Synthetic testing

A Website Can Be Up While Checkout Is Broken

Q: What does it cost to start?

The free plan needs no credit card: 10 uptime checks, 10 SSL checks, and 10 WHOIS checks, each with its own allowance, 60 synthetic monitoring tokens, screenshots, email alerts, and a status page. Uptime checks run up to every minute on a paid plan, and every 10 minutes on the free plan. Paid plans start at $5 a month. You can change or cancel from the account, and the plan you have paid for stays in place until the end of that period.

Uptime tells you the server responded. It doesn't tell you that the checkout button failed, a password reset email never arrived, or a payment script stopped working in one region. Acumen Logs tests these journeys in a real browser, saving screenshots, console errors and network requests so you can see what went wrong. Video recording is available on Essentials and Pro.

Start free on Acumen Logs

No credit card. The free plan includes one browser monitor, screenshots, email alerts, and a status page.

Web Property

Desktop, Mobile, Tablet

Authoring

Record, build, or describe

Evidence

Console, network, Lighthouse; video on Essentials and Pro

Alerts

Slack, Teams, email and webhooks; SMS on Essentials and Pro

Synthetic run · Frankfurt

Checkout — production

Failed

Total requests

132

20x response

124

30x response

40x response

50x response

Step 1 · Open /shop

1.0s

Step 2 · Add the wool coat

0.7s

Step 3 · Enter shipping

1.3s

Step 4 · Submit payment

3.2s

Step 5 · Order confirmation

—

POST /api/payments returned 502 after 3.2s. Screenshot and console saved; video on Essentials and Pro.

Uptime vs Synthetic Monitoring

The check that stays green while the sale fails

An uptime monitor asks whether a URL responded. Synthetic testing asks whether a person can finish the job. Acumen Logs runs both. The journey is what catches a broken button, a silent script error, or a gateway that loads and then refuses the charge.

Uptime reports

The journey finds

GET / returns 200 in 180ms from every region you check.

Journey failed

Pay now throws before an order exists. The storefront is healthy. The sale is not.

The login page is reachable and the certificate is valid.

Journey failed

The password reset never lands in the test inbox, so the account cannot be recovered.

Every probe location can open the homepage.

Journey failed

The same checkout fails only from Frankfurt, because a payment script was blocked at the edge.

AI journey builder

Describe The Journey. AI Creates The Test.

Describe what a customer does in one sentence. AI navigates your site, identifies the right links, fields and buttons, and creates a complete journey with a screenshot of every step. What once took 10 to 20 minutes of manual setup now takes seconds.

No coding, scripts or technical setup required.
Review every step and screenshot before saving.
Make changes easily using the no-code journey builder.

Try the AI builder free How AI setup works

Prompt

Go to the contact page, fill in the contact form, and submit it.

✓

Click “Contact” in the menu

Step 1

✓

Fill Name with “Alex Morgan”

Step 2

✓

Fill Email with a test inbox address

Step 3

✓

Fill Message with a demo request

Step 4

✓

Click “Send message”

Step 5

✓

See “Thanks for getting in touch”

Step 6

6 steps and 6 screenshots, built in seconds

Save journey

What a run keeps

A Complete Browser Session, Not Just a Status Check

Each run opens a real browser, follows your defined steps, and captures the session details needed to investigate failures without asking customers what they experienced.

On schedule, or on demand

Run journeys automatically in a real browser at intervals that suit your plan, up to every minute, and as slow as once a day. You can also start a test manually or trigger it through your development pipeline whenever you need an immediate result.

Desktop, mobile, or tablet

Choose a device when creating your test. Acumen Logs simulates the selected screen size and browser, helping you catch problems that only affect desktop, mobile or tablet visitors.

Steps, in order

Test every stage of a customer journey, from login and search to checkout and confirmation. Each step records whether it succeeds or fails. The test can also adapt to changes, such as cookie banners or optional offers, without incorrectly failing a successful journey.

