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Free SSL Monitoring with Email Alerts: Never Miss a Renewal

3 min read•
Morten PradsgaardBy Morten Pradsgaard

Use Exit1.dev’s free SSL monitor with disciplined email alerts to renew certificates before customers see warnings.

Free SSL Monitoring with Email Alerts: Renew Before Browsers Riot

If your SSL certificate expires, you deserve every angry ticket that hits support. Exit1.dev’s free SSL monitoring plus ruthless email workflows makes sure you renew before browsers throw red screens at customers. Prefer chat-first alerts? Mirror the same monitors into Slack or Discord so security, ops, and community teams all get the warning.

Email Works—If You Respect It

  • Universal delivery: Legal, finance, partners—they all have email. No excuses about who got pinged.
  • Permanent record: Audit teams want proof you saw the warnings. Email keeps the receipts.
  • Automation playground: Filters, forwarding, calendar triggers—email can nag you harder than any chat bot if you configure it. Use the same checklists you follow for uptime incidents so SSL renewals hit the same command cadence.

Set Up the Alerts

  1. Create a dedicated mailing list
    • Use something like ssl-alerts@yourcompany.com. Include engineering, ops, and whoever signs the certs.
  2. Configure Exit1.dev
    • Add SSL monitors for every domain or wildcard. Under Notifications, add the mailing list and enable both expiry warnings and expired alerts.
  3. Send a test
    • Fire the test email. If it lands in spam, fix SPF/DKIM and update filters. SSL alerts don’t belong in Promotions.
  4. Define ownership
    • Decide who replies-all with the renewal plan. If nobody owns the thread, nothing happens.

Craft Emails People Read

Subject: [SSL][14 DAYS] app.exit1.dev certificate expires soon

Domain: app.exit1.dev
Current expiry: 2025-01-28 12:00 UTC
Issuer: Let's Encrypt R3
Renewal playbook: https://runbooks.exit1.dev/renew-ssl
Owner: sre@yourcompany.com

Short, factual, mercilessly clear. The subject shows severity and timeline; the body points straight to the fix.

Build a Real Renewal Process

  • Label and color-code: Tag SSL alerts as “Critical” so they jump out in every inbox.
  • Auto-forward on silence: If nobody responds within 30 minutes, forward to leadership. Shame is a feature.
  • Block time: Auto-create a calendar event five days before expiry. Someone must click “Accept.”
  • Close the loop: Reply-all with the new expiry timestamp after renewal. The thread becomes the audit log.

When to Add More Tooling

Exit1.dev gives you unlimited SSL monitors, email alerts, and status pages for free. Upgrade only if you need:

  • Automated certificate deployment across dozens of load balancers.
  • Hardware-backed key storage and compliance attestations.
  • 24/7 managed rotations.

If that’s not you, stick with the free stack and handle renewals like an adult. While you’re at it, backstop your domains with the Discord renewal workflow so DNS ownership doesn’t become the next fire drill.

Execute Now

  1. Inventory every certificate in production.
  2. Add them to Exit1.dev with the email list attached.
  3. Run a renewal drill so the team can’t claim ignorance.

Do this and you’ll never again ship a “Not Secure” warning to paying customers.

Morten Pradsgaard is the founder of exit1.dev — the free uptime monitor for people who actually ship. He writes no-bullshit guides on monitoring, reliability, and building software that doesn't crumble under pressure.