Setting Price Alerts That Actually Fire: A Complete Guide

AlertaChart's alert system is the feature most users tell us they upgrade for. The basics are simple — click a price level, pick a direction, wait for the bell. The details are what make it reliable: where the alert fires from, which exchange it's bound to, what happens when your app is closed, and what limits apply on each plan.

Setting an alert

There are three ways to start:

1. Right-click the chart at the price you want (long-press on mobile). AlertaChart figures out the direction automatically — above current price means above, below means below — and writes the alert with whatever the active chart's exchange and symbol resolve to. 2. The Alerts panel "+" button on the right side of the screen. You can type a price in, pick a direction explicitly, and pin a note to the alert if you want. 3. The chart's right-edge alarm button — when you hover the price axis, an inline bell appears next to the live price. Click it to drop an alert one tap.

Whichever method you use, the alert is bound to a specific (exchange, symbol) tuple. An alarm set while the chart is showing BTC USDT.P futures goes to BINANCE_FUTURES:btcusdt. An alarm set while the chart shows BTC USDT spot goes to BINANCE:btcusdt. The bell icon on the watchlist row matches by both fields, so a futures alarm lights up only the futures row, never the spot row beside it.

Direction inference

For one-click alerts (right-click on chart) the direction is inferred from the clicked price vs the current price:

- Click above current → "above" direction. The alert fires when price crosses up through your level. - Click below current → "below" direction. The alert fires when price crosses down through your level.

You can flip the direction afterwards from the Alerts panel — useful if you want a "below" alert at a level currently above price (e.g. expecting a pump-and-dump pattern).

Free plan vs Pro plan

Free plan: - Up to 5 active alerts at once. - Notifications only when AlertaChart is open in your browser or the mobile app is in the foreground. - Alerts saved locally and synced when you're online.

Pro plan: - Up to 25 active alerts. - 24/7 server-side price tracking — your alarms are watched whether your app is open or not. - Push notifications on iOS and Android when the app is closed or backgrounded. - The alarm survives device reboots, network blips, and time-zone changes.

How server-side tracking works (Pro)

When you create an alert as a Pro user, the alarm is registered with our 24/7 monitoring service. The service watches the live price feed and, when the price crosses your level:

1. Marks the alarm triggered. 2. Sends a push notification to your registered devices on iOS and Android. 3. Flips the alarm into the triggered list the next time you open the app.

Free plan alarms skip step 2. If your browser is open, the price feed inside it will trigger the alarm locally; otherwise nothing fires.

Why your alarm didn't fire (a checklist)

If a Pro alarm didn't trigger when you expected it to, walk through:

1. Is the alarm still active? The Alerts panel splits Active from Triggered. A triggered alarm doesn't refire — it has to be re-armed manually. 2. Is push notification permission granted? Settings → Notifications → AlertaChart on iOS; Settings → Apps → AlertaChart → Notifications on Android. If denied, the alarm still triggers on the server but the OS swallows the notification. 3. Is your device on Do Not Disturb / Sleep / Focus mode? AlertaChart sends a regular notification; OS-level focus filters can silence it. 4. Did the price actually cross your level? Sometimes the price wicks below/above intra-bar but closes back through. The alarm fires on cross-through, not close — so a wick is enough — but if the price never crossed (it just got close), no alarm fires.

Managing alerts at scale

The Alerts panel shows all active alarms with their price, direction, and the (exchange, pair) tag. You can delete any alarm with the trash icon, edit the price by clicking it, or filter by symbol. Triggered alarms move to a separate Triggered tab where you can re-arm or delete them.

If you find yourself bumping the 25-alarm Pro limit, the bottleneck is usually low-conviction alerts piling up. Most disciplined traders run with 5–10 live alarms at any time, refreshed weekly.