Website change text alerts: get a text when a web page changes

How to get a text when a website changes

Text alerts use the same monitor as email and Slack alerts. You add the page, describe the change you are waiting for, and choose your phone as one of the places the alert goes.

1. 1Create an account and add the page you want to monitor.
2. 2Write a rule for the change you are waiting for, such as 'text me when the Add to cart button comes back' or 'tell me when a new session is posted'. Without a rule, every change sends a text.
3. 3Open the site's Alerts tab, choose Text message under Add a destination, enter your mobile number with its country code, and select Add Text message.
4. 4Choose how often the page is checked: hourly on Starter, every 5 minutes on Pro.

A text destination sits alongside your other website change alerts, so you can keep email for the record and get a text for the same change. To text a second person, add their number as another destination.

Destinations are set per site, so every page on a site texts the same numbers. The rule on each page decides which of its changes send anything at all.

What the text message says

A text is short on purpose. It names the page that changed, says in one line what changed, and links to the change in your dashboard. When the page has a rule, that line is what matched it, so you can tell from the lock screen whether to act.

The link opens the full change: the lines that were removed, the lines that replaced them, and before and after screenshots. Email alerts carry the same lines in the message itself, which is why it is worth keeping email on as a record next to the text.

A text also reaches people who use no messaging app at all. In 2025, Pew Research found that 98% of US adults own a cellphone, while 91% own a smartphone.

When a text beats an email

Texts are for changes that lose their value by the minute: someone else is racing you for the same thing, or a window is about to close. That covers a short list of jobs:

• Restocks, where the product page itself is the thing to monitor.
• Classes, club sessions and events with a fixed number of seats, which can fill within hours of being posted. Getting notified when a website is updated covers choosing the page that lists them.
• FAA ground stops at the airports you fly through or dispatch from.
• Price drops on something you are ready to buy.

A text only arrives as fast as the page is checked. Hourly checks on Starter suit most of these; for restocks and seats that go in minutes, the 5-minute checks on Pro are the difference between a seat and a waitlist.

One limit is worth knowing before you rely on it: some large retailers block automated checks. A check that fails shows up on the page in your dashboard, but it does not send a text, so look at a new monitor once or twice before trusting it with something you cannot miss.

Everything slower, such as a policy page or a competitor's homepage, belongs in email or Slack. Nobody needs a text about a footer.

Keep text alerts worth reading

A text interrupts, so every one should be worth the interruption. Four habits keep it that way:

• Give every texted page a plain-English rule. A rule that names the change, such as 'a new date is added', keeps counters, timestamps and banners from sending anything.
• Put urgent pages on their own site with the text destination, and leave slow pages on a site that only emails. Destinations are per site, so this is how you choose which pages can text you.
• Switch a text destination off on the Alerts tab when you do not need it, such as after the restock you were waiting for, and back on later. Email keeps working either way.
• Check the page's history now and then. Changes a rule held back stay there with the reason, so you can confirm the rule filters what you meant.

Other ways to get a text when a website changes

A built-in text destination is not the only route. These are the others, and what each one asks of you:

If you already run changedetection.io and have a registered Twilio sender, Apprise will do the job. If you want texts without writing code or registering as an SMS sender, that is what the built-in destination is for.