To get a phone call when your website goes down, create an HTTP monitor for the site in Edesy OnCall, add yourself as a verified contact, and attach an escalation policy that calls you. When the site stops answering with the status you expect, OnCall rings your phone, says which site is down and why, and asks you to press 1. The Free plan covers 3 sites with 5-minute checks. Setup takes about 15 minutes.
Here is the whole setup, step by step.
Before you start
| You need | Why |
|---|---|
| An Edesy account | One login for oncall.edesy.in and the voice app |
| An Edesy phone number | It is the caller ID on every alert call |
| A little wallet balance | Alert calls are billed per minute; new accounts get Rs 20 credit |
| Your phone, and ideally a backup person's | Contacts are verified by a call |
The Free plan allows 2 contacts, so you and one backup.
Step 1: Connect OnCall to your workspace
Sign in at oncall.edesy.in and open Setup. Pick the number alert calls should come from and type your organisation name. The name is spoken at the start of every alert: "This is an alert from Sharma Traders..."
Press Connect. OnCall creates an API key named "Edesy OnCall" in your workspace and sets up the alert call flow (press 1 to acknowledge, press 2 to escalate). If your workspace has no number yet, buy one in the voice app first.
Save the caller-ID number in your phone as "Edesy alert" and allow it through Do Not Disturb. This one step decides whether the 3 am call actually wakes you.
Step 2: Add a monitor for your website
Go to Monitors → New and choose a type:
- HTTP if "the page answers with 200" is enough.
- Keyword if the page should also contain a word, like your shop name or "Add to cart". This catches the classic outage where the server answers 200 but shows an error page or a blank template.
| Setting | Recommended for a website | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| URL | Your homepage or a key page, full https:// address |
http or https |
| Method | GET | GET, HEAD, POST |
| Expected status | 2xx |
e.g. 2xx, 200, 200,204 |
| Keyword | A word that only shows when the page works | Present or absent |
| Interval | 5 minutes (Free) | Free 5 min, Starter 60 s, Pro 30 s |
| Timeout | 10 seconds | 1 to 30 seconds |
| Fail threshold | 2 | 1 to 10 |
The keyword check reads the first 1 MB of the page. Pick a word near the top of the HTML if your pages are large. Not sure what a status code means? The HTTP status code reference explains each one.
A fail threshold of 2 means one failed check is not enough to call you. After a failure OnCall rechecks within about 20 seconds, and only a second failure opens an incident. That filters out one-off network blips without delaying a real outage much.
More detail: HTTP and keyword monitors.
Step 3: Add and verify contacts
Open Contacts and add yourself: name, phone number, email (optional but recommended) and language, English or Hindi. The alert call is spoken in the contact's language.
Press Verify. You get a call that reads out a 4-digit code; type it in. Unverified phone numbers are skipped for calls, so don't skip this. Add a second person the same way.
See contacts and verification.
Step 4: Create an escalation policy
Open Policies → New and build a short ladder:
- Step 1, wait 0 minutes: call you, plus email.
- Step 2, wait 5 minutes: call your backup.
Set repeat to 1 or 2 so the ladder starts over (after a 5-minute pause) if nobody acknowledges. Then go back to your monitor and select this policy. A monitor without a policy opens incidents but phones nobody.
Read escalation policies explained for more patterns.
Step 5: Send a test call
From the contact's page, press Test call. You hear: "This is an alert from Sharma Traders. Test monitor is down since 4:10 PM. Reason: this is a test alert, no action needed." followed by the press-1 prompt. Test calls are billed like alert calls, at a minute or so each.
What happens during a real outage
- Your site returns a 502. The first check fails; OnCall rechecks in about 20 seconds. It fails again.
- An incident opens and step 1 runs: your phone rings.
- You press 1. Escalation stops and the incident timeline records who acknowledged and how.
- You fix the site. The next passing check resolves the incident, and everyone who was paged gets a "back up" email.
If you miss the call, your backup is called 5 minutes later. If a call fails outright, you get an email with an acknowledge button.
At night (21:00 to 09:00 IST) the alert still rings. On the standard calling window it is a plain spoken alert without press 1, so you acknowledge by email or in the dashboard; support can switch your workspace to 24x7 press-1 calls. See night mode.
When to move off the Free plan
Free gives you 3 monitors and 5-minute checks. Move to Starter (Rs 499/month: 20 monitors, 60-second checks, 5 contacts) or Pro (Rs 1,499/month: 100 monitors, 30-second checks, 25 contacts) when you monitor more sites or a 5-minute gap costs too much. Plans are set by the Edesy team, so ask support to upgrade. Prices exclude 18% GST. Use the downtime cost calculator to see whether faster checks pay off, and see the pricing page.
Agencies watching many client sites should read client site monitoring for agencies. For the bigger picture, see why phone alerts beat email and Slack and the website down alert call use case.
OnCall checks HTTP, keywords, TCP ports, heartbeats and webhooks. It does not do ping, SSL-expiry or DNS checks, and it alerts by call and email only, not SMS or chat.
FAQ
Is the website down call alert really free?
The Free plan costs Rs 0 and includes 3 monitors, checks every 5 minutes and 2 contacts. The alert calls themselves are billed per minute from your Edesy wallet, and new accounts get Rs 20 of welcome credit with no card.
How fast will I get the call?
On the Free plan your site is checked every 5 minutes. With the default fail threshold of 2, a failed check is rechecked within about 20 seconds, and the call starts once the second check fails. Starter checks every 60 seconds and Pro every 30 seconds.
Do I need a phone number from Edesy?
Yes. Alert calls use an Edesy number in your workspace as the caller ID, so your team can save it and let it through Do Not Disturb. Buy one in the Edesy voice app before connecting OnCall.
What if I don't answer?
If your policy has a second step, OnCall calls the next person after the wait you set. If the call fails and you have an email address saved, you get an email instead, with a one-click acknowledge button.
Set up your first monitor free at oncall.edesy.in. The quick start doc has the same steps in short form.