Blog post
Blog Post
Introducing WebPageTest Expert Plan: Real-Time Insights, Synthetic + RUM together in One Platform
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Imagine this: You push a major update to your website, confident that everything looks great. Hours later, traffic plummets. Your users complain about slow load times, but when you check WebPageTest, everything seems fine. What’s missing? Real-time insights and proactive monitoring.
For over a decade, WebPageTest has been the gold standard in web performance testing, trusted by developers, QA engineers, and WebOps teams worldwide. But while running tests is crucial, it only gives you a snapshot—not the full picture of how your site performs over time.
Enter the WebPageTest (WPT) Expert Plan—the solution that transforms WPT from a testing tool into a continuous monitoring powerhouse. By incorporating WPT directly into Catchpoint’s Internet Performance Monitoring (IPM) platform, it gives you real-time insights, scheduled synthetic tests, and real user monitoring (RUM) all in one place—so you can detect issues before they impact your users.
In this post, we'll discuss the features of the new Expert Plan and explain how it differs from the starter and pro plans, helping you decide if it's the right fit for your team.
WebPageTest plans compared
Not all web performance needs are the same. Whether you're an individual developer, a growing business, or an enterprise managing large-scale digital experiences, WebPageTest offers plans tailored to your needs. Below is a comparison of the Starter, Pro, and Expert Plans, so you can see exactly what each plan offers.
WebPageTest Pro vs. Expert: Why upgrade?
If you’re using WPT Pro today, you’re likely running tests manually or in scheduled bursts. The Expert Plan takes that to the next level by giving you real-time performance insights, automated monitoring, and a single-pane-of-glass view for both lab and real-world data.
Key differentiators from the pro plan:
- Enterprise-Grade Monitoring
While Pro users still rely on WPT’s standalone platform to run tests, the Expert Plan integrates directly into Catchpoint’s IPM portal, making it easier to schedule tests, set up alerts, and analyze performance at scale.
Setting up scheduled tests and alerts is a piece of cake, and the AI-powered dashboards start collecting data immediately. If you use specific locations and devices on WebPageTest.org today, you can use the exact same ones in Catchpoint.
- Real User Monitoring (RUM)
Unlike the Pro Plan, which focuses solely on synthetic testing, the Expert Plan includes RUM for real-time performance insights based on actual user interactions. Collecting real user monitoring data is as simple as adding a super lightweight JS tag to your page. The tag adds no weight to your webpage, so there will be no negative impact on your UX—only benefits for your team by collecting this data to improve metrics like Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
- AI-Powered Dashboards
The Expert Plan allows teams to visualize and analyze WPT data in Catchpoint’s AI-powered dashboards, making it easier to see performance improvements and regressions in both pre- and post-production environments. Customized alerts help teams to react quickly to unexpected slowdowns.
- Longer Test History & Data Retention – The Expert Plan extends test history from 13 months (Pro Plan) to up to 7 years, making it more suitable for long-term trend analysis and compliance needs.
- More Customization & Scalability – With private tests, bulk testing, integrations, and SSO, the Expert Plan is designed for large teams managing performance across complex digital environments.
Why you need both Synthetic and RUM
One of the biggest advantages of the WPT Expert Plan is its combination of Synthetic and RUM—giving you a full, 360-degree view of your site’s performance. Each monitoring type has its strengths:
- Synthetic Monitoring runs controlled, repeatable tests to catch regressions and troubleshoot performance issues before they affect users.
- RUM captures live user interactions, showing how actual visitors experience your site based on real-world conditions.
Why does this matter? Because Synthetic and RUM complement each other. Synthetic monitoring ensures your site is fast and reliable in a controlled environment, while RUM reveals how real users actually experience it. Together, they provide deeper insights into both short-term issues (detected by synthetic) and long-term trends (revealed by RUM). By leveraging both synthetic and RUM, our new Expert Plan helps you:
- Catch issues before they impact users
- Monitor Core Web Vitals like INP in real time
- Analyze real user behavior alongside synthetic test results
- Improve both search rankings and real-world performance
While synthetic or RUM alone can provide valuable insights, using both delivers a complete web performance monitoring strategy.
How to Get Started
Ready to take your web performance monitoring to the next level? Our solution experts can walk you through a live demo and help you get started. Click here to connect.
Learn more:
- Web Performance Webinar – See a live demo of RUM in action
- Guide to Core Web Vitals – Learn how to optimize for Google’s performance metrics
- Guided Product Tour – Get full access to our Catchpoint product tours
- Web Performance Monitoring Best Practices – Discover the best strategies for optimizing web performance
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