How does change detection work?
Site Spy takes snapshots of your watched pages at the interval you set (from every few minutes to weekly). When changes are detected, a visual diff highlights exactly what changed — green for additions, red for removals. You can browse the full snapshot timeline to compare any two versions.Is Site Spy free?
Yes. The free plan lets you watch up to 5 pages with 150 checks a month, enough to check each of them once a day. You can check more often, down to every hour, and the month’s checks run out sooner. All notification channels (email, Telegram, push, webhooks), the API, the MCP server and RSS feeds are included free. For more pages, more checks, faster intervals, and features like screenshots, upgrade to the Starter, Pro, or Agency plan.How can I access Site Spy?
The web dashboard works in any browser, including mobile. The browser extension is available for Chrome and Firefox. When signed in, your watches sync across all devices automatically.Can I track prices or get back-in-stock alerts?
Yes — Site Spy has a monitoring mode that reads a product’s price and availability from the page’s structured data rather than diffing its text, with options for a target price, a percentage threshold, and in-stock-only alerts. See Price & Restock Monitoring.Can I track specific parts of a page?
That is the normal way to use Site Spy, and it is how a watch gets created. Paste the address, press Find What to Watch, and the page is shown to you as a picture — click the price, the stock line, the heading, or drag a box around an area. Only changes inside it reach you, and you cannot finish creating the watch without choosing. The same picker opens inside the AI Chat, on the live page from the browser extension, and on a watch you already have. See Choosing What to Watch. If you would rather write the selector yourself, the Monitor Only field in Watch Settings takes CSS and XPath — see CSS & XPath Filters for syntax and examples.How do I stop a watch alerting about nothing?
Nothing writes a watch’s filters for you. You choose what a watch follows by pointing at it in the picker. Two deterministic switches strip timestamps, counters, ads and cookie banners from every watch, and a watch that keeps alerting about nothing can have ignore rules added to it after the fact — backtested against its own snapshots first. See Automatic Noise Repair.What is the AI Chat?
The AI Chat is a conversational assistant that can create watches, check changes, adjust ignore text, trigger text and the check interval, and manage your monitors through natural language. It cannot decide what a watch follows — it opens the picker on the watch card so you point at that yourself. It’s available to all users with daily message limits based on your plan (5/day for anonymous, up to 500/day for Agency). See AI Chat.What are AI change summaries?
Pro and Agency plans include AI-powered change summaries: plain-language summaries of detected changes. You can optionally add your own API key (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT, or Google Gemini) in Dashboard Settings > API & Monitoring to run them on your own provider account. See AI Features.Can I share a watch with someone?
Yes. Every watch has a share button that generates a link. When someone opens the link, they see the watch configuration and can add it to their own account with one click. See Share Links for details.What is the MCP integration?
Site Spy provides an MCP server that integrates with AI assistants like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible tools. Your AI assistant can monitor websites, compare snapshots, fetch pages, and summarize changes through Site Spy. The quickest setup, if you use Claude Code:What happens if I lose my API key?
If you’re signed in with an account, you can regenerate your API key from the dashboard or extension settings. Your watches are tied to your account and will be migrated to the new key. Site Spy has no anonymous mode — every watch belongs to an account, so a lost key is never a lost watchlist. Regenerate the key and reconnect the extension.How do I get faster notifications?
All notification channels (email, Telegram, push, webhooks) are available on every plan including Free. To get notified faster, upgrade to Starter for checks every 10 minutes, or Pro for checks every 5 minutes. Shorter intervals use your monthly checks faster — see How checks are counted. Set up your preferred channels on the Notifications page.What happens when I run out of checks?
Every plan includes a number of checks a month, from 150 on Free to 750,000 on Agency. A page checked every hour uses about 720 a month; a page that needs a browser counts 2 per check, one behind an anti-bot wall 5, and retries after an error are free. You get an email at 80% and at 100%. When the month’s checks are used up, scheduled checks pause until the 1st of the next month (UTC). Your watches are not deleted or switched off. Unused checks don’t roll over. See How checks are counted.What happens if one of my watches stops working?
Site Spy classifies the failure — bot protection, a missing page, a broken filter, a login wall — and shows it as a health badge on the watch. If the failure persists, the owner gets an email explaining what went wrong and what to do about it: after 5 consecutive failed checks on Free, 3 on paid plans, and 2 for site blocking or a broken filter on paid plans. Failures that cannot recover eventually pause the watch, and that pause is emailed too, so a watch never goes quiet without telling you. Health alerts are available on every plan, including Free. See Watch Health & Failure Alerts.Why can’t I create a watch?
Watch creation requires a verified email address. If you signed up and haven’t clicked the verification link yet, the request is rejected. Resend the link from Settings, then try again. Two other rules can block a URL: the address must be a publichttp:// or https:// page — LAN addresses, localhost, and internal hostnames are refused — and signups from throwaway email providers are rejected (privacy relays like Proton, SimpleLogin, and DuckDuckGo are fine).
What happens if I don’t verify my email?
Change notifications go to the unverified address for the first 7 days, then stop. An account that is never verified, owns no watches, and has no subscription is deleted after 14 days.Can I monitor pages that require login?
Yes, with Browser Steps, on every plan. Browser Steps automate interactions like filling in login credentials, clicking cookie consent buttons, or navigating through single-page apps before capturing a snapshot.Can I customize what buttons appear on my watch list?
Yes. Go to Dashboard Settings > Appearance and toggle optional action buttons (Screenshots, RSS feed, Share link, Open site) on or off. Core actions like Recheck, Preview, and Diff are always visible. See Dashboard Settings.Does Site Spy work on all websites?
Site Spy works on most publicly accessible websites. It cannot monitor:- Browser internal pages (
chrome://,about:) - Content loaded only via JavaScript interactions (e.g., infinite scroll) — unless you use Browser Steps