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A cron job runs a task for you on a schedule, such as every hour or once a day. You can run a command on your website or request a URL (open a web address), which is handy for apps that tell you to “set up a cron”.

Difficulty

Intermediate

Time

5 minutes

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Add a cron job

1

Open Developer tools

Go to Websites, click your website, then open Advanced → Developer tools and scroll to Cron jobs.
2

Click Add

The Add cron job form opens.
3

Choose the type

  • Run command: runs a command on your website, for example a PHP script.
  • Request URL: opens a web address, for example https://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php.
4

Enter the command or URL

Fill in Command or Request URL.
5

Choose how often it runs

Pick an Interval: every minute, every 15 minutes (the default), every hour, every day, every week, every month, or Custom to enter your own cron schedule.
Add cron job form with Run command and Request URL options, a Request URL field, and an Interval drop-down

Add a cron job

6

Click Add

You’ll see Cron job added. The job appears in the list with its schedule in plain words and in cron format, for example Every hour – 0 * * * *.
A Request URL job is saved as a command that fetches the address quietly in the background, so in the list it shows as a wget command instead of the URL you typed. That’s expected.
To change or remove a job, click ⋮ on its row and choose Edit or Delete.
Developer tools page showing a cron job that runs every hour with its command, the Allow editing of cron from website container toggle, and IonCube loader and Redis toggles below

The Cron jobs list in Developer tools

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Custom schedules

Custom uses the standard five-part cron format: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week.
Schedules use Central European Time (CET, or CEST in summer), which is one hour ahead of UK time. For example, 0 3 * * * runs at 02:00 UK time.
Installing WordPress from the Apps tab adds a cron job for you (wp-cli cron event run --due-now) that runs WordPress’s scheduled tasks every hour. Leave it in place.

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Common examples

WordPress installed from the Apps tab already has an hourly job. If scheduled posts need to run more often, add a Request URL job for https://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php every 15 minutes.
Use Run command with php followed by the path to the script inside your home directory, for example php public_html/cron.php.
Use Run command with php artisan schedule:run run from your Laravel folder, every minute.Commands start in your home directory, so include the folder, for example php my-laravel-app/artisan schedule:run.

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Allow editing of cron from website container

This toggle is off by default. When it’s off, cron jobs can only be changed in the Web Panel. Turn it on only if your software needs to manage its own cron jobs (for example with the crontab command over SSH).
Leave this off unless you need it. If your website is ever hacked, malware often adds its own cron jobs so it can come back after you clean it up.

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Troubleshooting

  1. Check the interval in the list is what you expect.
  2. Run the same command over SSH, or open the URL in your browser, to see if it works by hand.
  3. Make sure paths are correct. Commands run on your website, so use paths inside your home directory.
The URL must be reachable on the internet, so your domain needs to point to FREAKHOSTING and have a working SSL certificate if you use https://.
If Allow editing of cron from website container is on, software on your website can add jobs. Delete anything you don’t recognise, turn the toggle off, and check your website for malware.

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Last Updated: October 2026