Dynatrace synthetic monitoring is priced per execution, not per monitor. An HTTP monitor costs $0.001 per synthetic request and a browser monitor costs $0.0045 per synthetic action, both at list price. One URL checked every minute from one location runs about 43,833 times a month, so it costs $43.83. Run it from three locations and it is $131.50.
Those two numbers come straight from dynatrace.com/pricing ($1.00 per 1,000 synthetic requests, $4.50 per 1,000 synthetic actions) and the counting rules come from the Dynatrace licensing docs, both read in October 2026. Everything else on this page is arithmetic we did on top of them, using a 43,833-minute average month, and every step is shown so you can redo it with your own rate card. If your contract has a discount, multiply the totals by it; the shape of the bill does not change.
Paying Dynatrace per request just to know a URL is up?
AlertPing checks 100 websites, APIs, ports and SSL certificates every 30 seconds from US East and EU Central, confirms each failure from the second region and alerts by SMS, email, Slack or webhook, for a flat $59 a month on Team. On Dynatrace list price, $59 buys less than one HTTP monitor at one run a minute from two locations. See the plans and limits.
Dynatrace synthetic monitoring pricing rate card
Dynatrace sells synthetic monitoring as two meters on its consumption rate card (the Dynatrace Platform Subscription, or DPS). There is no per-monitor fee and no plan tier. You commit to an annual spend and every execution draws it down.
| Meter | List price | What counts as one unit | Fastest schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| HTTP Monitor | $1.00 per 1,000 synthetic requests ($0.001 each) | Each HTTP(S) request in the monitor, at each location, on each run | Every minute |
| Browser Monitor | $4.50 per 1,000 synthetic actions ($0.0045 each) | Each step that triggers a web request, at each location, on each run | Every 5 minutes |
| Data retention | Included | 35 days of synthetic results on both meters | |
| Private locations | No separate line on the price page | Runs from private locations count the same as public ones | |
| Real User Monitoring | $2.25 per 1,000 sessions | Separate meter, often bought alongside synthetics |
The Dynatrace price page does not list a separate rate for network availability monitors (the ICMP, TCP and DNS checks), and the licensing docs we read do not say how they draw down a DPS commitment. If those are the checks you plan to run at volume, get the counting rule in writing from your account team before you size the commitment.
How Dynatrace counts a synthetic request
The HTTP Monitor rule is short: one synthetic request is consumed each time a monitor runs, for each HTTP(S) request it executes, at each location. Four details in the docs change real bills more than people expect.
- Redirects are extra requests. With redirect following switched on, each hop counts. A URL that goes from http to https and then to www is three requests per run, not one.
- Failed requests still count. You pay for the run that found the outage, and for every retry during it.
- Manual runs count. An on-demand execution from the UI or the API is billed like a scheduled one.
- Skipped requests do not count. If step two of a multi-request monitor never runs because step one failed, step two is free.
Dynatrace's own worked example: 3 requests every 10 minutes (6 runs an hour) from 4 locations for 30 days is 3 x 6 x 4 x 24 x 30 = 51,840 synthetic requests, or $51.84. That is a modest monitor, and it already costs about what a whole flat uptime plan does.
What one Dynatrace HTTP monitor costs at each interval
Single request, no redirects, list price. The location count is the multiplier most teams forget: Dynatrace recommends more than one location so a single probe's network problem does not page you, and every location is billed in full.
| Interval | Runs a month | 1 location | 2 locations | 3 locations | 3 locations, 1 redirect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every minute | 43,833 | $43.83 | $87.67 | $131.50 | $263.00 |
| Every 5 minutes | 8,767 | $8.77 | $17.53 | $26.30 | $52.60 |
| Every 10 minutes | 4,383 | $4.38 | $8.77 | $13.15 | $26.30 |
| Every 15 minutes | 2,922 | $2.92 | $5.84 | $8.77 | $17.53 |
| Every 60 minutes | 731 | $0.73 | $1.46 | $2.19 | $4.38 |
The per-minute row is the one that matters if you use these monitors for outage detection. A 15-minute check is cheap and also means a customer can see a dead checkout for a quarter of an hour before anything fires. Dynatrace has no interval faster than one minute for HTTP monitors, so there is no 30-second option at any price.
What a Dynatrace browser monitor costs
Browser monitors are billed per synthetic action, and an action is any step that makes the browser issue a web request: a page load, a click that submits a form, a navigation. Scrolls, keystrokes and clicks that do not trigger a request are free, and so are XHR or fetch calls the page makes on its own. A single-URL browser monitor is one action per run. A login, search and add-to-cart clickpath is usually four to six.
| Browser monitor | Every 5 min, 1 location | Every 15 min, 1 location | Every 15 min, 3 locations | Every 60 min, 3 locations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 action (single URL) | $39.45 | $13.15 | $39.45 | $9.86 |
| 5 actions (short clickpath) | $197.25 | $65.75 | $197.25 | $49.31 |
| 10 actions (checkout flow) | $394.50 | $131.50 | $394.50 | $98.62 |
The Dynatrace docs give their own clickpath example: 3 billable steps every 15 minutes from 3 locations over a 720-hour month is 25,920 actions, which is $116.64 at $0.0045. Every extra step in a script adds the same amount again, so the cheapest browser monitor is the shortest one that still proves the journey works.
