1-Min vs 5-Min: Speed Matters
5-min outdated. 1-min standard.
Intervals
- 30s: Real-time (rare free)
- 1 min: Near real (exit1.dev)
- 5 min: Standard free
- 15 min: Basic
- 30+ min: Useless
Interval sets detection speed.
Cost of Delay
Examples below are illustrative; actual impact varies by business.
E-comm Black Friday: Fail 2:00, 5-min detect 2:05, fix 2:25 (25 min), $50k loss. 1-min: 2:01 detect, 2:21 fix (21 min), saves $40k.
SaaS: DB 10:30, 5-min 10:35, restart 10:37 (7 min), 200 tickets. 1-min 10:31, 10:33 (3 min), 80 tickets.
API: 500s 8 min undetected, cascades. Real-time stops.
Cascade: Fail unnoticed, load shifts, secondary fails, full outage.
1-min catches stage 1, 5-min stage 3.
Tech
False positives: Not from frequency, from bad config.
Common myth: Long intervals reduce false. Reality: Multi-location, retries do.
exit1.dev:
- Fail Location A
- Retry B
- Wait 30s
- Confirm C
- Alert
Network: 5-min low load, 1-min more data for trends.
Data: 5-min 288 points/day, 1-min 1440 (5x).
Benefits: Trends, SLAs, optimization, planning.
Business
SLA: 99.9% 43 min/mo. 5-min misreports 8-min as 5. 1-min accurate.
Users: Abandon >3s. 5-min allows 4:59 down undetected.
Cost-benefit: Marginal cost vs huge savings.
Types
Real-time (30s): Payments, trading, critical.
Near (1 min): Most prod, SaaS, e-comm.
Periodic (5+): Internal, dev, non-critical.
Picker
High-traffic: 1-min.
Dev/staging: 5-min.
Internal: 1-5 min.
APIs: 1-min.
Practices
Graduated: Critical 1-min, important 2-3, supporting 5, dev 10-15.
Smart alerting: Immediate for payments, delayed for perf.
Infra: Redundant locations, retries, rate limits, monitor the monitor.
exit1.dev
1-min free all. Why? Modern infra cheap. Every site deserves fast detect. 5-min compromise no more.
False reduction: Multi-location, retries, context, patterns.
Data: Optimize speed, capacity, patterns, intermittents.
Future
Faster: Edge, serverless, AI false reduction, synthetic realistic.
Adaptive: Adjust by criticality, history, load, impact.
Conclusion
Choose fast. No regrets.
Try exit1.dev for 1-min difference.
Sources
- Google SRE Book: Monitoring Distributed Systems — https://sre.google/sre-book/monitoring-distributed-systems/
- AWS Well-Architected: Reliability Pillar — https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/reliability-pillar/welcome.html
Recommended Free Monitoring Resources
- Free Uptime Monitor Checklist – Step-by-step actions to configure a free uptime monitor that catches incidents fast.
- Best Free Uptime Monitoring Tools (2025) – Compare the strongest free uptime monitor platforms and when to upgrade.
- Free Website Monitoring Tools 2025 Guide – Evaluate which free website monitor fits your stack and alerting needs.
- Free Website Monitoring for Developers – See how engineering teams automate alerts, SLO tracking, and reporting with a free website monitor.
Morten Pradsgaard is the founder of exit1.dev — the free uptime monitor for people who actually ship. He writes no-bullshit guides on monitoring, reliability, and building software that doesn't crumble under pressure.