If you only need basic change detection, Distill Web Monitor (Distill.io) can stay free. But if you want reliable, high-frequency monitoring that runs 24/7 in the cloudâplus higher alert limits and automationâupgrading to a paid plan is usually the practical choice. This guide summarizes Distillâs official pricing (as of June 2026) and explains how to choose the right plan based on check interval, monthly cloud check volume, and notification needs. On Distillâs official pricing page, the monthly plans are listed as Free ($0), Starter ($15/month), Professional ($35/month), and Flexi ($80+/month). Distill also notes that annual billing is discounted for Starter and Professional. Official monthly pricing (USD) *Prices are based on Distillâs official Pricing page. Distill Web Monitor Pricing: Do You Need a Paid Plan?
Paid plan pricing
Free vs. paid: what changes?
Distill is designed around two execution modes: local monitoring (running via the browser extension or desktop app) and cloud monitoring (running on Distillâs servers). Whether you should pay mostly comes down to cloud check frequency, your monthly cloud check allowance, and how heavily you rely on alerts and integrations.
Cloud monitoring frequency
In Distillâs plan comparison, the minimum interval for cloud monitors varies by plan (“Minimum Interval in cloud”). The official minimums are listed as 6 hours (Free), 10 minutes (Starter), 5 minutes (Professional), and 2 minutes (Flexi).
Cloud checks/month limits
Plan limits are also clearly separated by monthly cloud volume (“Checks/month in cloud”). Distill lists 1,000 (Free), 30,000 (Starter), 100,000 (Professional), and 200,000+ (Flexi).
Alerts and integrations
Alert quotas and channels differ by plan. Distillâs comparison includes limits for “Webhook & Emails Alerts” and whether SMS notifications are available. For example, Free is listed as “30/mon (email only)”, Starter as 2,000/month, and Professional/Flexi as Unlimited for webhook & email alerts. SMS is not available on Free and increases by tier.
Important: Distillâs cloud “checks/month” are separate from local checks. Distill explains that browser extension checks are unlimited, while cloud checks are restrictedâand cloud checks are counted in units of 10 seconds (longer checks can count as multiple checks). If you donât plan around this, you can run out of cloud checks earlier than expected.
Which paid plan should you choose?
| Goal | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Try it first | Free | Enough to validate the basics: selecting page regions, detecting changes, and getting notifications |
| Track stock or prices on a short interval | Starter | 10-minute minimum cloud interval and a big jump in checks/month makes always-on monitoring more realistic |
| High-frequency monitoring across multiple sites | Professional | 5-minute minimum cloud interval plus more checks/month gives you more operational headroom |
| Large-scale monitoring or strict intervals | Flexi | 2-minute minimum interval and 200,000+ checks/month, with usage-based scaling for heavy workloads |
Distill also states that the Flexi plan includes a base reservation and charges for usage beyond that reservation at the end of the billing period. If youâre monitoring at scale, set internal guardrails so usage-based overages donât surprise you.
Designing a price-monitoring setup
If you use Distill for âprice monitoring,â itâs technically closer to change detection than classic web scraping. Operationally, though, the failure modes feel similarâfalse positives, missed checks, and occasional blocks. The best results come from a few core practices.
Narrow the monitoring scope
Donât monitor the entire page. Select only the element(s) near the price textâideally the exact DOM region that should change. This reduces noisy alerts caused by rotating banners, recommendations, and other dynamic content.
Use cloud vs. local monitoring intentionally
If you need stable 24/7 monitoring, cloud monitors are the default approach. On the other hand, if you need extremely fast detection (or you want to avoid consuming cloud checks), local monitors can be a better fit in some setups. Distillâs pricing page notes that local monitors can be scheduled with intervals starting from 5 seconds.
Add redundant notification paths
Email alone is easy to miss. Consider forwarding alerts to a webhook endpoint or chat tools (for example, Slack or Microsoft Teams) to reduce time-to-response. Distill provides documentation for webhooks and multiple alert channels.
Billing and cancellation
Distillâs “Billing and Payments” documentation covers monthly vs. annual billing, payment methods (including card payments, iOS billing, and enterprise options), when upgrades/downgrades take effect, and refund conditions.
âYou can manage all billing and subscription settings directly from the Billing page in Distill.â
In practice, you manage subscriptions from the admin UI (Settings â Billing). Distill also indicates you can cancel by switching your plan back to Free.
A simple setup example
Instead of building an API-based scraper from day one, the fastest path is usually the browser extension: select the element that contains the price and monitor only that. Hereâs the basic flow.
1. Open the page you want to monitor
2. Distill extension â âSelect parts of pageâ
3. Select only the DOM element that contains the price
4. Set a condition (example: alert when the value changes)
5. Configure destinations (Email/Push/Webhook)
6. On Free, rely mainly on local checks; on paid plans, configure cloud frequencyFor step-by-step screenshots and options, refer to the official extension documentation.
Need Reliable 24/7 Price Monitoring?
If youâre hitting check limits, getting noisy alerts, or need a cloud-first setup that scales, we can help design and operationalize a monitoring workflow tailored to your targets and cadence.
Summary
Distill Web Monitorâs paid plans primarily buy you faster cloud intervals, a higher checks/month in cloud allowance, and stronger alerting and automation capabilities. If youâre running light personal monitoring, Free is often enough. If you need short-interval, always-on monitoring, start with Starter or higher. For high-volume, multi-site monitoring, Professional or Flexi is easier to run in production.
