How to monitor a website for changes

Pick the page you care about, say what on it you want watched, and choose where the alert should reach you. That is the whole job. With StockWatch it takes about a minute: paste the link, point at the price or the stock line, and pick your phone, email or Discord. Five pages are free and no card is needed.

The short answer

Pick the page, say what on it you want watched, and choose where the alert should reach you. With StockWatch that takes about a minute: paste the link, point at the price or the stock line, and pick your phone, email or Discord.

  • Five pages are free to watch, checked every 60 seconds, with no card required.
  • Paid tiers check every 15 seconds at £4 a month and every 5 seconds at £20 a month.
  • It keeps running when your laptop is shut, which a browser extension cannot.

The rest of this page is what separates a tool that tells you in time from one that quietly stops working.

Your options

Match the tool to what it costs you to find out late.

OptionHow quickly you hearThe catchSuits
A browser extensionOnly while your browser is openStops the moment you close the tab or shut the laptopKeeping half an eye on one page while you work
Other change-detection toolsMinutes, sometimes hoursUsually miss anything that loads after the page does, and give up on the busier retail sitesWatching an ordinary page where an hour late is fine
Writing your own scriptWhatever you set upIt is yours to fix every time a site changes, which is oftenPeople who enjoy that sort of thing
StockWatchDown to 5 secondsFive pages free, then a paid plan if you want more or fasterAnything where being late means missing it

What usually goes wrong, and what we do about it

If you have tried watching a page before and it did not work out, it was probably one of these four.

You get told about changes you do not care about

Most tools compare the whole page, so an advert rotating or a "14 people are viewing this" counter ticking over reads as a change. After a day of that you stop trusting the alerts. StockWatch watches the things that actually matter, like whether an item is in stock and what it costs, so an alert means something happened.

It says nothing changed when something clearly did

Plenty of shops load their prices and stock after the page itself appears. A simple checker looks at the page, sees the same thing every time and stays quiet while the item comes and goes. StockWatch reads what the shop reads, so a restock registers as a restock.

It gives up on exactly the sites you wanted to watch

The busiest retailers put protection in front of their pages, and that is where most tools quietly stop working. Those are usually the sites worth watching, so StockWatch is built to keep working on them.

The alert arrives after it has sold out

A check every hour is fine for a price that moves once a week. It is useless for something that clears in ninety seconds. StockWatch checks every 60 seconds on the free tier and as often as every five seconds on Power User, and the alert goes to your phone rather than an inbox you will read tonight.

How often it checks

The right interval is set by how fast the thing you are watching moves. A weekly price does not need a check every minute. A drop that clears in ninety seconds does.

Free

60 seconds

5 pages, no card needed

Standard

15 seconds

50 pages, £4 a month

Power User

5 seconds

Unlimited pages, £20 a month

What people watch with it

Stock on something that keeps selling out
A price you are waiting to see drop
New products appearing on a site
Tickets and limited releases going live
A job or course page you do not want to keep opening
A competitor quietly changing their pricing

Common questions

How do I monitor a website for changes?

Choose the page you care about, say what on it you want watched, and pick where the alert should reach you. With StockWatch that is three steps and no setup: paste the link, pick the part of the page, choose phone, email or Discord. You can watch five pages free.

What is the best free way to monitor a web page?

A browser extension is fine if you only need one page and your machine stays on. Beyond that, the free StockWatch tier watches five pages every 60 seconds and keeps running when your laptop is shut, with no card needed.

How often should a page be checked?

As often as the thing you are watching actually changes. A price that moves weekly does not need checking every minute. A limited drop that sells out in under a minute does. StockWatch checks every 60 seconds on the free tier, every 15 seconds on Standard and every 5 seconds on Power User.

Why do change alerts so often turn out to be nothing?

Because most tools compare the entire page, so adverts, timers and view counters all count as changes. StockWatch watches the specific things that matter, such as stock and price, which is why its alerts are worth opening.

Can you watch a page that needs you to be logged in?

Yes. The check runs inside your own browser through the StockWatch extension, so your session stays on your machine. We never ask for your password to another site.

What can I use it for besides stock?

Price drops, new products appearing, job listings, ticket releases, course places, a competitor changing their pricing page, anything where the answer lives on a page and you want to know the moment it changes.

Start with the page you keep checking

Paste the link, pick what you want watched, and choose where the alert lands. Five pages free, checked every 60 seconds, no card needed.

Watching Pokemon TCG stock in particular? We have pages for that.