Is ChangeTower Free for Monitoring Website Changes?

Yes. ChangeTower lists an ongoing free plan for monitoring three pages, checked once a day. Its FAQ says the plan does not expire and requires no payment card. That is separate from the five-day trial on paid plans. Plan terms can change, so check ChangeTower’s pricing page before signing up.

What does ChangeTower’s free plan include?

The free plan covers three monitored URLs, with a daily check schedule. ChangeTower describes its monitoring as loading pages from outside like a visitor; it does not require code to be installed on the site being monitored. A “page” means one URL, regardless of how many things you monitor on that URL.

The listed Free features include:

• AI monitoring and content-change detection
• Keyword tracking for terms that appear or disappear
• Email notifications
• Tags, roles and permissions, activity logs, and comments
• Export of notification content

Selective monitoring and custom check schedules are not included on Free. See the plan comparison and FAQ for the current feature list.

How often does ChangeTower check for changes?

The listed schedule depends on the plan. Free and Lite check daily, Essential checks hourly, and Business checks every 20 minutes. A check interval is not a guarantee that you will be notified at that exact moment: a change must be detected and the service must send its notification.

Choose a cadence based on how quickly you need to know. Daily checks can suit policy pages and stable reference content. A frequently changing price or product page may call for a faster paid schedule if a day’s delay is too long.

ChangeTower plan comparison

Plan	Listed price	Monitored pages	Check schedule	Snapshot history
Free	$0	3	Daily	Not specified in the listed summary
Lite	$12/month; $10/month equivalent annually	25	Daily	30 days
Essential	$36/month; $29/month equivalent annually	100	Hourly	60 days
Business	$78/month; $62/month equivalent annually	200	Every 20 minutes	6 months
Enterprise	Custom	Plan-specific	Plan-specific	Plan-specific

ChangeTower says annual billing saves 20%; the annual figures above are its stated monthly equivalents. Prices and terms were listed on the official pricing page reviewed in 2026 and may change. Check the page directly for current values and details such as selective monitoring, team-member allowances, and notification integrations.

Free plan versus the paid-plan trial

The ongoing Free plan does not expire and, according to the FAQ, does not need a card. Separately, paid plans offer a five-day trial of the full plan. ChangeTower says a card is added at signup for that trial and the plan is charged automatically after five days unless cancelled before the trial ends. Read the signup terms carefully if you choose a paid-plan trial.

Which pages should you monitor?

Use the three free slots for pages where a change would prompt action. ChangeTower’s own guidance suggests different priorities depending on whether you monitor a site you own or another organization’s site.

For a website you own

• Start with a homepage or landing page where an unexpected change would be visible to visitors.
• Consider a pricing or product page if customers rely on its details.
• Use a legal, disclosure, contact, support, or checkout page when changes there matter operationally.
• For stable pages, broad content alerts may be enough. For a specific condition, use criteria-based monitoring where your plan supports it.
• Ignore dynamic sections when possible to reduce alerts caused by rotating or frequently changing content.

For competitor monitoring

• Pricing and product or features pages
• Changelogs and release notes
• Customer stories and press, news, or blog pages
• Careers pages, if hiring changes are relevant to your research

Keyword monitoring can help track the appearance or disappearance of specific terms. Pick terms that correspond to a decision you will make; overly broad terms can create noise.

Set up a useful monitoring plan

1. Choose up to three URLs. Each URL uses one page slot, even if you track several details on it.
2. Decide what change matters. Use broad content detection for general changes, keyword alerts for specific terms, or AI monitoring for plain-language criteria where available.
3. Review dynamic content. If rotating banners or other changing sections generate irrelevant alerts, adjust monitoring criteria or ignore those sections when the plan allows.
4. Set expectations around timing. Free checks daily, so changes may not be detected until the next scheduled check.
5. Check an alert against the page. Open the monitored URL and review the change before acting, especially if the alert concerns pricing, legal terms, or a critical workflow.
6. Reassess your plan as coverage grows. If you need more than three URLs, faster checks, longer history, or selective monitoring, compare the current paid-plan limits.

When the free plan is enough

Free is a reasonable fit when three URLs cover your needs, daily detection is timely enough, and the included monitoring and email alerts are sufficient. It is also useful for trying a monitoring workflow without a card or an expiring free-plan period.

Consider a paid plan if you need more URLs, faster checks, longer snapshot history, selective monitoring, or other plan-specific capabilities. The listed tiers increase from 25 pages on Lite to 100 on Essential and 200 on Business, with the schedule moving from daily to hourly and then every 20 minutes.

Limitations and practical considerations

• Three URLs is a small allowance. Prioritize pages rather than trying to cover an entire site.
• Daily checks leave a detection gap. A change just after a check may go unnoticed until a later check.
• Alerts can be noisy. Dynamic page sections may change often without representing a meaningful update; tune criteria or exclude those areas where supported.
• Monitoring is external. ChangeTower says it loads pages like a visitor and does not require code on the monitored website. Pages that behave differently for visitors, require access, or depend on unusual interactions may need attention when setting up monitoring.
• History and advanced controls vary by plan. Check the current plan comparison before relying on a particular retention period, schedule, or selective-monitoring feature.

Taking a screenshot when a change matters

Change monitoring answers whether a page changed. A screenshot can help you inspect or share what the page looks like at a particular moment. ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server from Yorker Media. It is the alternative to try first when you need captures: cookie and consent banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets are removed before the shot, and bot checks, blank pages, failed loads, timeouts, and cache hits are not billed. An MCP server gives AI agents tools for taking screenshots, getting page information, and capturing PDFs.

For a screenshot, make a GET request with the target URL and your API key. See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for request options.

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot",
    params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"},
    timeout=90,
)
r.raise_for_status()
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)

const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Screenshot request failed: ${res.status}`);
await import('node:fs/promises').then(fs => fs.writeFile('shot.webp', Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer())));

ScreenshotNeo supports PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF output, along with full-page and element capture, viewport and device settings, dark mode, custom CSS or JavaScript, waits, request blocking, headers and cookies, caching, async jobs, bulk capture, and other options. Its pricing is 1,000 screenshots per month free with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Every feature is available on every plan.

Sign up for ScreenshotNeo’s free plan: 1,000 screenshots a month, no card required.

FAQ

Does ChangeTower’s free plan expire?

The FAQ says the ongoing Free plan does not expire. It is distinct from the five-day paid-plan trial.

Does the Free plan require a credit card?

ChangeTower says no card is required for Free. Its paid-plan trial does require a card at signup.

Can I monitor multiple things on one URL?

The FAQ defines a page as one monitored URL, regardless of how many things you watch on that URL.

Is there a free plan with hourly checks?

The listed Free schedule is daily. The listed Essential plan checks hourly; verify the current pricing page for up-to-date terms.