been honest about our limitations (we aggregate status, we don't monitor your custom APIs). We believe transparency builds trust better than hype.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What's the difference between API monitoring and uptime monitoring?

Uptime monitoring checks if your endpoint responds (HTTP 200 = up). API monitoring goes deeper: validates response schemas, tests authentication, chains requests, measures performance, and runs functional tests.

For simple use cases (is this API reachable?), uptime tools like Pingdom work fine. For validating API behavior (is this response correct?), use API testing tools like Checkly.

2. Do I need paid monitoring or is free tier enough?

Free is enough if:

  • You're monitoring <10 APIs/websites
  • 5-minute check intervals are acceptable
  • Basic email alerts suffice
  • You don't need on-call scheduling

Upgrade to paid if:

  • You need <1-minute checks (faster incident detection)
  • Multiple team members need access
  • You want Slack/Discord/phone alerts
  • You need SLA reports for customers/compliance

Our take: Start free (UptimeRobot, API Status Check, Better Stack). Upgrade when downtime costs more than $10/month.

3. Should I monitor vendor status pages or ping APIs directly?

Monitor both:

  • Status pages: Vendor's official word (Stripe, AWS, GitHub report outages here)
  • Direct pings: Catches issues vendors haven't acknowledged yet

API Status Check does both: we aggregate status pages AND ping endpoints. For your own APIs, use tools like Pingdom or Better Stack.

4. How many monitoring locations do I need?

Minimum: 3 locations (US East, US West, Europe) Better: 5+ locations including Asia if you have global users Overkill: 30+ locations unless you're a CDN or have extreme compliance needs

Why: APIs can be down in one region but up in others. Multi-location testing catches regional outages.

5. What alert channels should I set up?

Must-have:

  • Email (for records)
  • Slack or Discord (for team visibility)
  • PagerDuty or phone (for critical services)

Nice-to-have:

  • Webhooks (for custom automation)
  • Status pages (for customer communication)

Avoid: SMS for every alert (you'll get alert fatigue). Use SMS only for P0 incidents.

6. Can I monitor GraphQL APIs?

Yes. Most modern tools support GraphQL:

  • ✅ Checkly (best GraphQL support)
  • ✅ Postman Monitors
  • ✅ Datadog
  • ✅ New Relic
  • ⚠️ Pingdom/UptimeRobot (basic POST request only)

For advanced GraphQL testing (mutations, subscriptions, schema validation), use Checkly.

7. What's better: synthetic monitoring or real user monitoring (RUM)?

Use both:

  • Synthetic: Proactive. Catches issues before users do. Tests from controlled locations.
  • RUM: Reactive. Shows actual user experience. Reveals regional/device-specific issues.

For APIs: Synthetic is usually sufficient (users don't interact with APIs directly). RUM matters more for frontend applications.

8. How do I monitor authentication-required APIs?

All major tools support authenticated requests:

  • API keys in headers
  • OAuth 2.0 flows
  • JWT tokens
  • Basic auth

Setup:

  1. Store credentials as environment variables (don't hardcode)
  2. Use token refresh logic if tokens expire
  3. Test auth failures (expired tokens, revoked access)

Best tools for auth testing: Checkly, Postman Monitors, Runscope

9. What's the ROI of API monitoring?

Downtime cost calculation:

  • $100K ARR SaaS: 1 hour downtime = ~$11 lost revenue
  • $1M ARR SaaS: 1 hour downtime = ~$114 lost revenue
  • Plus: Customer trust, support tickets, engineering time

Monitoring cost: $0–$200/month for most startups

ROI: Monitoring pays for itself if it prevents one significant outage per year. The real value is peace of mind and faster incident response.

10. Should startups use free tools or pay for enterprise platforms?

Start free:

  • UptimeRobot (50 monitors)
  • Better Stack (1 project)
  • Checkly (10k runs)
  • API Status Check (120+ APIs)

Upgrade when:

  • You have >5 engineers
  • Downtime costs >$1,000/hour
  • You need compliance (SOC 2, ISO)
  • You want unified observability

Avoid: Buying enterprise tools too early. Datadog is amazing but overkill for a 3-person team.

Get Started with API Monitoring Today

The best API monitoring tool is the one you'll actually use. Here's how to start:

If you're a solo developer:

  1. Sign up for UptimeRobot (50 free monitors)
  2. Add API Status Check for SaaS dependencies
  3. Monitor your most critical endpoints

If you're a startup (<50 employees):

  1. Better Stack for uptime + on-call ($29/month)
  2. Checkly for API testing ($7/month)
  3. API Status Check for vendor monitoring (free)

If you're enterprise (50+ employees):

  1. Datadog or New Relic for observability
  2. PagerDuty for incident management
  3. API Status Check for quick vendor status checks

Why API Status Check Exists

We built API Status Check because monitoring your own APIs is solved (Pingdom, Better Stack, Checkly). But monitoring vendor APIs you depend on (Stripe, GitHub, OpenAI) required checking 120+ status pages manually.

What we do:

  • Monitor 120+ popular APIs with real endpoint testing
  • Aggregate vendor status pages
  • Send instant alerts when dependencies go down
  • Provide a clean dashboard for SaaS monitoring

What we don't do:

  • Monitor your custom APIs (use Better Stack or Pingdom)
  • Complex multi-step API testing (use Checkly)
  • Infrastructure monitoring (use Datadog or New Relic)

We're honest about what we do because we'd rather earn trust than overpromise.

Try API Status Check free →

The Bottom Line

  • Best overall: Datadog (enterprise), Better Stack (startups), UptimeRobot (free)
  • Best API testing: Checkly
  • Best status aggregation: API Status Check
  • Best value: StatusCake or Better Stack

Choose based on your use case, team size, and budget. Start free, upgrade when downtime hurts more than monthly fees.

Want real-time status for 120+ APIs without configuration? Try API Status Check →

Related Guides

For detailed head-to-head comparisons with specific tools mentioned in this guide:

Last updated: February 5, 2026

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