compare · alertping vs thousandeyes
ThousandEyes alternative and ThousandEyes pricing per test unit
Short answer: Cisco ThousandEyes sells an annual contract for a monthly allowance of test units, and its own docs show that one HTTP check every minute from one Cloud Agent burns 223 units a month. Twenty sites checked from three agents use 13,392. If most of your units go to "is the site and the API up", AlertPing Team checks 100 endpoints every 30 seconds from two regions for $348 a year, with the price on the page.
alertping ▸ check preview
simulated
▸ type a domain to watch a check and an alert play out
▸ simulation of 2 regions · US East · EU Central
▸ waiting…▌
queued
probing▌
If ever goes down, you get:
Alert fired ▸ 2 channels · 6.2 s after first failure
AlertPing app
● DOWN : HTTP timeout confirmed from 2/2 regions (US East, EU Central). Incident opened.
sms · on-call
AlertPing: DOWN. Confirmed 2/2 regions . First fail: EU Central.
Simulation, not a measurement of your site: this preview runs entirely in your browser and the latencies are generated from the domain you typed. Real checks on your monitors run from our US East and EU Central regions.
Annual
contract for a fixed number of units each month. Unused units do not roll over.
223 units
for one HTTP test a month, every minute, one Cloud Agent, 5-second timeout
1 minute
the fastest scheduled interval. The API accepts 60 to 3,600 seconds.
$348 / yr
AlertPing Team, 100 monitors every 30 seconds from US East and EU Central
thousandeyes pricing
How much ThousandEyes costs, and what Cisco actually publishes
The ThousandEyes pricing page has no dollar figures. It says the product is an annual subscription priced on your visibility needs, and it splits the catalog in two. Network and App Synthetics (HTTP, page load, API, DNS, BGP and voice tests) is billed in test units. Endpoint Experience and Internet Insights are billed per license.
What Cisco does publish, in its usage and billing docs, is the exact formula that turns your test settings into units. That is the useful part, because it tells you which tests eat the allowance before you ever see a quote. The dollar price per unit comes from your account team.
Contracts commit to a monthly unit amount for a year. Overages are normally disabled, so when projected use hits 100% the platform stops you adding tests. Where overages are switched on, the default cap is 115%.
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Contract
Annual commitment to a set number of units per month. Renews monthly from the contract start date.
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Formula
Milli-units per round x rounds in 31 days x number of agents, divided by 1,000.
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Web tests
HTTP server, page load and transaction tests cost 1 milli-unit per second of timeout per Cloud Agent.
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Agents
Enterprise Agents you host yourself use half the milli-units of a Cloud Agent.
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Limits
Unused units expire each month. At 100% projected use, new or bigger tests are blocked.
the unit bill
ThousandEyes units for common uptime setups
Every figure below is the Cisco formula applied to a 31-day month, the same period its unit calculator projects. Interval, timeout and agent count drive the number, so the same 20 websites can cost 2,678 units or 26,784 depending on two settings.
| Setup | Test type | Interval | Timeout | Agents | Units a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 website | HTTP server | 1 min | 5 s | 1 Cloud | 223 |
| 20 websites and APIs | HTTP server | 5 min | 5 s | 3 Cloud | 2,678 |
| 20 websites and APIs | HTTP server | 1 min | 5 s | 3 Cloud | 13,392 |
| 20 websites and APIs | HTTP server | 1 min | 10 s | 3 Cloud | 26,784 |
| 20 websites and APIs | HTTP server | 1 min | 5 s | 3 Enterprise | 6,696 |
| 20 key pages | Page load | 5 min | 30 s | 5 Cloud | 26,784 |
| 100 websites and APIs | HTTP server | 1 min | 5 s | 3 Cloud | 66,960 |
| AlertPing Team | HTTP, API, port, SSL | 30 s | n/a | 2 regions | Flat $348 a year |
Rounds in 31 days: 44,640 at 1 minute, 8,928 at 5 minutes. Source: docs.thousandeyes.com, Calculating Units and About Units.