Screenshots and video

Every run saves screenshots. Video recordings are available on Essentials and Pro. See exactly what the browser displayed when something went wrong, whether it was an empty page, a loading screen that never finished or an error your customers would have encountered.

The console, intact

Browser errors are saved with each test run. You can automatically flag a journey when an error occurs and review the error message directly, without having to recreate the problem yourself.

Every request

Review the network requests made during each journey, including scripts, images and other resources. Identify failed requests, such as a payment service error, even when the main webpage loads successfully.

Fail conditions you choose

Choose when a journey should be marked as failed. Set rules for browser errors, HTTP error responses or missing confirmation messages. You can also exclude third-party services from alerts when you only want to be notified about issues affecting your own website.

Lighthouse on the same report

Three ways in

Create Your Journey: Record, Assemble or Describe

You don't need to write automation scripts to monitor your checkout journey. Teams can also run the same test through GitHub Actions as part of their development and testing workflows.

Record the path

The Chrome extension records your interactions with your website and turns them into automated steps. Open your site, start recording and complete the journey just as a customer would.

Assemble the steps

Use the no-code builder to add, reorder and customise steps. Set your starting URL, device and the content or elements the test should look for. Reuse the same journey across staging, preview and production environments.

Describe it in plain language

Simply describe the journey you want to test, and AI will generate the steps for you. For example, sign in as a returning customer, add a product to the basket and complete checkout. Review the steps, then schedule your test.

Run Tests Automatically with GitHub Actions

The GitHub Action triggers a monitoring run directly from your workflow. Set the starting URL for your staging environment, select a region, and review the results. You can configure the job to fail if the journey does not pass or if warnings need to be treated as failures. Store the run URL securely in your GitHub secrets.

Read the GitHub Action guide →

- name: Run checkout journey

uses: deferdie/acumen-github-action/.github/actions/Synthetic@v1

with:

SYNTHETIC_TEST_URL: ${{ secrets.ACUMEN_SYNTHETIC_URL }}

START_URL: https://staging.northline.example

LOCATION: eu-central-1

WAIT_FOR_COMPLETION: true

FAIL_ON_WARNINGS: true

Chrome Extension

Record Customer Journeys in Seconds. No Coding Required.

The Acumen Logs Synthetic Test Recorder works directly in your Chrome browser. Open your website or online store, press record, and complete important customer journeys. The extension automatically captures each interaction and converts it into reliable synthetic test steps using smart element identification.

What the recorder captures

Click

Shop Catalog

Tracks navigation through top-level menus and category links.

Click

Select Item

Locates product cards, modals, or variants using semantic text.

Fill

Input Credentials

Records form fields (email, address) with variable test data.

Click

Submit Checkout

Triggers submission and asserts the subsequent confirmation redirect.

Add to Chrome How the recorder works

https://yourstore.com/checkout

Acumen Recorder

● Storefront

Complete your order

Review item details and enter shipping info to finish checkout.

Email Address

alex@company.com

TARGET: button#order-submit

Acumen Logs

REC 00:34

Live Action Stream

Click ✓ recorded

Nav: Shop

a[href="/shop"]

Fill ✓ recorded

Input: Email

input#customer_email

Clicking detecting...

Button: Place Order

button#order-submit

Zero code or SDKs

Record interactions directly in your browser without installing additional tracking tools or custom software. Test live websites, web applications and checkout journeys with minimal setup.

Resilient selectors

Website updates can change the way pages are structured. The recorder identifies elements using their position and visible information, helping your tests continue working when designs change.

Clean reporting & safe runs

Run multi-step tests in staging environments or test payment gateways. Acumen Logs identifies automated test traffic so scheduled runs don't interfere with your production analytics.

Evidence

One checkout, four cities, one broken payment

One checkout, checked from four cities. London, Ohio, and Singapore complete the purchase. Frankfurt fails on the payment request. A homepage uptime check would still be green in all four.

Every 5 minutes

Checkout — production

1 of 4 failed

London · eu-west-2

Pass

All five steps passed. No alert.

