Getting started with Watchman Tower is fast and simple — even if you're not a developer. This guide walks you through the key steps to monitor your websites in just a few minutes, get notified instantly, and keep your uptime above 99.9%.

1. Create Your Free Account

Visit our homepage and click on “Start Free Monitoring”. Sign up using your email, Google, or GitHub account.

2. Add Your First Monitor

Go to Monitors and click on “New Monitoring”. Enter your site’s URL, choose a method (HTTP, Ping, or Port), and configure how often Watchman Tower should check it.

You can also define:

Timeout threshold: how long we wait for a response
Check interval: how often checks run (e.g. every 1, 5, or 10 minutes)

Create Monitor modal showing URL input and monitoring type options (HTTP, Ping, Port) on Watchman Tower — *Add your first monitor with flexible options like HTTP, Ping, or Port*

3. Customize Notifications

Choose how and when you get alerted. Click your added monitor configure Email, SMS, or Slack alerts.

You can define smart rules to avoid noise, such as:

Only alert if downtime lasts more than X minutes
Notify only during work hours
Repeat notifications if still down

Notification settings screen on Watchman Tower showing alert methods like Email, SMS, and Slack with custom threshold options — *Choose how and when you want to be alerted — via Email, SMS, Push Notification or Slack*

4. Real-Time Metrics & Visualizations

Once your monitor is active, you'll see:

Uptime percentage over days or weeks
Response time metrics (min, max, avg)
Downtime graphs & visual breakdown

Want to understand the charts better? Check this guide.

Line graph displaying response time and uptime metrics over time in the Watchman Tower dashboard — *Visualize performance trends and spot slowdowns before they become outages*

5. Incident Logs & Event History

Watchman Tower logs every monitoring event: up, down, timeout, or slow response. Each monitor has its own event stream, including:

Exact timestamps
Error type or HTTP status
Recovery time

8. SSL & Domain Expiry Tracking

Prevent downtime due to certificate or domain expiration. Watchman Tower monitors:

SSL validity and expiration date
Domain registrar expiration

SSL Monitoring & Domain Monitoring

Need More Help?

Browse our FAQ section or check out the Watchman Tower Blog for more tutorials and best practices.

Watchman Tower was built to give you full visibility without the complexity. Whether you're a solo founder or a growing team — we’ve got your back.

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