You built a client's website. It looks great. They paid you. Project done.
Six weeks later you get a panicked email: "My site is broken! The SSL expired! Why didn't you tell me?"
You didn't know. You delivered the site and moved on to the next project. But the client thinks you're still watching their site — because who else would be?
This is the freelancer monitoring gap. You're not an agency with a DevOps team. You're one person juggling 5–10 clients. But those clients expect their sites to just work, and when they don't, you're the first person they call.
Monitoring closes that gap. It takes 5 minutes per client to set up, costs less than a coffee per month, and completely changes how clients perceive you.
The Freelancer Monitoring Problem
You're one person. Sites don't care.
Freelancers face a unique monitoring challenge:
You're not responsible for hosting, but you get blamed.
The client bought their own hosting, or you recommended one. Either way, when the server has issues, the client contacts you — not the hosting company.
Projects end, but expectations don't.
You delivered the site in January. In August, a plugin update breaks it. The client calls you. In their mind, you built it, so you maintain it — even without a retainer.
You can't be available 24/7.
You sleep. You go on vacation. You work on other projects. But servers go down at 3 AM on a Saturday, and clients notice.
You manage multiple sites on different platforms.
Client A is on WordPress with SiteGround. Client B is a Shopify store. Client C is a custom Next.js app on Vercel. Each has different failure points and different monitoring needs.
Monitoring doesn't solve all of these, but it does three critical things:
- You find out about problems before clients do
- Status pages communicate for you when you're unavailable
- SSL and domain monitoring prevents the most embarrassing failures
What to Monitor (Keep It Minimal)
You don't need enterprise monitoring
For each client site, monitor these three things:
1. Uptime (is the site responding?)
A simple HTTP check every 60 seconds. If the site goes down, you get an alert. This is the foundation — everything else is optional but valuable.
2. SSL certificate expiry
Set it and forget it. Get alerts at 30, 14, and 7 days before expiry. This prevents the most common "why is my site showing a security warning?" panic call. Check your SSL now.
3. Domain expiry
If you registered the client's domain or they gave you access, monitor the expiry date. A domain expiring and getting snatched by a squatter is a nightmare scenario.
That's the minimum. Three checks per client. Takes 2 minutes to set up.
If you want to go further:
Catches layout breaks from WordPress plugin/theme updates. Your client's site can be "up" while looking completely broken. Visual monitoring catches what uptime checks miss.
Alert when the site consistently loads slowly. Useful for identifying hosting issues before they become outages.
If the client's site depends on a contact form, booking system, or checkout, monitor that specific flow too.
The rule: monitor what would embarrass you if it broke and you didn't know.
Setting Up Monitoring for All Your Clients (30 Minutes)
Here's the complete setup for 5–10 client sites:
Sign up for a monitoring tool (2 minutes)
Choose a tool that supports multiple sites, SSL monitoring, and status pages. PerkyDash Pro at €9.99/mo covers all of this.
Add all client sites (10 minutes)
For each client: add HTTP check on primary URL, set check interval to 60 seconds, choose multiple monitoring locations. About 2 minutes per client.
Add SSL monitoring (5 minutes)
For each client domain: enable SSL monitoring with alerts at 30, 14, and 7 days before expiry.
Add domain monitoring (5 minutes)
For each client domain: enable domain expiry monitoring. Same alert schedule as SSL.
Create status pages (5 minutes)
Create one status page per client (or one for all, accessible only to you).
Configure alerts (3 minutes)
Email for all alerts. SMS or Slack for critical alerts (site completely down). Set confirmation threshold: alert after 2–3 consecutive failures to avoid false positives.
Total: ~30 minutes for 5–10 client sites.
Then it runs automatically forever.
Managing Alerts Without Burnout
10 clients × 24/7 = burnout (if you do it wrong)
The fear with monitoring is drowning in alerts. Here's how to prevent that:
Set reasonable expectations with yourself.
You don't need to respond to every alert in 5 minutes. For most freelancer clients, responding within 1–2 hours during business hours is perfectly fine. It's still infinitely better than finding out days later from an angry client email.
Use confirmation checks.
Configure alerts to fire only after 2–3 consecutive failures. This eliminates 90% of false positives (momentary network blips, brief server hiccups).
Separate critical from informational.
- SMS: Site completely down for 5+ minutes (this is rare — maybe once a month across all clients)
- Email: SSL expiring, slow response times, visual changes detected
- No alert: Everything operational (check dashboard weekly)
Set quiet hours.
