Uptimecheck holds back an SMS alert for one of two reasons: the workspace has reached the safety limit of 100 texts in 24 hours, or it has no SMS credits left. Either way, nothing is sent, no credit is used, and email, Slack, Teams, push and every other channel still alert you as usual.
The 24-hour limit
- A workspace sends at most 100 SMS in any 24 hours, alerts and tests together, however many SMS channels it has. The window moves: once fewer than 100 were sent in the past 24 hours, texts go out again.
- An alert held back by the limit isn’t sent later. The incident’s Timeline shows the SMS alert as failed, with the reason “SMS limit reached: 100 in 24 hours”.
- Send test on an SMS channel says the workspace has sent 100 SMS in the last 24 hours, and to try again later.
- Owners get an email, “SMS alerts for … paused: 100 texts in 24 hours”, at most once in 24 hours.
That many texts usually means a monitor is flapping between down and up. Look at its incidents, and set the SMS channel’s When to alert to wait, such as If down for 5 minutes, so it only texts when an outage lasts. Need more than 100 a day? Contact support.
No credits left
- Each text uses one credit. Professional includes 50 credits a month and Business 200, renewed on the 1st. Start has no monthly credits, so its SMS alerts use bought credits only.
- Without credits, the alert isn’t sent and the incident’s Timeline shows the SMS alert as failed, with the reason “No SMS credits left”. Owners get an email about it once a month.
- Buy a pack under Settings › Billing: 100 credits for €12 or 500 for €55, excl. VAT. Bought credits never expire and are used after the plan’s. New alerts are texted again as soon as credits are added.
Other things to check
- A new SMS channel stays paused until the number is confirmed with the code we text it. Choose Confirm number in the list to get a new code.
- We text mobile numbers in the EU/EEA, the UK and Switzerland only.
- A channel that waits, such as If down for 5 minutes, only texts about outages that last that long and that nobody acknowledged first.