SSL certificates expire. Your users suffer. Here's how to prevent it.

An expired SSL certificate doesn't cause a subtle degradation. It causes a full browser block. Chrome, Firefox, Safari — they all show a scary warning page. Your users see "Your connection is not private" and hit the back button. Traffic drops to zero until someone notices.

Why certificates expire

SSL certificates have a maximum validity of 398 days (just over 13 months). Let's Encrypt certificates last 90 days. Auto-renewal usually works, but "usually" isn't good enough when the failure mode is a complete site outage.

Common reasons auto-renewal fails:

• DNS changes broke the validation challenge
• Server migration — certbot isn't installed on the new box
• The renewal cronjob was accidentally deleted
• Payment method expired for commercial certificates
• Someone manually installed a cert and forgot it expires

What SSL monitoring does

SSL monitoring checks your certificate's expiry date and alerts you before it expires. Typically 14-30 days before expiration, giving you plenty of time to fix it.

It also checks that the certificate is valid — correct domain, trusted issuer, not revoked. Some monitoring tools also verify the full certificate chain.

How OpenPing handles SSL

Every monitor for an HTTPS URL automatically gets SSL monitoring. No extra setup. We check the certificate periodically and alert you when:

• The certificate expires in less than 14 days
• The certificate has already expired
• The certificate can't be retrieved (indicating a deeper problem)

You can also check SSL details on-demand via the API or dashboard. We show the issuer, expiry date, and days remaining.

Don't wait for the browser warning

SSL certificate monitoring is included on all OpenPing plans — free and paid. There's no reason not to have it. Add your HTTPS URL, and we'll watch the cert for you.