Unless a client pays for 24/7 support, mute overnight alerts. Check your dashboard first thing in the morning instead. Most issues that happen at 2 AM are either resolved by morning or still ongoing and you'll catch them at 7 AM.
Weekly dashboard check.
Spend 10 minutes every Monday morning reviewing your monitoring dashboard. Look for trends: sites getting slower, SSL certificates approaching expiry, any issues you missed. This is your early warning system.
Key insight: monitoring doesn't mean you need to be on-call 24/7. It means you know what's happening. How fast you respond is a business decision, not a technical requirement.
Monitoring as a Selling Point
Win more projects with one simple differentiator
In your next proposal, add this paragraph:
"Every site I build includes 24/7 uptime monitoring with SSL certificate tracking. You'll have a status page to check your site's health anytime. If anything goes wrong, I'll know about it — usually before you do."
What this does:
Differentiates you from 90% of freelancers who build and disappear.
Most freelancers hand over the site and that's it. Offering ongoing monitoring positions you as a partner, not a vendor.
Justifies your price.
Clients comparing you to a cheaper freelancer see a clear difference: you offer ongoing reliability. That's worth a premium.
Opens the door to retainer relationships.
Monitoring is the gateway to maintenance retainers. Once the client sees the value of you watching their site, they'll naturally want ongoing support — and they'll pay for it.
Proves your competence.
Mentioning monitoring signals that you understand production reliability, not just design and development. It builds confidence, especially with non-technical clients.
Creates switching costs.
A client whose monitoring, status page, and incident history is managed by you is less likely to switch to another freelancer. You've embedded yourself in their operations.
Turning Monitoring into Monthly Revenue
From one-time projects to recurring income
The freelancer's eternal struggle: feast or famine. Monitoring helps fix that.
Tier 1: Basic Monitoring
$25–$49/mo- Uptime monitoring every 60 seconds
- SSL + domain expiry monitoring
- Email alerts
- Monthly uptime report
- Status page
Your cost: ~$2/client. Your margin: 90%+.
Tier 2: Active Monitoring
$75–$149/mo- Everything in Basic
- Visual monitoring (catch layout breaks)
- Slack/SMS alerts with faster response
- Weekly check-in email
- Minor fixes included (up to 1 hour/month)
Your cost: ~$2/client + your time. Margin: 80%+ before time cost.
Tier 3: Full Maintenance
$199–$399/mo- Everything in Active
- WordPress/CMS updates managed
- Security scanning
- Performance optimization
- Priority response + quarterly review call
Your cost: $2/client + 2–4 hours/month. Good for high-value clients.
Revenue math
10 clients × $49/month (Tier 1) = $490/month
5 clients × $149/month (Tier 2) = $745/month
2 clients × $299/month (Tier 3) = $598/month
Mix of 17 clients = $1,833/month in recurring revenue.
Your monitoring cost: $10–$40/month.
Your Own Projects Need Monitoring Too
If you have your own website, portfolio, SaaS side project, or blog — monitor those too.
Your portfolio site is your storefront.
A potential client visits your portfolio at 9 PM, gets a 500 error, and moves on. You never know you lost the opportunity. Monitor your portfolio with the same rigor as client sites.
Side projects deserve monitoring.
Building a SaaS product? An e-commerce store? A course platform? These are revenue-generating assets. Treat them accordingly.
Your personal site builds credibility.
If a client visits your site and sees a broken layout or expired SSL, the first thought is: "and this person is responsible for MY site?" Lead by example.
Add your own properties to the same monitoring setup. It's the same $10/month tool — just add more checks.
Conclusion
Monitoring as a freelancer isn't about being a one-person NOC. It's about three things:
- Knowing before your clients know. That's the difference between a panicked phone call and a proactive email saying "we caught an issue and fixed it."
- Having data to back your recommendations. "Your hosting is too slow — here's the response time data" is more convincing than "I think you should upgrade."
- Building recurring revenue. Monitoring is a $10/month cost that generates $500–$2,000/month in retainer income. No other investment has that ROI.
Start today. Add your top 3 clients. Set up uptime + SSL monitoring. Create a status page. Send them the link.
Watch how the relationship changes.
Start monitoring your client sites today.
PerkyDash Pro (€9.99/mo): Monitor all your clients + status pages
PerkyDash Agency (€39.99/mo): White-label for professional delivery
Free tools: SSL Checker, Uptime Check, Emergency Status Page