Building QuietPulse: A Cron Job Monitoring SaaS from Belarus

Hello Indie Hackers!

I'm Vadim, a developer from Minsk, Belarus. I want to share the story of building QuietPulse — a SaaS that monitors cron job executions and alerts you when something goes wrong.

The Problem

Cron jobs are the backbone of many backend systems. But when they fail silently, you only find out when it's too late. Existing monitoring solutions were either too complex, too expensive, or didn't integrate well with the modern stack we were using.

We needed something simple: a heartbeat check that pings our endpoint every time a cron job runs. If the heartbeat is missed, we get notified via Telegram.

Our Stack

• Backend: NestJS
• Frontend: Angular 21
• Database: SQLite with Prisma ORM
• Hosting: DigitalOcean droplet
• Notifications: Telegram Bot API

Yes, I'm using SQLite in production! For our use case (small to medium scale) it works perfectly: zero config, single file, and fast enough.

The Payment Challenge

Being based in Belarus, we can't use Stripe or PayPal. That's a huge hurdle for any SaaS. I found NOWPayments, a crypto payment processor that supports invoice-based payments. Users can pay with Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, etc. It's not ideal for everyone, but it works.

Our pricing is simple:

• Free: 2 jobs, 1-hour minimum interval
• Starter: 7 USD/month, 20 jobs, 5-minute minimum interval
• Unlimited: 25 USD/month, unlimited jobs, 1-minute minimum interval

I chose these numbers after analyzing our infrastructure costs and competitor pricing.

Launch and SEO

I launched in March 2026. Our main focus now is getting discovered. I've already published several articles:

• "Detect Missed Cron Jobs in Production" on our blog
• "How We Built a Cron Job Monitoring System That Actually Works" on Dev.to and Hashnode

I'm implementing SEO best practices: /llms.txt, OpenAPI spec, schema.org markup, sitemap, and a series of "Cron Monitoring Best Practices" articles.

Technical Deep Dive (optional)

I built the system with reliability in mind:

• Each job has a configurable timeout
• Missed heartbeats trigger alerts after a grace period
• Webhooks for integration with other tools (Planned)
• We use a "soft delete" pattern for data retention

The most challenging part was designing the billing system to work with NOWPayments' Invoice API, which requires us to create invoices server-side and redirect users to the payment page.

Lessons Learned

• Start simple: We could have over-engineered payment processing. Using a third-party crypto gateway saved us months.
• SQLite is fine: Don't default to PostgreSQL if you don't need it.
• SEO takes time: We're writing quality content, but indexing takes weeks.
• Community matters: Engaging on Reddit, Indie Hackers, and Dev.to helps more than paid ads at this stage.

What's Next?

I'm working on:

• Webhook notifications (for Slack, Discord, email)
• More granular permission controls for team accounts
• A public API for custom integrations

If you're looking for a simple, affordable cron monitoring solution, check out quietpulse.xyz. I'd love your feedback!

You can reach me at quietpulse.social@gmail.com.