Start monitoring three domains free

Free ssl monitoring 3 domains is enough to validate live TLS expiry watches on your most critical hostnames before you pay for hourly polls or larger portfolios.

Founders and solo operators often postpone monitoring because enterprise quotes assume hundreds of names. A honest free tier lets you confirm that external handshakes catch reload gaps your cron job missed—without committing to a procurement cycle.

The trap is treating three domains as a permanent program while silently operating twelve public hostnames. Free tiers are pilots; they are not permission to ignore API and staging paths until a customer screenshots a browser warning.

You will learn which three names deserve first slots, what daily checks actually prove, and when Starter’s 25 hourly domain cap becomes the obvious next step.

What you are actually buying

On a free plan you are still buying measurement, not certificates: scheduled live TLS probes that complete a real handshake and extract expiry from what strangers see on the wire.

Free ssl monitoring 3 domains typically pairs a tight hostname cap with a daily check interval and email alerts. That is sufficient when revenue impact from a same-day cert mistake is low and your team can remediate during business hours.

What free rarely includes is chat webhooks and hourly cadence. Those features matter once deploy frequency exceeds once-per-day confidence or once alerts must land in Slack beside deploy bots.

Registration expiry via RDAP may appear on free tiers when registries publish reliable end dates. TLS renewal and domain renewal remain separate pipelines; even on three domains you may want one registrar-critical name enrolled for both clocks.

A one-shot free check without signup should still exist so you can audit a fourth hostname before you decide whether it replaces an enrolled slot.

Evaluation checklist

Judge any free ssl monitoring 3 domains offer with skepticism—some products hide weak TLS depth behind generous uptime pings.

1. Three-domain cap stated on the pricing page. Ambiguous “sites” language often excludes API subdomains you care about.
2. Daily external handshake. Not weekly summaries derived from crawlers.
3. Live presentation, not PEM upload. The probe must reach your public DNS name.
4. Email alerts at 30, 14, 7, and 1 days. Without a ladder, free tiers become single panic emails.
5. No credit card for signup. Pilots fail when cancellation is harder than enrollment.
6. Upgrade path to hourly and 25+ domains. You want a Starter-shaped tier, not a sales call at hostname four.
7. RDAP honesty. Missing ccTLD dates should be labeled, not invented.
8. Deduped notifications. Successful renewals should not spam identical expiry warnings.
9. Portfolio export or API later. Even if absent on free, the vendor should not trap inventory.
10. Clear distinction from uptime. HTTP 200 checks are not PKIX expiry monitoring.

Run your three chosen names through test ssl online semantics manually once, then compare results to the product’s first scheduled run.

How ssldays fits

ssldays on free monitors up to three domains on a daily schedule. Each check reads the live TLS certificate presented on the hostname—issuer, SANs, chain trust, and expiry. RDAP backs domain registration expiry where registries publish dates. Email alerts fire at 30, 14, 7, and 1 days before TLS expiry (once per threshold per renewal cycle).

When you outgrow the pilot, Starter expands to 25 domains, switches checks to hourly, and adds Slack and Discord webhooks. Pro supports 100 hostnames at the same hourly cadence.

That progression keeps free ssl monitoring 3 domains honest: prove value on marketing apex, www, and one API or admin host that actually moves money. Promote the rest after you accept daily blind spots or inventory size demands hourly coverage—see when to upgrade to 25 domains hourly.

Use the public check page to validate names before you spend a free slot.

Common mistakes when choosing a monitor

Enrolling staging you never ship to production. Burned slots should map to URLs customers or partners hit.

Monitoring only the apex while checkout lives on a subdomain. Three domains disappear quickly once you count real user paths.

Assuming free means “good enough forever.” Daily checks on three names do not cover Friday night CDN publishes on hostname four.

Ignoring domain expiry because TLS auto-renews. A valid cert cannot save an expired registration.

Choosing free tools that only email once at thirty days. You need runway warnings, not a single postmortem invitation.

Skipping the upgrade conversation until an incident. Decide in advance which hostname count triggers Starter hourly watches.

Next steps

List public hostnames from analytics and support tickets—not from memory. Pick the three with the highest combined traffic and contractual risk.

Register, enroll them, and let one renewal cycle complete so you understand alert timing. Run sibling names through live check and document which waits for a paid slot.

Read paid vs free SSL monitoring when finance asks why daily email on three domains might suffice for another quarter, and SSL certificate expiry monitoring tools when you compare feature depth across vendors.