Cron job services compared
Cronjob.de, cron-job.org, EasyCron, FastCron, SteadyCron, Healthchecks.io and Cronitor: what does it cost, how often can it run, how long may a call take, and who tells you when something goes wrong?
This page comes from Cronjob.de – so we are a party to it. That is why every fact says where it comes from: everything is taken from the providers' own websites, retrieved on 12 October 2026. Where another service fits better, we say so.
Whether a service is the right way at all is covered on Your own server, host or service?
In short
Which service fits what?
cron-job.org
No fixed limit, every minute, with 50 runs including the response in the history and failure emails – no paid plan at all. A call may take 30 seconds.
Cronjob.de
Since 2003, German-language, data processing agreement free of charge. Unlimited cronjobs every minute with failure alerts by email for €17.88 a year; with Unlimited also Slack, Teams or webhook and monitoring of whether the website really works.
Healthchecks.io
20 heartbeat checks free, more than 25 notification channels, open source and self-hostable. Calls nothing itself – the job has to check in. No DPA.
EasyCron, FastCron
Paid up to 12 hours (EasyCron, from $24 a year) or 1 hour (FastCron, from $6 a month) per call. At Cronjob.de it is 60 seconds – longer scripts only keep running with ignore_user_abort.
FastCron, SteadyCron
FastCron Business every 15 seconds ($50 a month), SteadyCron Team every 10 seconds (€30 a month). Cronjob.de, cron-job.org and EasyCron call at most every minute.
Cronitor
Billed per monitor and user, 12 months of data, SMS and PagerDuty. US company, hosting in the US and Ireland.
Services that call your address
Web cron: the service triggers the task
You enter an address, the service calls it on schedule. This is the way for hosting without its own cron, for WordPress, shops and anything behind a URL.
| Cronjob.deGermany | cron-job.orgGermany | EasyCronseat not stated | FastCronseat not stated | SteadyCronGermany | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | |||||
| Cron jobs | 5 | no fixed limit ("fair usage") | 200 executions a day | 15 | 5 |
| Shortest interval | 5 minutes | 1 minute | 20 minutes | 5 minutes | 15 minutes |
| Time per call | 45 seconds | 30 seconds | 5 seconds | 15 seconds | 30 seconds |
| History | 5 runs, without the server's response | 50 runs, response kept for 2 days | 10 entries | 50 entries | 50 entries |
| Failure alerts | no | no | not stated | email, at most 5 a day | |
| Condition | confirm by email every 3 months | – | renew every month | log in every 90 days | – |
| Cheapest paid plan | |||||
| Price | Plus: €17.88 a year (€1.49 a month) | no paid plan; voluntary sustaining membership, amount not public | $24 a year | $6 a month or $60 a year | €10 a month or €100 a year |
| Cron jobs | unlimited | same as free: no fixed limit | 8,000 executions a day | 15 | 50 |
| Shortest interval | 1 minute | same as free: 1 minute | 1 minute | 30 seconds | 1 minute |
| Time per call | 60 seconds | same as free: 30 seconds | 12 hours | 1 hour | 5 minutes |
| History | 20 runs with response, 30-day history | same as free: 50 runs with response | 200 entries, at most 6 months, 10 KB of output | 100 entries | 1,000 entries |
| Failure alerts by email from | €17.88 a year (Plus); Slack, Teams, Discord, webhook from Unlimited, €47.88 a year | €0 | $24 a year; Slack included, webhook from $120 a year | $60 a year (plan not stated); Slack, Discord, Telegram, webhook | €100 a year; chat, webhook |
| Also | |||||
| Heartbeat for jobs on your server | yes: 1 free, 10 with Plus, 50 with Unlimited | not stated | not stated | not stated | yes: 10 free, 100 paid |
| Checks whether the website works | yes, from Unlimited: every minute, detects error pages despite "200 OK" | status pages with their own check jobs | not stated | not stated | not stated |
| Data processing agreement | yes, free of charge | not stated | not stated | not stated; privacy policy mentions transfer to the US | yes, via the terms |
| German interface | yes | yes | no | not stated | yes |
Services that only monitor
Heartbeat: the job checks in, the service keeps watch
Healthchecks.io and Cronitor start nothing. Your job keeps running on your server and calls an address after every run; if the check-in is missing, an alert goes out. This is the right way for database dumps, backups and anything without a URL. Cronjob.de and SteadyCron can do both.