Why uptime tests are the expensive part of a ThousandEyes contract
Most ThousandEyes tests cost a flat 5 milli-units a round. Web tests do not: they cost one milli-unit for every second of timeout. A 5-second HTTP check is the cheapest web test you can set, and a page load with a 30-second timeout costs six times as much per round. Then the round count multiplies by every agent you pick.
So the tests that answer "is it up" from several places, every minute, are exactly the ones that grow the unit line fastest. BGP is the opposite: a flat 24 units per prefix a month, whatever the monitor count. That is why a split setup often makes sense.
units a month, Cisco formula
Milli-units x rounds x agents / 1,000. AlertPing has no unit meter: Team is a flat 100 monitors.
thousandeyes alternatives
ThousandEyes alternatives for website and API checks, with prices
Lists of ThousandEyes alternatives usually mix network path tools like Kentik with simple uptime monitors. The table keeps to tools that check websites and APIs from outside your network, and shows each vendor's own list price in US dollars where one exists.
| Tool | Published entry price | Fastest uptime or API check | Check locations | Network path and BGP | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cisco ThousandEyes | Quote only, annual units | 1 minute | Cloud Agents in 276 metros, plus your own Enterprise Agents | Yes, the core strength | Network teams proving whether an outage is the ISP, the cloud or the app |
| Catchpoint (now LogicMonitor) | Quote only add-on | Heartbeat as often as every 5 s | Large public and private agent network | Yes | Global enterprises measuring ISP, CDN and DNS paths |
| Datadog Synthetics | $5 per 10,000 API runs, annual | 1 minute | Managed and private locations | TCP, UDP and ICMP tests | Teams already paying for Datadog |
| Checkly | Team $64 a month, annual billing | 30 s on Team | 22 public plus private | No | Developers writing checks as code |
| ITRS Uptrends | Pro from $60 a month annual | 1 minute on Pro, 30 s on Enterprise | 230+ checkpoints | No | Buyers who want many named checkpoints |
| AlertPing | Starter $24 a month yearly, Team $29 | 60 s Starter, 30 s Team and Business, 15 s Enterprise | US East, EU Central | No | Uptime, API, port, SSL and cron checks with status pages and phone alerts |
Sources: thousandeyes.com/pricing, docs.thousandeyes.com, logicmonitor.com/pricing, datadoghq.com/pricing/list, checklyhq.com/pricing, uptrends.com/pricing. The Catchpoint story is in our Catchpoint alternative page, and Datadog's per-run math is in Datadog Synthetics pricing.
read this before you switch
Where ThousandEyes is still the better tool
- Path visualization hop by hop, with BGP route monitoring, so you can show a carrier its own packet loss.
- Internet Insights, which tells you when a provider outage is hitting many companies at once, not only you.
- Enterprise Agents inside branch offices, data centers and Cisco routers and switches, testing from where your staff actually sit.
- Endpoint Experience on employee laptops, Wi-Fi and VPN views, and SIP and RTP voice tests for UCaaS.
If those are why you bought it, keep it. If the unit report shows most units going to HTTP and page load tests on your own public sites, you are paying network-intelligence rates for an uptime job, and that part moves cleanly.
the uptime job
What AlertPing covers when uptime tests leave ThousandEyes
HTTP and API checks
Status code, keyword and response time on every URL or endpoint, with headers and a request body for APIs.
Second-region confirmation
A failure from one region is re-checked from the other region before anyone is paged, which cuts false alarms.
SSL and port checks
Certificate expiry warnings and TCP port checks for mail, databases and custom services.
Status pages
A public status page on every plan, and up to 20 with a custom domain on Business.
Alerts where people are
Email, SMS, Slack and webhooks on every plan, escalation chains and on-call hours from Team.
No meter to watch
A monitor costs the same at 30 seconds as at 5 minutes. Adding a region never changes the bill.
Plans and limits are on the AlertPing pricing page, and the synthetic monitoring tools comparison prices the wider field per check if you are still choosing.
migration
How to cut your ThousandEyes unit commitment at renewal
Units are committed for a year, so the saving lands at renewal, not the day you switch. Start about 90 days before the term ends, move the plain availability tests first, and go into the call with a smaller monthly unit number backed by your own usage screen.
