A lapsed domain is the most complete outage there is. The site does not go down — it stops existing. Email stops arriving, the certificate becomes irrelevant, and for a few weeks anyone can buy the name out from under you. It is also entirely preventable, because the date is known years in advance.
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What is the best domain expiry monitoring tool?
For most people the right answer is whatever already monitors the site, because domain expiry should not need its own subscription. Several tools include it free. If you manage a genuine portfolio — dozens of names across several registrars, with renewal costs to track — DomainMOD is free, open source and built for exactly that. If you need domain data programmatically, WhoisXML API is the feed.
Domain expiry is the monitoring nobody sets up until it has already cost them something. Auto-renew is switched on, so it feels solved — right up until the card on file expires, the registrar email goes to somebody who left, or the renewal notice lands in a spam folder nobody reads.
This list is published by MonitoringDaddy and we make one of the eleven tools on it. We rank ourselves first on a stated criterion — domain expiry alongside everything else that fails quietly, on one bill — and where another tool is better at a specific job, its entry says so. Two of the tools below cost nothing at all.
Prices were checked against vendor pricing pages in September 2026.
Domain monitoring splits into three jobs that look similar and are not.
The first job is a warning before your own domain expires. That is simple, and it should not cost much — most general monitoring tools now include it, and the ranking below reflects how well it is integrated rather than how sophisticated it is.
The second is portfolio management: tracking dozens of names across registrars, with renewal costs, ownership and account details. That is a different product, and an open-source one does it better than any monitoring tool.
The third is domain intelligence — WHOIS history, ownership research, infrastructure mapping. Tools in that category appear on lists like this one but are not really competing for the same job, and paying investigation prices for an expiry alert is a costly mistake.
| If your problem is… | What you need | Best on this list |
|---|---|---|
| Your own domain lapsing | An expiry monitor with a warning window | Us, Oh Dear or StatusCake |
| A portfolio across registrars | Portfolio management with cost tracking | DomainMOD (free) |
| Domain data in your own systems | An API or bulk feed | WhoisXML API |
| Investigating who owns a domain | WHOIS history and research tooling | DomainTools |
| No budget at all | A free tool that covers it | Uptime Kuma or HetrixTools |
Ranked for the common case — your own domains, watched alongside everything else.
Domain expiry is a standalone monitor type with a warning window you set anywhere from 1 to 180 days, so a renewal that needs a purchase order gets six months of notice and one that is fully automatic gets a week. It draws from the same allowance as uptime, certificates, page content and cron heartbeats — 25 monitors for $5 a month, 50 for $19, 100 for $34. What we do not do: track registrar accounts or renewal costs, provide WHOIS history, or offer domain data as an API. Try MonitoringDaddy — plans from $5 a month.
Domain expiration is included on every plan, from $17 a month for 2 sites, alongside certificate health, DNS records, DNS blocklist checks, broken links, mixed content and cron monitoring. Nothing is gated by tier. If you have a small number of sites that genuinely matter, this examines each one more thoroughly than anything else here.
The free plan includes one domain monitor alongside ten uptime monitors and one each of SSL, server and page speed. Superior at $20.41 a month raises that to 50 domain monitors and Business at $66.66 to 120. Very few free plans watch a domain at all.
Domain registration expiry is monitored on every plan including the free three-certificate tier, alongside full certificate chain checking. $29 a month covers unlimited certificates, which makes it the cheapest option once you are past about a hundred names with certificates attached.
Domain expiry monitoring arrived in version 2.1 in February 2026, closing one of the last real gaps against hosted tools. MIT licensed, no limits, no paid tier. You host it — and if you host it on the infrastructure you are monitoring, it will go down with the thing it watches.
Free and open source, and the only tool here built for portfolio discipline rather than alerting. It tracks registrar accounts, renewal costs, ownership, DNS and SSL across dozens or hundreds of names. If domains are an asset class you manage rather than a date you need warning about, this is the correct tool and no monitoring product replaces it.
Domain and SSL expiration tracking included alongside 15 free uptime monitors, 15 free server monitors and blacklist monitoring, on a lifetime-free tier. Paid plans from about $5.95 a month. Built for sysadmins and priced accordingly.
Domain expiry is a monitor type, included on the free plan alongside 50 uptime monitors and SSL monitoring. Since October 2024 that free plan is licensed for personal, non-commercial use only, and the paid ladder starts at $13 a month for ten monitors.
SSL and domain checks start on the $14 Webmaster plan, with 300+ monitoring locations used to confirm outages before alerting. Business at $29 covers 25 monitors at one-minute checks. You are buying the location network; the domain monitoring comes along with it.
Comprehensive domain, DNS and IP data available programmatically, with bulk feeds suitable for building products on. This is infrastructure for developers rather than a monitoring tool: if you want an alert without writing code, it is the wrong shape. If you want to build the alerting yourself across thousands of names, it is the right one.
