How I Monitor 8 Websites and 3 Payment Flows on a Single $6 VPS
One server. Zero monitoring costs. Catches payment failures before customers do.
Here's exactly how I set it up.
The Stack
- VPS: 2-core, 2GB RAM, DigitalOcean Singapore ($6/mo)
- Monitoring: OpsMate (SaaS, cloud-hosted)
- Services on same VPS: 8 websites, 3 payment integrations, 5 API endpoints
Total monitoring overhead: ~80MB RAM, <2% CPU.
What I Monitor (4 Layers)
Layer 1: Basic Uptime (8 websites)
HTTP status, response time (<3s), SSL expiry.
Layer 2: Server Resources
CPU, memory, disk, swap — caught a memory leak before it crashed anything.
Layer 3: Payment Path (this one saves money)
For each payment integration (Stripe, Paddle, Creem):
- Checkout page health
- Payment API connectivity
- Webhook endpoint health
- SSL on payment subdomains
This layer has caught two real incidents:
- Cloudflare rule blocking Stripe.js (caught in 2 minutes)
- Webhook returning 500 after a deployment (caught in 3 minutes)
Layer 4: API Validation
Response time, body validation, rate limit tracking.
The Alerting Setup
| Severity | Channel | When |
|---|---|---|
| Warning | Dashboard | CPU > 80%, response time > 2s |
| Critical | Email + Telegram | Server down, payment failing |
| Emergency | Telegram | All payment paths down |
The Cost Comparison
| Approach | Monthly Cost | Payment Monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot Free | $0 | ❌ |
| UptimeRobot Pro | $7 | ❌ |
| BetterStack | $24+ | ❌ |
| OpsMate | $13/mo | ✅ |
Try It Free
14-day free trial, no credit card required. yunshao.aicreditsapi.com
Set up in 2 minutes. Add your first server. Start catching what other monitors miss.
Originally published on yunshao.aicreditsapi.com.