| Cronjob.de | Healthchecks.ioLatvia | CronitorUSA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 heartbeat, status in your account, no alerts | 20 checks, 100 entries per check, all notification channels | 5 monitors, 1 user, email and Slack |
| Paid | Plus €17.88 a year: 10 with email; Unlimited €47.88 a year: 50 with email, Slack, Teams, Discord, webhook | Business $20 a month: 100 checks, 1,000 entries | $2 per monitor and $5 per user a month, 12 months of data |
| Notifications | email, Slack, Teams, Discord, webhook | more than 25 channels, including Telegram, Signal, PagerDuty; SMS and calls with credits | 11 channels, including SMS, Teams, PagerDuty (paid) |
| Also calls addresses | yes, that is the core | no | only uptime checks, no triggering of jobs |
| Hosting, DPA | Germany and Finland; DPA free of charge | Germany (Hetzner); explicitly no DPA | AWS in the US and Ireland; DPA not stated |
| Open source | no | yes, BSD licence, self-hostable | no |
The providers one by one
Strengths, limits, sources
Cronjob.de
Web cron and heartbeat · since 2003 · Germany
- Good fit when
- you want a German-language provider with a DPA, manage many projects in folders, or want to know beside the cron job whether the website itself still works. New accounts run 14 days on Unlimited, without payment details.
- Limits
- Free only 5 cron jobs every 5 minutes and without failure alerts. A call may take at most 60 seconds. Failure alerts from Plus by email only; Slack, Teams and webhook only from Unlimited.
Sources: cronjob.de/preise cronjob.de/funktionen cronjob.de/unternehmen
cron-job.org
Web cron · free · Germany
- Good fit when
- you need many jobs every minute and do not want to pay. The history shows 50 runs with headers and response, failures arrive by email.
- Limits
- 30 seconds per call, at most 64 KB are read – with more output the run counts as aborted. After more than 25 failures a job is switched off automatically. There is no paid plan with guaranteed features; under the terms the sustaining membership creates no entitlement. A DPA is not stated.
Sources: cron-job.org/en/faq/ cron-job.org/en/tos/ cron-job.org/en/
EasyCron
Web cron · since 2011 · seat not stated
- Good fit when
- a call takes long: paid up to 12 hours, 24 hours in the enterprise plans. Logs up to 6 months.
- Limits
- Free only every 20 minutes, 5 seconds per call, without notifications and to be renewed every month. Webhook only from $120 a year. The website names no company, seat or DPA; the interface is in English.
Sources: easycron.com/pricing easycron.com/faq/Will-my-free-plan-expire
FastCron
Web cron · Vietnamese law
- Good fit when
- you need 15 jobs for free, or on a paid plan an interval below one minute (Business: every 15 seconds) and calls of up to one hour.
- Limits
- Free 15 seconds per call; if you do not log in for 90 days, your jobs are switched off. Vietnamese law applies, the privacy policy mentions a transfer to the US. A DPA is not stated.
Sources: fastcron.com/pricing fastcron.com/about/terms fastcron.com/about/privacy
SteadyCron
Web cron and heartbeat · Germany
- Good fit when
- you want to manage jobs as code (YAML, command line, Terraform), need 10 heartbeats for free, or on a paid plan an interval of 10 seconds. DPA via the terms.
- Limits
- Free only every 15 minutes and at most 5 emails a day. The cheapest paid plan costs €100 a year. Home page and pricing page differ on which notification channels are free.
Healthchecks.io
Heartbeat · open source · Latvia
- Good fit when
- your jobs already run and you only want to know whether they do. 20 checks and all notification channels free; open source, on your own server if you like.
