Quick Start Guide

Welcome to Probecast! This guide will help you get started in just a few minutes.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Sign up for a free account at probecast.io/signup. You can use your email or sign in with Google.

Step 2: Add APIs to Monitor

Once logged in, you have two options:

• Browse Public Catalog: Choose from 300+ pre-configured APIs (Stripe, SendGrid, AWS, etc)
• Add Custom APIs: Enter your own API endpoints (Startup & Scale plans)

Step 3: Configure Alerts

Go to Settings → Alerts and choose how you want to be notified:

• Email notifications (all plans)
• Slack notifications (all plans)
• Webhook integrations for Teams (Startup and Scale plans)

Step 4: View Your Dashboard

Your dashboard shows real-time status of all monitored APIs. You'll see:

• Current status (up/down/degraded)
• Uptime percentage (24h, 7d, 30d)
• Average latency from 3 global regions
• Recent incidents

Setting Up Alerts

Stay informed instantly when something goes wrong. Probecast offers multiple notification channels.

Alert Types

Adding APIs to Monitor

From Public Catalog

1. Click "Browse APIs" in your dashboard
2. Use search or filter by category (Payment, Email, SMS, etc)
3. Click the "+" icon on any API card
4. Confirm to add it to your dashboard

Custom APIs (Startup & Scale)

Monitor your own APIs and internal endpoints:

1. Go to Dashboard → Custom APIs → Add New
2. Fill in the information:
   • Name: Friendly name (e.g., "Payment API - Production")
   • URL: The endpoint to monitor
   • Method: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, or HEAD
   • Expected Status: HTTP codes considered healthy (typically 200-299)
   • Headers: (Optional) Authentication or custom headers
   • Body: (Optional) Request body for POST/PUT
3. Click "Start Monitoring"

Limits per Plan

Understanding Status Codes

Probecast categorizes API health into three states:

● Up (Healthy)

The API is responding correctly with expected status codes. All systems normal.

● Degraded

The API is responding but slower than usual, or intermittently failing. May indicate issues.

● Down (Unhealthy)

The API is not responding, returning error codes, or timing out. Action required.

How We Calculate Uptime

Uptime is calculated as:

Check Frequency

We check each API every 5 minutes from 3 geographic regions:

• 🇺🇸 United States (us-east-1, us-west-2)
• 🇸🇬 Asia (ap-southeast-1)
• 🇪🇺 Europe (eu-west-1)

Example

If an API had 285 successful checks out of 288 total checks in 24 hours:

Multi-Region Monitoring

Probecast monitors APIs from 3 strategic global locations to ensure comprehensive coverage:

How It Works for Customers

Understand the complete monitoring and notification flow of Probecast.

The 6 Pillars (Scale Plan)

Scale plan customers get access to comprehensive stack monitoring across 6 critical areas:

Stack Health Score (Scale Plan)

Your Stack Health Score is a single metric (0-100) that represents the overall health of your entire technology stack.

How It's Calculated

Each pillar contributes to your overall score with different weights:

• APIs: 40%
• Infrastructure: 20%
• Business Services: 15%
• Security: 10%
• Performance: 10%
• Supply Chain: 5%

Interpreting Your Score

• 95-100: Excellent - All systems healthy
• 90-94: Good - Minor issues detected
• 80-89: Fair - Some services degraded
• Below 80: Poor - Action needed

Public Badges (Startup & Scale)

Showcase your API reliability with embeddable badges for your website, README, or documentation.

How to Use

Each monitored API has a unique badge you can embed:

Customization Options

• Period: 24h, 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days
• Style: Badge, Shield, or Flat
• Color: Automatic based on uptime or custom
• Label: Customize the displayed text

Example Code

Badges update automatically in real-time. When your API goes offline, the badge reflects this immediately.

Public Status Pages

Create public status pages for your customers to monitor the health of your services in real-time.

What Are Status Pages?

