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Setting up a STRATO cronjob: when daily is not enough

STRATO ships its own cron management in its hosting packages. The choice of times is coarse, however, and not every package has it at all. This guide shows what works there and how to get a tighter interval.

Why at all

Daily, weekly, monthly, and no more

According to STRATO's own guide, their cron management offers the intervals once, daily, weekly or monthly. An hourly or minute-precise call is not provided for, regardless of how large your package is.

Two further restrictions come from the same source: cron jobs only exist from the Hosting Plus package upwards, with older types from PowerWeb Plus, Perfect or PowerPlus L. And on STRATO's new platform the function is, by their own account, not yet available at all. A cron job also runs for at most 15 minutes.

For a site that triggers a backup once a day that is enough. But as soon as a shop has to advance orders, WordPress has to publish scheduled posts or Nextcloud has to do its background work, daily is too rare. Those systems expect a call every few minutes.

URL to call
https://ihre-domain.de/ihr-skript.php
Recommended interval
every 5 minutes
Tested with
STRATO Hosting-Pakete
Sufficient Cronjob.de plan
The free plan covers five cronjobs in five-minute steps. Minute-precise starts with Cronjob.de Plus.

Setup

Step by step

The AI does it faster

You do not have to transfer any of this by hand. Paste this guide – or the one for your own system – into the assistant, and Cronjob.de fills in address, method, schedule and headers. Where something is unclear it asks instead of guessing. At the end you see what was entered and create the job with one click.

Included in the free plan at no extra cost. You will find it after signing in under "Cronjobs" → "Create with AI".

  1. Check what your package can do

    Sign in to the STRATO customer centre and open Verwaltung › Cron-Jobs. If the entry is missing, your package has no cron jobs. If it is there, you will see the available times when creating a job. If daily is enough for you, set it up there and you are done.

  2. Decide on your script address

    For the external route you need an address that starts your script. In most systems that is a fixed file, such as wp-cron.php for WordPress or cron.php for Nextcloud. For your own scripts, create a file that does the work.

    https://your-domain.com/your-script.php

  3. Protect the address

    The address has to be reachable from outside. So that not just anyone can trigger it, append a long random parameter and check it in the first line of your script.

    https://your-domain.com/your-script.php?key=A-LONG-SECRET

  4. Open the address in a browser once

    A status 200 response without a login is correct. Remember that a script under STRATO is aborted after 15 minutes if you run it there. A call from outside does not know that limit, but it does have our own runtime limit.

  5. Create an account at Cronjob.de

    Registration takes a minute and is free. Five cronjobs stay free forever, the first 14 days run on the Unlimited plan.

  6. Create a cronjob with that address

    Enter the address and set the schedule. If you would rather not deal with crontab syntax, describe the interval in one sentence and have it suggested to you.

    */5 * * * *

    You can enter this expression at Cronjob.de exactly as it is – the schedule field understands crontab notation. But you do not have to know it: simply click the schedule together instead.

What the five fields of an expression like */5 * * * * mean is explained in the crontab reference – with examples and the most common pitfalls. You can build the expression in the crontab generator. Whether you need an outside service at all is shown in the comparison of the three ways.

Verification

Is it actually running?

In the Cronjob.de call log you will see the first calls with status 200 and their runtime within a few minutes. For the first test have your script write date and time into a file, then you can see on both sides that it arrived.

FAQ

Common questions about STRATO

Can STRATO really not do a minute-precise cron?
In the cron management of the hosting packages STRATO itself lists only once, daily, weekly and monthly. On a dedicated or virtual server from STRATO you do have a real crontab and therefore complete freedom.
I cannot find the cron jobs entry in the customer centre.
Then your package does not include the function. According to STRATO it exists only from Hosting Plus upwards, with older package types from PowerWeb Plus, Perfect or PowerPlus L, and not yet at all on the new platform.
What about the 15-minute limit?
That applies to cron jobs inside the STRATO packages. When we call your address from outside, our limit applies instead: 45 seconds on the free plan, 60 seconds on the paid ones. Long running work is best split into chunks.
Do I have to switch off the STRATO cron?
Only if you would otherwise trigger the same task twice. Otherwise both can run side by side.
Does this work with WordPress at STRATO too?
Yes, that is the most common case. The details are in our WordPress guide, which covers disabling WP-Cron and calling wp-cron.php.
Is your server rejecting our calls? Error 403 almost always comes from a firewall, a security plugin or directory protection – not from your script. All our calls carry the fixed identifier Cronjob.de in the user agent. Ask your host for an exception for it; that is more reliable than allowing IP addresses, because ours can change. Addresses and details in the FAQ. Other errors such as 401, 404 or 500 are explained in the troubleshooting guide.

Create your cronjob now

Create an account, enter the address, click the schedule. Five cronjobs are free forever, the first 14 days run on the Unlimited plan.

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More guides

Official documentation of STRATO

The details about STRATO come from their own documentation, as of September 2026. Please check there whether anything has changed since. STRATO is a trademark of its respective owner. This guide comes from Cronjob.de and has no business relationship with that provider.