Is Distill free? What the free plan covers
25 monitors, but only 5 in the cloud. Here is where free Distill stops and what to use next.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom · Editorial team
· 3 min read
Is Distill free? Yes, partly. Distill has a permanent free plan, and it is one of the larger ones among page monitors. But most of what it gives you runs on your own computer, and the free cloud part is small. Here is what you get, where it stops, and what to try if it is not enough.
What the free plan includes
From Distill's pricing page, checked October 2026:
- 25 monitors, of which 5 can run in the cloud.
- Cloud checks every 6 hours at the fastest, up to 1,000 cloud checks a month.
- 2 devices for local monitoring.
- 30 email alerts a month. No webhooks, no SMS.
- No version history and no macros.
Local monitors, run by the browser extension or the desktop app, are unlimited and can check as often as every 5 seconds. They need that device on and the app or browser open.
Where free stops being enough
Free Distill suits a few pages you check while you are at your desk. It gets harder when:
- You want overnight alerts. Only the 5 cloud monitors keep running, and only every 6 hours.
- You want more than 30 emails a month. A busy monitor can use that up quickly.
- The site gets redesigned. The element you selected may move, and the monitor needs fixing.
The first paid plan, Starter, is $15 a month for 50 monitors and a 10-minute cloud interval. Annual billing takes 20% off.
What the paid plans add
Moving up from free changes four things: more monitors in the cloud, shorter intervals, more alerts, and extras like SMS, macros and version history.
| Plan | Price | Monitors | Fastest cloud check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 25 (5 in cloud) | 6 hours |
| Starter | $15/mo | 50 | 10 minutes |
| Professional | $35/mo | 150 | 5 minutes |
| Flexi | $80+/mo | 500+ | 2 minutes |
Cloud checks count against a monthly quota, and unused checks do not carry over.
Free and low-cost alternatives
| Tool | Free option | Paid from |
|---|---|---|
| AyeWatch | Free Preview: 3 runs, no card | $9/mo |
| changedetection.io | Free to self-host | $8.99/mo hosted |
| Visualping | 5 pages, 150 checks a month | $14/mo |
| PageCrawl.io | 6 pages, 220 checks | $13.33/mo, billed yearly |
| OnWebChange | 3 trackers | €0.89/mo |
| Page Monitor | Free Chrome extension | Free |
Prices from each vendor's site, October 2026.
Our pick: AyeWatch
If the reason you are asking "is Distill free" is that you want something that just keeps watching, try AyeWatch. It runs in the cloud, so it does not need your browser open. You paste a link and write what you are waiting for, like "tell me when tickets go on sale", and you get a short summary when it happens. It can watch topics and social media too, not only pages.
Its free option is a trial, not a forever plan: three runs that do not renew. After that, paid plans start at $9 a month, $6 less than Distill's first paid tier. Alerts reach you by push on iOS and Android, or by email, Slack or Discord on paid plans, and a redesign of the page does not break the monitor.
Moving a monitor over
There is no import from Distill, but each monitor takes a couple of minutes to rebuild. Open the Distill monitor and ask what the selected element was standing in for. If it sits on a ticket button, the rule is probably "tell me when tickets go on sale or the date changes". Paste the page into AyeWatch, write that sentence, and add any related pages that share the same purpose. Keep the Distill monitor running for a few days so you can compare what each one catches.
When to stay on free Distill
If your computer is on all day and you want one exact number on one page checked every few seconds, free Distill is hard to beat. AyeWatch does not select single page elements.
For always-on alerts without the upkeep, AyeWatch has a side-by-side with Distill that lists the differences.