If what you actually want out of a headless browser is the page's content rather than a pass or fail, a web scraping API that returns clean page data does that job for far less than a per-action synthetic rate, because you are not paying monitoring prices for extraction work.
Dynatrace synthetic monitoring cost for 10 to 100 URLs
This is where the meter stops being a rounding error. The table uses two locations per monitor, which is the minimum we would accept for alerting, and one request per URL.
| URLs monitored | Dynatrace, every minute | Dynatrace, every 5 minutes | AlertPing, every 30 seconds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $876.66 a month | $175.33 a month | $59 a month (Team) |
| 25 | $2,191.65 a month | $438.33 a month | $59 a month (Team) |
| 50 | $4,383.30 a month | $876.66 a month | $59 a month (Team) |
| 100 | $8,766.60 a month | $1,753.32 a month | $59 a month (Team) |
The comparison is not like for like on features, and we say so below. It is like for like on the narrow question most of these monitors are bought to answer: is the URL up, and how fast did it respond. For that question a flat-priced uptime monitor instead of synthetic monitoring is cheaper by one to two orders of magnitude.
Three worked Dynatrace synthetic bills
A SaaS app with 12 public endpoints
Twelve HTTP monitors, every minute, two locations, one request each: 12 x 43,833 x 2 x $0.001 = $1,051.99 a month, about $12,624 a year of DPS commitment, before any browser monitor. Add one 5-action login clickpath every 15 minutes from three locations ($197.25) and the synthetic line is $1,249.24 a month.
An online store watching its checkout
One 10-action checkout script every 5 minutes from one location is $394.50 a month. Running it from three locations triples it to $1,183.49. Most stores end up at 15 minutes from three locations ($394.50) and accept the slower detection, which is the trade the meter pushes you into.
An agency with 40 client sites
Forty sites at 5-minute HTTP checks from two locations is $701.33 a month. At one-minute checks it is $3,506.64. The same 40 sites on AlertPing Team, at 30-second checks, cost $59 a month, and the agency still has 60 monitors left for client APIs and SSL certificates. Our uptime monitoring for agencies page covers client status pages and per-client alert routing.
When Dynatrace synthetic monitoring is the right buy
If you already run Dynatrace OneAgent on your hosts, synthetic results land next to the traces, so a failing browser monitor links straight to the service call that broke it. That correlation is real and an outside uptime tool cannot give it to you. Private synthetic locations inside your network are also a genuine strength for internal apps. Keep Dynatrace synthetics for a small number of scripted journeys that need that depth, run them at 15 minutes, and do not use them as your outage alarm.
For the full Dynatrace rate card, hosts, logs and the RAM-based Full-Stack trap, see Dynatrace pricing and how much Dynatrace costs. If you are choosing between platforms, our Datadog vs Dynatrace pricing comparison shows where per-action billing beats Datadog's per-run billing, and the synthetic monitoring tools page prices one check across every major vendor.
A flat-rate alternative for the uptime part
The split that saves the most money is simple. Detection moves to a flat-priced uptime monitor that checks every public URL, API and port every 30 seconds from two regions and only pages after the second region confirms the failure. Dynatrace keeps the handful of scripted browser journeys and the APM correlation it is good at. AlertPing Starter covers 20 monitors at 60-second checks for $49 a month; Team covers 100 monitors at 30 seconds for $59 a month, or $348 a year billed yearly. SMS alerts are included on every plan (100 a month on Starter, 300 on Team), with unlimited email, Slack and webhook alerts.
What AlertPing does not do: it does not run Playwright or Selenium scripts, it has no APM and no real user monitoring, and it has no free plan. If a scripted checkout is the requirement, keep a browser monitor for it.
Dynatrace synthetic monitoring pricing questions
How much does Dynatrace synthetic monitoring cost?
At list price, $0.001 per HTTP synthetic request and $0.0045 per browser synthetic action. One HTTP monitor run every minute from one location is about $43.83 a month, and $131.50 from three locations. A 5-step browser clickpath every 15 minutes from three locations is $197.25 a month.
How is Dynatrace synthetic monitoring billed?
Per execution, drawn down from a Dynatrace Platform Subscription commitment. HTTP monitors consume one synthetic request per HTTP(S) request, per location, per run, including redirects and failed requests. Browser monitors consume one synthetic action per step that triggers a web request, per location, per run.
Is there a free tier for Dynatrace synthetic monitoring?
The Dynatrace price page lists no free allowance for synthetic requests or actions. Usage is billed from the first execution against your DPS commitment. Dynatrace offers a time-limited trial of the platform, which is a trial rather than an ongoing free tier.
How often can a Dynatrace HTTP monitor run?
As often as once a minute. Browser monitors run at most every 5 minutes, with options of 10, 15 and 30 minutes and 1, 2 or 4 hours. There is no 30-second schedule, so the fastest detection is a minute plus the number of failed runs your alerting waits for.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Dynatrace synthetic monitoring?
For uptime checks, yes. AlertPing Team checks 100 URLs, APIs or ports every 30 seconds from two regions for $59 a month, which is less than one Dynatrace HTTP monitor at one run a minute from two locations ($87.67). Keep Dynatrace browser monitors for scripted journeys that need trace correlation.