Status Pages are public web pages (like status.yourcompany.com) that show the current and historical status of your services. Your customers can:

• View real-time status of all your services
• Check incident history and uptimes
• Receive notifications when there are problems
• Access 24/7 without requiring login

How to Create a Status Page

1. Go to Dashboard → Public Status Pages
2. Click "Create New Status Page"
3. Select which APIs you want to display publicly
4. Customize: title, description, logo, colors
5. Choose your URL: your-company.probecast.io
6. Publish!

Custom Domain (Scale)

Scale plan customers can use their own domain:

• status.yourcompany.com (instead of yourcompany.probecast.io)
• Configure CNAME in your DNS pointing to Probecast
• Automatic SSL/HTTPS via Let's Encrypt

Heartbeat Monitoring

Heartbeat Monitoring is an inverse monitoring approach: instead of Probecast checking your service, your service sends periodic pings to Probecast. If a ping is missed, an alert is triggered.

How It Works

Ideal for monitoring cron jobs, background workers, batch processes, scheduled tasks, and any service that runs on a schedule.

Integration Examples

# Cron job example
0 * * * * /path/to/your/script.sh && curl -s https://probecast.io/api/heartbeat/ping/your-slug

# Node.js example
await doWork();
await fetch('https://probecast.io/api/heartbeat/ping/your-slug');

# Python example
do_work()
requests.get('https://probecast.io/api/heartbeat/ping/your-slug')

Limits per Plan

Webhooks

Integrate Probecast with any system through HTTP webhooks. Receive real-time notifications of incidents.

How They Work

When an incident occurs (or is resolved), Probecast makes an HTTP POST to the URL you configure, with all event data.

Configuration

1. Go to Settings → Webhooks
2. Click "Add Webhook"
3. Enter your endpoint URL
4. Choose which events to receive (incident.created, incident.resolved, etc)
5. Configure optional secret to validate signatures
6. Save and test

Example Payload

{
  "event": "incident.created",
  "timestamp": "2026-02-05T14:32:00Z",
  "incident": {
    "id": "inc_abc123",
    "api_name": "Stripe API",
    "status": "down",
    "severity": "critical",
    "affected_regions": ["us-east-1", "eu-west-1"],
    "started_at": "2026-02-05T14:30:15Z",
    "message": "API returning 503 errors"
  }
}

Popular Integrations

• Slack: Send messages to specific channels
• Microsoft Teams: Team notifications
• Custom: Any HTTP endpoint that accepts POST

Incident Reports

Each incident generates a complete report with detailed analysis and recommendations.

What's Included

How to Access

Reports are available in:

• Dashboard → Incidents → Click on any incident
• Via direct link in email/SMS/Slack notifications
• Admin Dashboard → Incident Management (for admins)

Billing & Plans

Available Plans

Probecast offers 3 plans to meet different needs:

Changing Plans

You can upgrade or downgrade at any time in Settings → Billing. Changes are applied with automatic proration - you only pay the proportional difference for the remaining time in the cycle.

Payment Methods

We accept all major credit cards through Stripe. All transactions are secure, encrypted, and processed in compliance with PCI-DSS.

Cancellation

You can cancel at any time, without penalties or notice periods. Your plan remains active until the end of the already paid billing period. After cancellation, you automatically return to the free Indie plan.

Need Help?

Contact our support team: support@probecast.io

Data & Privacy

We take your privacy seriously. We are compliant with GDPR and data security best practices.

GDPR Compliance

Probecast is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You have the right to:

• Access: View all data we store about you
• Rectification: Correct incorrect or outdated data
• Portability: Export your data in JSON format
• Deletion: Request complete removal of all your data

Account Deletion

You can request deletion of your account at any time in Settings → Account → Delete Account.

After deletion confirmation:

• All personal data is permanently removed
• Monitored APIs, history, and settings are deleted
• Paid subscriptions are canceled (no prorated refund)
• Complete process within 48 hours

Data Security

• Encryption: TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256 at rest
• Headers and Credentials: Never logged, always encrypted
• Backups: Daily encrypted backups, retained for 30 days
• Access: Minimum privilege, 2FA mandatory for admins
• Audits: Audit logs for all sensitive operations

Data Retention

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Answers to the most common questions about Probecast.