Deep WHOIS history, ownership research and infrastructure mapping used in genuine security investigations. It appears on domain monitoring lists and it is not really competing for this job — paying investigation-grade prices to be told your own domain expires in thirty days is the most expensive way to solve a simple problem.
Four situations that cover almost everybody.
Use whatever already watches the site. Domain expiry should be a monitor type you switch on, not a second subscription — and if your current tool does not offer it, that is a reason to look at the tool rather than to buy another one.
DomainMOD. Free, open source, and built for tracking renewal costs, registrar accounts and ownership. Monitoring tools alert you; this manages the asset.
StatusCake free includes a domain monitor. Uptime Kuma covers it free if you will self-host. HetrixTools includes domain expiry tracking on its lifetime-free tier.
WhoisXML API for the feed. Expect to build the alerting yourself, which is the point of buying data rather than a product.
Domain monitoring fails in quieter ways than certificate monitoring.
A domain renewal can involve a purchase order, a registrar transfer or a dormant account nobody can log into. Thirty days is often not enough. Check the maximum window, not just the default.
WHOIS coverage is uneven. Some country-code and newer TLDs have no queryable WHOIS server at all, and a monitor that cannot read one may simply report nothing rather than reporting a problem. Test with your actual domain before relying on it.
This is the one that catches people. If WHOIS stops answering and the tool records an error but never alerts, you have a domain monitor that has quietly stopped monitoring — and you will not find out until the domain is gone.
Set up an alert before a domain registration lapses.
Point it at the domain name. It does not need an uptime monitor on the same site.
Anywhere from 1 to 180 days. Set it to cover your slowest realistic renewal path, including anyone whose approval you need.
Registrar emails go to one person and that person eventually leaves. Send domain warnings to a team channel or shared inbox instead.
Different date, same class of failure. Both end the site completely and neither shows up in an uptime check.
Typically about 1 minute from start to finish.
Uptime monitors, watched pages and heartbeats each get their own allowance, so adding a page watch never costs you a monitor. SSL and domain checks ride along with the monitor they belong to and use nothing extra.
| Plan | Monitors | Watched pages | Heartbeats | Fastest interval | Alert channels | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | 1 | 1 | Every 30 minutes | 1 email address | $0 |
| Founding Member first 20 only | 25 | 25 | 25 | Every 5 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $5/mo |
| Basic | 10 | 10 | 10 | Every 10 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $8/mo |
| Growth | 50 | 50 | 50 | Every 5 minutes | Email + webhook & chat | $19/mo |
| Pro | 100 | 100 | 100 | Every 60 seconds | Email + webhook & chat | $34/mo |
Annual billing is cheaper on every paid tier. The pricing page is the authoritative list.
Every recorded change is compared word by word and kept with a before-and-after image. This is the real output, shown with worked example data.
Price fell from $49 to $39, and an annual discount was added.
The item is available again and the basket button returned.
A new subprocessor was added in another jurisdiction.
The free plan sends to one email address. Every paid plan adds the chat and webhook channels below, with 2 to 10 destinations depending on the plan. However many alerts you receive, the price does not change — nothing here is metered or charged per alert.
There are no voice calls and no SMS. If a phone call at 3am is a hard requirement, say so before you subscribe — we would rather tell you now than refund you later.
The site stops resolving and email stops arriving. Most registries then run a grace period followed by a redemption period with a substantial recovery fee, after which the name is released and anyone can register it. Recovery is possible for a while, expensive, and not guaranteed.
No, and this is the most common reason domains lapse. Auto-renew depends on a valid payment method, a registrar account someone can still access, and notification emails reaching a person who acts on them. Any of those three can fail silently.
StatusCake includes one domain monitor on its free plan, HetrixTools includes domain expiration tracking on its lifetime-free tier, and Uptime Kuma covers it free if you self-host. DomainMOD is free and open source for managing a whole portfolio.
Further ahead than a certificate alert. Certificates renew automatically in days; domains can involve payment details, registrar access and internal approval. Sixty to ninety days is sensible for anything important, and our maximum window is 180 days.
Increasingly yes, as a monitor type alongside uptime and SSL. Coverage varies — some include it on free plans, some reserve it for mid-tier plans, and some treat it as a certificate check rather than a registration check. They are not the same date.
The certificate proves the site is who it says it is; the domain is the name itself. A certificate expiring produces a browser warning. A domain expiring means there is nothing left to warn about — the name stops resolving entirely.
Expiry dates are public WHOIS data, so yes, subject to rate limits and the TLD having a queryable WHOIS server. People do this to catch a name they want as it drops.
WHOIS coverage is uneven. Some TLDs have no public WHOIS server, some rate-limit aggressively, and some return formats that parsers do not handle. A good monitor tells you the lookup failed rather than silently reporting nothing.
Last updated August 4, 2026 · Written by Amit Gupta, founder of MonitoringDaddy
Domain expiry warnings from 1 to 180 days, from $5 a month.