Getting started

Set up certificate expiry monitoring in two minutes: register, add your first domain and port, and choose how many days before expiry to be warned.

Five minutes from "I just heard about CertWatchr" to "my first certificate is being watched".

1. Create an account

  1. Click Register on the home page.
  2. Enter your e-mail address and choose a password. If the sign-in page shows Continue with Google / GitHub / Microsoft, you can use one of those instead — see Social login.
  3. Open the confirmation e-mail and click the link.

Didn't get the e-mail? See the FAQ.

New accounts are on the Free plan: up to 3 domains, checked daily, with e-mail alerts up to 30 days before expiry. You can upgrade at any time and nothing you set up is lost.

2. Add your first domain

  1. Click Add domain at the top right of the Domains page.
  2. Enter the hostname, e.g. example.com — no https://, no path.
  3. Leave the port at 443 for a website, or change it for a mail server or another service.
  4. Choose how many days before expiry you want the first warning. 30 is a good default.
  5. Save.

The first check runs about two minutes later. Open the domain's page after that to see the issuer, expiry date, days remaining and status.

Tip. Use the Label field for a name that means something to you, such as "Acme – shop" or "internal admin". It appears everywhere the hostname does, including alerts.

3. Read the dashboard

The Domains page lists everything you monitor:

  • Status: OK, Warning (inside your alert threshold), Critical (7 days or fewer), Error (the host could not be checked) or Untested (first check pending).
  • Days left: colour-coded with the same thresholds.
  • Last checked: when the certificate was last read.
  • Health (Starter and Pro): the current score, with a small chart of recent checks.

Click a hostname for the full detail page: certificate details, health breakdown, score history and the alerts sent for it.

4. Choose how you are notified

E-mail alerts are on from the start and go to your account address. Under Settings you can:

  • turn e-mail alerts off or on,
  • switch on a daily or weekly summary of everything you monitor,
  • add a webhook for Slack, Teams or your own endpoint (Pro).

Alerts & notifications explains each alert and when it fires.

What's next