Frankfurt · eu-central-1

Fail

Payment returned 502. The other regions passed in the same minute.

Ohio · us-east-2

Pass

All five steps passed. Payment authorized in under a second.

Singapore · ap-southeast-1

Slow

The purchase completed. Payment took 4.8s, over the sample warning line.

A step slower than 3 seconds is marked as a warning. You decide whether a warning sends an alert.

Slack · #incidents

Checkout — production failed in Frankfurt

Step 4

TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'token') at submitPayment (checkout.js:214)

Requests on Submit payment

GET

/checkout

200

260ms

POST

/api/payments

502

3.2s

GET

js.stripe.com/v3

200

150ms

GET

pixel.untrusted.example/p.js

blocked

—

The run saves the screenshot for this step, with the console error and the request log. Video is available on Essentials and Pro.

Stay on the path

The test should not wander, and the email has to arrive

A journey that clicks through a live site needs limits. A journey that signs someone up is not finished until the message shows up.

Security of the run

Allowlist the domains and addresses the browser may call. Fail the run when a request leaves that list.
Block ads, analytics, and other noisy scripts so timings stay comparable from one run to the next.
Ignore errors from hosts outside your domain when a third-party pixel should not page the on-call.
Keep credentials in the project. The GitHub Action takes a run URL from secrets, not a password in the workflow file.

A test inbox on every monitor

Signup, password reset, and magic links do not end on the submit button. Each monitor has a dedicated inbox.
The journey can wait for the message, open the link, and assert that the account is actually usable.
If the mail never arrives, the step fails — even when the form itself returned a success state.

Revenue Protection

Test the Flows That Actually Drive Revenue

A green homepage is not the same thing as a working product. Add automated browser journeys to verify the exact paths your customers take.

Product engineering

Smoke test the release before it impacts users. Trigger a journey via GitHub Actions to block a deployment if a critical path fails. If a regression slips into production, scheduled checks catch it before your customers do.

Explore DevOps monitoring →

Commerce and payments

Cart, shipping, and the gateway are one journey. Run it on a short interval from more than one region. A 502 from the payment host in a single city is a revenue incident. The homepage check will not say so.

How synthetic testing protects UX →

AI journey generation

Describe your customer flow in one sentence and let Acumen Logs scan your site, click through the steps, and build the browser test automatically.

Try the AI journey builder →

“Really easy setup process for user journey based synthetic monitoring, and all the reporting options we needed.”

Synthetic monitoring FAQs: What is synthetic monitoring? → What tools are available for synthetic monitoring? → API & Webhook monitoring →

Setup

A monitor, a schedule, a definition of failure

There is no agent to install on your servers. Most teams have the first monitor running in about a minute.

Name the journey

“Checkout — production” ages better than “Test 4.” Choose the project, the startup URL, and desktop, mobile, or tablet. Add a base domain if the same steps should run against more than one environment.

Decide how often

Turn the schedule on when the steps are trustworthy. Revenue paths deserve a short interval; quieter journeys can run less often. Paid plans check up to every minute, and a schedule can be as slow as once a day, and a pipeline can start a run between those ticks.

Say what fails, and who hears it

JavaScript errors, HTTP status budgets, a missing confirmation string. Then point the alert at a channel someone reads: Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, desktop, or a webhook into the pager or the ticket queue. Send a test alert before you trust it. Set a minimum fail count so one stray 404 does not wake anyone.

Pricing

Try journeys free. Schedule them from Solo

A synthetic monitoring token is 30 seconds of browser-test time. No credit card to start, and you can cancel any time.

forever

60 synthetic monitoring tokens a month
Tests run when you start them
Screenshots, console, and network logs
10 monitors shared across uptime, API, SSL, WHOIS, heartbeat and RUM
Email alerts

Start free

$39.99

per month

1,200 synthetic monitoring tokens a month
Custom schedules and webhooks
Video recording and trace logs
150 monitors shared across uptime, API, SSL, WHOIS, RUM and heartbeat. Uptime runs up to every minute.
30 days of history, with export

Start the 14-day trial

Solo at $5 adds custom schedules and 150 synthetic monitoring tokens. Pro adds CI/CD and 6,000 synthetic monitoring tokens. Both are on the pricing page.

