How to choose Starter, Pro, or Agency for the sites you run now

The short answer

Count the sites you actually operate, then pick the plan whose cap covers that count. Starter monitors up to 5 sites at $19 per month. Pro monitors up to 15 at $69 per month. Agency monitors unlimited sites at $149 per month. Annual billing is $190, $690, and $1,490 per year. Every paid plan on the pricing page shows a 7-day trial. Choose for this quarter’s portfolio, not for a site count you hope to have later.

The rest of the decision is which extras you will use. Faster checks, webhooks, and SMS show up as the plans step up. If you will not use them, do not pay for them yet. You can move plans from billing later. You cannot monitor a sixth site on Starter, because the cap is the product limit, not a suggestion.

What stays the same on every paid plan

Starter, Pro, and Agency all include visitor and revenue tracking, uptime status badges, email notifications, and AI features when you bring your own OpenAI key. DashCanopy uses that saved key server-side to make the provider request. Provider charges stay on the provider account. One seat is included on Starter and on Pro. The trial length shown on each plan is 7 days.

Stripe asks for a card to start the trial. You are not charged until the trial period ends, if you do not cancel first. Logged-in customers cancel or update the card from Manage billing, which opens a Stripe Customer Portal session. That path is the same on every tier and is spelled out in how to manage or cancel billing.

Nothing in this article adds a discount, a coupon, or a site bonus the pricing page does not show.

Starter: five sites, ten-minute checks, email

Starter is the fit the pricing page describes for solo bloggers and new site owners. The cap is 5 sites. Health checks run every 10 minutes. You get the shared features above, and you do not get webhook event ingestion, SMS, the REST API, or white-label branding.

Choose Starter when the list is a flagship plus a few supporting sites, and email is an acceptable way to hear about a failed check. Ten minutes is a long time if a store’s checkout is your only revenue and you want to know within a minute. It is a reasonable interval if you check the dashboard in the morning and email is enough when you are away. Be honest about which of those you are.

If you are already at five sites and you know a sixth is launching this month, Starter will be the wrong cap as soon as that site exists. Count the launch, not only today’s tiles.

Pro: fifteen sites, five-minute checks, webhooks and SMS

Pro is described for growing portfolios and publishers. The cap is 15 sites. Checks run every 5 minutes. Pro includes everything in Starter, plus webhook event ingestion, SMS alerts that use your own Twilio account, premium add-ons available to purchase, and priority support. The comparison table still lists one seat. Pro is not a team plan.

Choose Pro when you are between 6 and 15 sites, or when you are under 6 sites but you specifically need webhooks or SMS. A publisher who wants order or signup events in one feed is in Pro territory even if the site count would still fit on Starter. A publisher who only needs email and has four sites is not required to step up.

SMS is not included as a DashCanopy-provided phone number. You bring Twilio. If you do not want a Twilio account, the SMS row is not a reason to buy Pro. Webhooks are. Read webhook events next to uptime before you treat that row as abstract.

Agency: no site cap, one-minute checks, seats and API

Agency is described for agencies and large portfolios. Sites are unlimited. Checks run every minute. Agency includes everything in Pro, bring-your-own-key support for the keys the plan lists, REST API access, up to 5 team members, white-label branding, all premium add-ons included, and dedicated onboarding.

Choose Agency when the site count is above 15, or when you need the API, white-label branding, or more than one seat. A solo operator with 8 sites does not need Agency for the cap. An agency putting client sites on one dashboard often does, because 15 is a small client roster and one seat is a small team. How that dashboard is used is in an agency dashboard for client sites.

“Unlimited” means the plan does not state a site cap. It does not mean unlimited seats. The seat count on the pricing page is up to 5. If you need a larger arrangement than that, the pricing page has a separate enterprise inquiry for people who describe a portfolio, starting at the form’s minimum. That inquiry is a conversation, not a fourth public price.

A simple way to decide this afternoon

Write the list of public hosts you operate: the publication, the store, the app, the docs, the status page, and any campaign subdomain that can expire without anyone noticing. Cross off anything you do not intend to monitor. Count what remains.

Five or fewer, and email is enough: Starter. Six to fifteen, or you need webhooks or Twilio SMS: Pro. Above fifteen, or you need the API, white-label, or up to five seats: Agency.

Then look at check interval as a tie-break, not as the first question. Moving from 10 minutes to 5 minutes matters when you act on alerts the same day. Moving from 5 minutes to 1 minute matters when several people share the dashboard and a failed check should show up before the next stand-up. If nobody looks at alerts, a faster interval does not create a faster response. It only creates a fresher tile.

What changing plans does not require

You do not rebuild the sites to change tier. Logged-in customers use Manage billing for the subscription. The sites you have already added stay the thing being monitored. If you move down to a plan whose cap is below your site count, you will need the list to fit the new cap. Do that count before you change the plan, not after a check fails because a site fell off the list.

Checkout is where trial terms are confirmed. Read them there. This article is a reading of the public pricing page, not a quote for your account.

Questions about the three plans

Is the yearly price a different product?

No. Yearly billing is the same plan paid annually: $190, $690, or $1,490. For Starter, $190 per year is about $15.83 per month when billed yearly. Feature rows do not change because you chose annual.

Do AI features require Pro?

No. AI features that use a bring-your-own OpenAI key are listed on Starter, Pro, and Agency. The key is the requirement, not the tier. What that key does and does not cover is in bring your own OpenAI key.

Can I start on Starter and move up after the trial?

Yes. Start on the tier that matches the sites you will connect during the trial. If you already have twelve sites, a Starter trial cannot show you a twelve-site dashboard, because the cap is 5. Trial the plan you mean to keep, then cancel from Manage billing if it is the wrong fit before the trial ends.