- Limits
- Calls nothing itself – without a cron on your side there is nothing to monitor. The provider explicitly does not sign DPAs. Interface in English.
Sources: healthchecks.io/pricing/ healthchecks.io/docs/faq/ healthchecks.io/about/
Cronitor
Monitoring · USA
- Good fit when
- many teams monitor many jobs and need data over 12 months, SMS or PagerDuty. Billing is exactly per monitor and user.
- Limits
- Free only 5 monitors. Does not trigger jobs. US company under US law, data on AWS in the US and Ireland; a DPA is not stated.
Honestly
When you should not come to us
- You need many jobs every minute and do not want to pay. Then cron-job.org is the better choice. With us that costs €17.88 a year.
- Your script runs longer than a minute and needs the connection until the end.
EasyCron and FastCron wait hours on paid plans. With us the call ends after 60 seconds; with
ignore_user_abort(true)your script keeps working, but we no longer see the result. - You need an interval below one minute. FastCron and SteadyCron can do that, we cannot.
- You only want to monitor and need SMS, calls or PagerDuty. Healthchecks.io and Cronitor have more notification channels than we do.
Frequently asked questions
What people often ask
Which cron job service is free?
cron-job.org is completely free. Cronjob.de, FastCron, SteadyCron, Healthchecks.io and Cronitor have a permanently free plan with limits, EasyCron a free plan that has to be renewed every month.
cron-job.org or Cronjob.de – which fits better?
If you need many cron jobs every minute and do not want to pay, cron-job.org is the right choice: no fixed limit, 50 runs in the history and failure emails, 30 seconds per call. Cronjob.de is limited to 5 cron jobs every 5 minutes for free, but offers a paid plan with fixed features: unlimited cron jobs every minute, 60 seconds per call and failure alerts by email for €17.88 a year, a free DPA and, with Unlimited, also Slack, Teams or webhook, website monitoring and separate logins for colleagues.
What are the alternatives to cron-job.org?
Services that also call addresses on schedule: Cronjob.de (Germany, since 2003, DPA), EasyCron (paid calls up to 12 hours), FastCron (15 jobs free, paid intervals down to 15 seconds) and SteadyCron (Germany, jobs as code, intervals down to 10 seconds). If you only want to monitor whether your own cron runs, Healthchecks.io and Cronitor are alternatives without calls.
Which cron job service suits WordPress?
Every web cron service can call wp-cron.php. A call every 5 minutes is enough for most sites; Cronjob.de, cron-job.org and FastCron do that for free. EasyCron calls only every 20 minutes for free, SteadyCron every 15. How to do it is in the guide for WordPress.
Which service calls every minute?
Free: cron-job.org. Paid: Cronjob.de Plus (€17.88 a year), EasyCron (from $24 a year) and SteadyCron (from €10 a month). Even more often with FastCron (Starter every 30 seconds, Business every 15) and SteadyCron Team (every 10 seconds).
Which service is based in Germany and offers a DPA?
Cronjob.de (free of charge) and SteadyCron (via the terms). cron-job.org is also based in Germany but its website does not mention a DPA. Healthchecks.io hosts in Germany but explicitly does not sign DPAs.
What is the difference between web cron and cron monitoring?
A web cron calls your address on schedule and so replaces the cron on the server. Cron monitoring (heartbeat) starts nothing but raises an alarm when your own cron does not check in. Cronjob.de and SteadyCron can do both, Healthchecks.io and Cronitor only monitoring.
The figures are in the tables web cron and monitoring, the sources with the individual providers.
Try Cronjob.de
Five cron jobs are free forever, the first 14 days run on the Unlimited plan – no payment details. Afterwards the account moves to the free plan by itself.
Start for free See pricingAbout the information. All information is taken from the providers' websites, retrieved on 12 October 2026. Plans change; the provider's own page is always authoritative. If you find a mistake, tell us via the contact form – we will correct it.
cron-job.org, EasyCron, FastCron, SteadyCron, Healthchecks.io and Cronitor are names or trademarks of their respective owners. This page comes from Cronjob.de and has no business relationship with those providers.