Getting Started With TerrAlert: What You Need to Know

Getting Started With TerrAlert: What You Need to KnowTerrAlert Team · 2026-09-09This is a practical guide to your first day with TerrAlert: what it is, whether it fits what you need, and how to set it up.What TerrAlert is, in one paragraphTerrAlert watches a specific area you define, using satellite imagery, and tells you when something meaningfully changes there, new construction, forest loss, flooding, fire, vegetation loss, or urban expansion, so you find out without having to check yourself. Full detail is in How TerrAlert Works.Who it's actually forTerrAlert is built for situations where checking a place yourself, often enough, is impractical: land you do not physically visit regularly, sites you audit rather than operate, or areas too remote or too numerous to inspect by hand. In practice this covers ESG and sustainability teams tracking supply-chain deforestation risk, environmental NGOs monitoring protected areas, government agencies and regulators checking land-use compliance, insurance companies assessing exposure, and real estate or infrastructure developers tracking site activity.If you can and do visit your site of interest every week already, satellite monitoring adds less value. A site visit sees more detail than a 10-metre-resolution image can. TerrAlert is most useful for the areas you cannot visit that often.Choosing a planStart with two questions: how many areas do you need to watch, and how large is each one? TerrAlert's plans are structured around exactly that:

Free. One area up to 200 km², weekly scans, email alerts. The right choice for evaluating whether the imagery over your specific area of interest is actually useful to you, at no cost and no time limit.

Starter and Growth. A handful of areas, daily scans, email and webhook alerts. A reasonable next step once you know TerrAlert is useful and need more than one area.

Pro. Twenty areas, realtime scan checking, REST API access, and construction early-warning via Sentinel-1 radar. The plan for teams that want to integrate detections into their own systems.

Enterprise. Custom scale, negotiated terms, dedicated support.

Full detail and current prices: pricing.Setting up your first area

Draw a boundary on the map around the place you want to watch, or submit one as GeoJSON via the API if you are on a plan with API access.

Choose which categories of change matter for this area. You do not have to watch for all six if only one or two are relevant.

Set your alert channel (email, or a webhook, including a Slack or Teams incoming-webhook URl, detected automatically) and your confidence threshold.

Wait for the first clear satellite pass. This is not instant. See How Fast Are Satellite Alerts, Really? for a realistic expectation.

What to expect in the first few weeksDo not be surprised if nothing happens right away. That is often correct, not a sign of a problem. TerrAlert only alerts on a genuine, corroborated change; an area with no real change produces no alert, which is the system working as intended, not failing. If you want to confirm the pipeline itself is functioning, check the before/after imagery for your area directly in the dashboard rather than waiting on an alert.Getting help

The FAQ answers the most common questions honestly, including the ones with unflattering answers.

Developer documentation, the API guide and webhook guide, covers integration in detail, for Pro and Enterprise plans.

Support scales with plan, from community forum on Free up to a dedicated contact on Enterprise. See /agent-information for the full breakdown, or reach out through contact.

Key takeaways

TerrAlert is most useful for areas you cannot visit often enough yourself: remote, numerous, or simply out of reach of a regular in-person check.

Choose a plan based on how many areas you need and how large they are, starting with Free to confirm the imagery over your specific site is useful before committing to a paid plan.

Expect the first alert, if one comes at all, to take time. No alert in the first week or two on a quiet area is normal, not a malfunction.

FAQDo I need a credit card to try TerrAlert? No. The Free plan requires no card and has no time limit.What if my area doesn't have any real changes for months? Then you should not expect any alerts. That is correct behavior. You can always check the dashboard directly to confirm the imagery itself is updating.References

ESA Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem: account and data access

Ready to try it? Start free, or read How TerrAlert Works first for the full picture.All posts