A useful alert starts with a clear target.

Create your first monitor

1. Paste the URL of a public page.
2. Choose page changes, a price, stock status, specific text, or new listings.
3. Load a preview. Click an element in the captured image or select it from the text list.
4. Confirm the extracted value and alert rule. Choose a check interval and delivery channels.
5. Review estimated monthly checks and start monitoring.

The preview seeds your baseline without sending an alert. Future matching changes can notify you. If a condition is already true at setup, it must become false and then true again before that rule alerts.

One load, several targets

Track up to 3 targets per monitor on every plan. A price and stock label on the same page share one scheduled check. New-listing monitors read links on that page; they do not crawl the linked pages. Each monitored URL is one monitor.

All rules work with HTML checks or Browser checks. Start with HTML checks, then try Browser checks if the expected text is missing. Browser checks run JavaScript and have their own allowance. Both loading methods support the same number of targets.

Choose a stable element

Click the current price, the stock label, or the container around a list. A narrow selection avoids unrelated navigation and promotional changes. The text list provides an alternative to pointing at the image. Advanced settings accept CSS selectors, including a bounded nth-of-type form.

The picker saves a selector and, where available, stable attribute alternatives. A selection must resolve to exactly one element. If it disappears or becomes ambiguous, the monitor reports Selection needs attention and keeps your last successful values. Open Edit targets & rules to repair it. Structural selectors can shift when a website redesigns its layout; occasionally review the captured values.

Price rules

Select one current price, excluding crossed-out prices and ranges. Choose the page’s currency and decimal format explicitly. A dollar sign does not identify USD or CAD. PageFluxer normalizes the amount without converting currencies. Ambiguous numbers, conflicting currency markers, and missing prices are check issues.

Changes alerts on any numeric change. Drops alerts each time the price falls. Falls below alerts on crossing the threshold: 35 → 29 triggers a below-30 rule; 29 → 28 does not. After rising to 30 or more, a later crossing can trigger again. Enter thresholds with a dot, such as 30.00.

Stock rules

Choose becomes available or becomes unavailable. Match the stock label against explicit phrases. The defaults cover common English labels; edit them for another language or a site’s particular wording. Conflicting or unrecognized phrases mean unknown, never “out of stock.” A missing element is also an error.

Unknown stock prevents the whole monitor capture from replacing its previous baseline or sending an alert. Other monitors continue. Recovery compares with the last successfully confirmed state.

Text and new listings

Text can alert on any change, when a phrase starts appearing, or when it stops appearing. Phrase matching is literal and case-insensitive. Conditional alerts fire only when the condition becomes true.

For listings, select a container with links and optionally enter text such as “senior engineer.” Matching uses link text and its URL. A new matching URL triggers an alert; reordering, removals, and edits to an existing matching link do not. URL fragments are ignored; query parameters remain part of the identity. Choose clean, stable listing links to avoid tracking-parameter noise. A selected list is limited to 500 links.

Previews, usage and history

Free includes 10 page previews per UTC day, Starter 20, and Pro 40, subject to service capacity. Loading or refreshing a page uses a preview attempt, even if the website fails; changing targets within that captured preview does not. Previews are separate from scheduled-check allowances.

Captured preview HTML expires after 15 minutes and is deleted in background cleanup. At most three recent captures are kept per account. Preview screenshots are returned to your browser and are not stored in PostgreSQL. A saved monitor keeps its normalized baseline and normal plan history. Estimated monthly usage assumes a 31-day month; other active monitors share the same allowance.

All successfully extracted value changes are recorded in history. Only rule matches enter email or webhook delivery. Digest timing, quiet hours, and account notification settings still apply. Webhooks are immediate per matching event and use their own retry handling.

What the preview does—and doesn’t—show

The image is a captured selection aid, not an embedded website or pixel-difference monitor. It covers the first 3,600 pixels of the page; the element list and advanced selectors can reach other captured content. A preview may load images for context; scheduled checks skip images. The selection tracks DOM content, not fixed screen coordinates.

Public, read-only pages are supported. Sign-ins, submitted forms, automated clicks, infinite scrolling, frames, shadow DOM, and CAPTCHA solving are not included. Pages may vary by region or block automation. Always confirm the value PageFluxer actually extracted. Read the Browser checks guide for loading limits.