The terms for using Pingvella.
Last updated 20 October 2026. Please read these before you create an account. They’re written to be read, and where we can say something plainly, we do.
1. Who we are and what these terms cover
Pingvella is a monitoring service run by Ian Gunter, 58 Hookfield, Harlow, Essex, CM18 6QQ (“we”, “us”). These terms are the agreement between us and you, the person or organisation that creates an account (“you”). By ticking the box when you register, or by using Pingvella, you agree to them. If you’re agreeing for a company, you confirm you’re allowed to. You must be at least 18.
Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data, and our Cookies page explains the few cookies we set. Neither is part of a contract on its own, but you should read them.
2. The service
Pingvella watches for things that should happen and tells you when they don’t. It does this in two ways:
- Cron and heartbeat checks. Your job sends a request to a private check-in address Pingvella gives you. If the request doesn’t arrive when it should, Pingvella marks the check late or down and sends your alerts.
- Website checks. You give Pingvella a public web address and it requests that address every 5 minutes from our servers, recording whether it answered properly and how quickly.
The service also includes history and uptime charts, alert destinations (email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram and webhooks), and the ability to share checks with other people. Features may change over time.
3. Your account
- Give us accurate details and keep them up to date.
- Keep your password secure. You’re responsible for what happens under your account.
- Treat each check’s check-in address like a password: anyone who has it can send a check-in for that job.
- Tell us promptly if you think someone else has got into your account.
4. Acceptable use
Because Pingvella makes requests on your behalf, there are things you must not do. You agree that you will:
- Only add a website check for a site you own, or that you have permission to monitor.
- Not use Pingvella to attack, overload, scan or probe any system, or to try to reach private networks, internal services or anything that isn’t a public web address. Pingvella blocks these, and attempts may lead to suspension.
- Not try to get round limits (for example the number of checks or website checks your plan allows), or interfere with or disrupt the service or other users.
- Not send us unlawful, abusive or malicious content, including in alert messages, check names or request bodies.
- Not resell the service, or use it to build a competing one, without our written agreement.
5. Plans, payment and cancelling
- Free and paid plans. There is a free plan, and paid plans with more checks. Plans and prices are on our pricing page. Every plan includes the same allowance of website checks.
- Paying. Paid plans are charged monthly in pounds sterling to the card you give us, through our payment provider SumUp. Your plan renews each month until you cancel. We’re not VAT registered at the date above, so our prices don’t include VAT; if that changes we’ll tell you.
- Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from your plan page. Your plan then runs until the end of the month you’ve paid for, and doesn’t renew. We don’t refund part-months, but nothing in these terms affects any right you have by law.
- Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails we try again, and email you each time. After three failed attempts your plan ends and your account moves to the free plan.
- Price changes. If we change the price of a plan you’re on, we’ll tell you before it takes effect, and you can cancel before then.
6. Checks over your plan’s limit
When your plan changes to one that allows fewer cron or heartbeat checks than you have (for example when a paid plan ends), this is what happens, so please read it carefully:
- Your oldest checks, up to the new plan’s limit, carry on as normal. Website checks and checks other people have shared with you aren’t counted.
- Your other checks are locked. For 14 days they keep collecting data, but they’re hidden from you and send no alerts.
- We email you when they lock, a week later, and the day before they’re removed.
- If you upgrade, or delete other checks to make room, locked checks are unlocked straight away and nothing is lost.
- After 14 days, any check that is still locked is permanently deleted, together with everything recorded for it. We can’t restore it.
7. Sharing checks with other people
You can share a check with another person, or hand it over to them. They have to accept first, and what they can do depends on the access you give them: view-only, or admin. You’re responsible for who you give access to and for what they do with it. If you transfer a check, you stop being its owner when the other person accepts, and the alert destinations you attached stay with you.
8. Your data
You keep ownership of everything you put into Pingvella and everything it records about your checks. You give us permission to store and process it to provide the service. How long we keep things, and how we protect them, is set out in the Privacy Policy. You can delete a check at any time, which deletes its records too.
9. Availability, and not relying on us alone
We work hard to keep Pingvella running and to send alerts promptly, but we can’t promise it will always be available, or that every check will run or every alert will arrive. Alerts travel through services we don’t control (email, Slack, Telegram and so on), and website checks are made from our servers, so a problem between our servers and your site can look like your site being down.
Pingvella is a helpful extra pair of eyes, not a safety system. Don’t rely on it as the only safeguard for anything where a missed or late alert could cause injury, serious loss or damage.
10. Our rights in the service
We own the Pingvella service, its design and its code. You get the right to use it while you’re entitled to, for your own purposes, under these terms. The ready-made pingvella-health-check.html page you can download is free for you to use on any website, with no conditions.
11. Suspending or ending your account
You can stop using Pingvella at any time, and ask us to delete your account. We may suspend or close an account if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms (especially section 4), or if we’re required to by law. Where we reasonably can, we’ll tell you first and give you a chance to put things right. If we end your account other than for breaking these terms, we’ll refund any month you’ve paid for but not used.
12. Our responsibility to you
Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability that can’t legally be limited, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn’t allow us to exclude.
Subject to that: the service is provided “as is”; we’re not liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or data, or for any indirect or consequential loss, including loss arising from a missed, late or false alert; and our total liability to you for anything arising from the service in any 12 months is limited to what you paid us in that period (or £100 if you’re on the free plan).
13. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms, for example when we change the service or the law changes. If a change matters, we’ll tell you by email or in the service, with reasonable notice, before it takes effect. If you carry on using Pingvella after that, you accept the new terms. If you don’t, you can cancel and close your account first. The date at the top shows when they were last updated.
14. Governing law
These terms, and any dispute about them or the service, are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales can decide any dispute. If you’re a consumer, you may also have the right to bring a claim in your local courts, and nothing here takes away rights you have under mandatory consumer law.
15. Contact
Questions about these terms: hello@pingvella.com.