Teams weighing a bigger platform change can read the LogicMonitor competitors guide first.
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1
Read the usage screen
In Usage and Billing, sort tests by units. Tag each one as uptime, API, page load, network path or voice.
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2
Rebuild the uptime and API tests
One AlertPing monitor per URL, endpoint or port, with the same expected status, keyword and timeout.
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3
Copy the alert routing
Recreate recipients as escalation chains with delays and on-call hours, and point the status page at the new monitors.
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4
Run both for two weeks
Compare alerts side by side. Differences usually come from agent count and retry settings, not the check itself.
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5
Renew a smaller allowance
Keep BGP, path and Enterprise Agent tests in ThousandEyes and ask for a quote on that unit number alone.
questions buyers ask
ThousandEyes alternative questions
How much does ThousandEyes cost?
ThousandEyes does not publish a price. It is sold as an annual subscription: synthetic tests are billed in test units with a fixed monthly allowance, and Endpoint Experience and Internet Insights are billed per license. Cisco documents how units are calculated, so you can size the allowance, but the dollar price per unit comes from a quote.
How are ThousandEyes units calculated?
Units per test equal the milli-unit cost per round, times the rounds in a 31-day month, times the number of agents, divided by 1,000. Web tests cost 1 milli-unit per second of timeout per Cloud Agent, and Enterprise Agents cost half. One HTTP test every minute from one Cloud Agent with a 5-second timeout uses 223 units a month.
What are the best ThousandEyes alternatives?
For network path and internet visibility, the closest alternatives are Catchpoint, now part of LogicMonitor, and Kentik. For website and API availability with a published price, Datadog Synthetics, Checkly, ITRS Uptrends and AlertPing are the usual shortlist. AlertPing Team costs $348 a year for 100 monitors checked every 30 seconds.
Is there a cheaper alternative to ThousandEyes for uptime monitoring?
Yes, if uptime is the job. ThousandEyes charges units for every round from every agent, so frequent checks from several locations grow the bill fast. A flat-priced uptime monitor such as AlertPing checks 100 websites, APIs and ports every 30 seconds from two regions for $29 a month billed yearly, with no unit meter.
What happens if I run out of ThousandEyes units?
When projected use for the month reaches 100%, ThousandEyes stops you adding scheduled tests or changing tests in ways that use more units. If actual use reaches 100%, for example through many instant tests, scheduled tests are disabled. Overages are off for most customers; where enabled, the default cap is 115%.
Do unused ThousandEyes units roll over?
No. Your unit allowance renews every month from the contract start date, and units you did not use in a month do not carry over. That makes it worth sizing the commitment to what you really run, and moving tests that do not need ThousandEyes before you renew.
Can AlertPing replace ThousandEyes completely?
No. AlertPing checks websites, APIs, ports, SSL certificates and cron heartbeats from two regions, with status pages and phone, SMS and Slack alerts. It does not do path visualization, BGP monitoring, Internet Insights, Enterprise Agents on your own network, endpoint or voice tests. Many teams keep ThousandEyes for those and move availability checks.
How often can ThousandEyes run a test?
The fastest scheduled interval is 1 minute, and the API accepts intervals from 60 to 3,600 seconds. Each halving of the interval doubles the rounds and the units. AlertPing checks every 30 seconds on Team and Business and every 15 seconds on Enterprise, at a flat price per plan.
related comparisons
how we page you
Two regions have to agree
A single failed probe never wakes anybody. A second region, US East or EU Central, re-checks first, so a hiccup on one route is not a 3am phone call.
what a plan covers
SMS is in the price, not in credits
Email, Slack and webhook alerts are unlimited on every plan, SMS comes with a monthly allowance, and each plan hosts status pages. No credit packs, no per-message fee, no per-monitor math.
how setup works
One URL, no agent to install
Paste the address, choose where alerts go, and the first check runs from both regions. No agent, no config file, nothing to deploy on your side.
Uptime and API checks without a unit meter
Websites, APIs, ping hosts, ports, SSL certificates and cron heartbeats, confirmed from a second region. Team watches 100 monitors every 30 seconds for $59 a month, or $348 a year.