Choosing a cron monitor in 2026 means reading past headline prices. Better Stack removed cron monitoring entirely. Remaining tools split into per-monitor billing and per-app / flat tiers.
This page compares what Laravel teams actually pay for scheduler visibility, plus when queue and Horizon depth matter more than ping checks.
Quick comparison table
| Vendor | Entry price | How it scales | Horizon / queues | Self-host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crontinel | $0 (1 app) | Paid plans under review | Yes | Yes (MIT OSS) |
| Cronitor | ~$19/mo | Per monitor tiers | No | No |
| CronRadar | ~$1/monitor | Per discovered task | No | SaaS-first |
| Better Stack | N/A | Cron product removed 2026 | N/A | N/A |
| thenping.me | Shut down | N/A | N/A | N/A |
List prices change; use each vendor’s pricing page before purchase. Crontinel’s public tiers are on pricing.
Crontinel
- Free: 1 app, limited history, enough to validate integration
- Paid plans: Starter, Pro, and Max are planned. Billing and usage terms are still under review.
- OSS:
composer require crontinel/laravel— no SaaS fee if you self-host the dashboard
Best for: Laravel apps with Horizon, teams that want one predictable bill without counting monitors.
Cronitor
Heartbeat and schedule monitoring priced by monitor count. Strong for polyglot cron (shell scripts, non-Laravel jobs).
Best for: Simple dead-man pings across many small jobs when you do not need queue internals.
Gap for Laravel: No Horizon supervisor or queue depth without custom work.
CronRadar
Low per-monitor positioning (~$1/monitor in marketing). Cost rises as auto-discovery registers more scheduled tasks.
Best for: Greenfield apps with few tasks and multi-framework cron (Laravel + Python sidecars).
See Crontinel vs CronRadar for feature depth.
Better Stack and thenping.me
Do not budget for Better Stack cron in 2026; migrate if you still have heartbeat URLs (migration guide). thenping.me is closed; see Crontinel vs. thenping.me for what affected users should switch to.
Hidden costs to model
| Cost type | Per-monitor tools | Crontinel-style |
|---|---|---|
| Adding 10 new scheduled tasks | Often +10 monitors | Usually same app tier |
| Horizon / queue alerts | Extra vendor or DIY | Included in Laravel package |
| Staging + production | 2× monitors each env | 2 apps on same plan |
| Compliance / air-gap | Rare | Self-host OSS |
Recommendation by team size
- Solo, 1 Laravel app: Crontinel free or CronRadar low monitor count — pick Horizon depth vs lowest line item
- Small SaaS (Horizon): Crontinel Pro; avoid ping-only tools unless queues are trivial
- Agency, many small crons: Cronitor or CronRadar per-monitor can win on shell-only workloads
- Regulated / self-host: Crontinel OSS only