See every plan →

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

How is synthetic testing different from uptime monitoring?

Uptime checks whether a URL responds. Synthetic testing drives Chromium through a multi-step flow and fails when the flow fails: a form that submits nowhere, a script error, a payment request that returns 500, a confirmation string that never appears. Use uptime for reachability. Use a journey for the work the page is supposed to do.

How does the Chrome recorder work?

Install the Chrome recorder, open your published site, and click through the journey. The extension turns those actions into steps. It remembers the control by what it is and where it sits, so a class name change on the next publish does not by itself break the test. After a real redesign, open the next run and adjust the step that no longer matches.

Chrome recorder →

Do I have to write code?

No. Record with the Chrome extension, assemble steps in the builder, or describe the journey in plain language and let Acumen Logs draft it. You can still start runs from GitHub Actions and the API when you want them in a pipeline.

What happens when the layout changes?

Steps follow the journey you record or describe, and conditional branches cover elements that are only sometimes on the page. Acumen Logs matches controls by what they are for — Submit order, Add to cart — so a class-name change does not retire the test. After a real redesign, open the next run and adjust the step that no longer matches.

Show all questions Show fewer questions

Which devices and regions can a journey use?

Desktop, mobile, and tablet, each with its viewport and user agent. Run from locations such as London, Frankfurt, Ohio, and Singapore, on their own or together, so a regional CDN or payments failure does not hide inside a single global check.

Can it test flows that depend on email?

Yes. Every monitor includes a test inbox for confirmation mail, password resets, and other messages the journey has to open before it can continue. If the message does not arrive, the step fails.

Can I stop the browser from calling unexpected hosts?

Yes. Allowlist domains and addresses, block noisy third parties, and fail the run when the page requests a host outside the list. You can also ignore non-domain errors so a tracking pixel does not count as your outage.

What does it cost to start?

The free plan needs no credit card: 10 monitors shared across uptime, API, SSL, WHOIS, heartbeat and RUM, 60 synthetic monitoring tokens, screenshots, email alerts, and a status page. Paid plans start at $5 a month. You can change or cancel from the account, and the plan you have paid for stays in place until the end of that period.

See pricing →

How does a journey fit in CI?

The GitHub Action triggers a synthetic run from a workflow. You can override the start URL, choose a location, wait for the result, and fail the job when the journey fails or when warnings should be hard failures. The action returns the run id, pass or fail, and response counts for later steps.

Read the action guide →

Testimonials

What teams are saying

Trusted by agencies, hosts, and growing SaaS teams

Customer Spotlight Verified Customer

"Our experience with Acumen Logs has been outstanding. They played a crucial role in helping us quickly onboard hundreds of client sites for both uptime and synthetic monitoring, and their willingness to develop features based on our needs was a game-changer."

Read full review + Show less −

Their flexible plans made it easy for us to tailor the service to our needs, providing invaluable support every step of the way. Their responsiveness and commitment to consistent platform updates have exceeded our expectations, and working with their team has been an absolute pleasure. Highly recommend!

Jared · Prism RBS

Hundreds of sites

Migrated with zero downtime

Uptime + Journeys

Managed in one dashboard

E-commerce

"We needed a reliable monitoring platform for the many client stores we manage, and Acumen stepped in and filled the void in a terrific way. Super responsive team that ships new features and improvements quickly. A+"

Full quote + Less −

In the months that we've been using the platform there have already been several new features introduced, and I assume things will continue to get even better from here.

Brian · Prism RBS

User Journeys

"We're using both synthetic and uptime monitoring. Really straightforward setup process for testing critical user journeys, and all the clear reporting options we needed."

Phil · PTDistinction

Web Hosting

"Love the support we got from the Acumen team! Fast, attentive, and highly recommended."

Mark · HostingNL