Powerful Features

What is SSL certificate monitoring?

SSL certificate monitoring is the process of regularly checking your website's SSL/TLS certificates to ensure they are valid and haven't expired. SSLGuard automatically monitors your certificates and alerts you before they expire, preventing website downtime and security warnings that can damage your business reputation.

Why should I monitor my SSL certificates?

Expired SSL certificates cause several critical problems:

• Browser warnings - Visitors see scary "Not Secure" messages that drive them away
• Lost revenue - Up to 85% of users abandon sites with certificate errors
• SEO penalties - Google ranks sites with SSL issues lower in search results
• Security risks - Unencrypted connections expose sensitive data

SSLGuard ensures you're always notified before expiration, giving you plenty of time to renew.

How does SSL monitoring work?

SSLGuard connects to your website's server and retrieves the SSL/TLS certificate information, just like a browser does. We check the expiration date, validate the certificate chain, and verify the issuer. Our system runs these checks automatically on a schedule (hourly for Pro, every 15 minutes for Team) and sends alerts when certificates are approaching expiration based on your configured thresholds.

What information do you collect from my certificates?

We only collect publicly available certificate information that any browser can see, including the domain name, expiration date, issuer (Certificate Authority), and certificate fingerprint. We never access your private keys or any data transmitted over HTTPS. Our monitoring is completely non-invasive and safe.

What's the difference between SSL and TLS certificates?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) are encryption protocols for securing web traffic. TLS is the modern, more secure successor to SSL. However, people still commonly use "SSL certificate" to refer to both. SSLGuard monitors both SSL and TLS certificates - we use the terms interchangeably because they serve the same purpose of encrypting HTTPS connections.

How far in advance will I be notified about expiring certificates?

You control when you receive alerts by setting custom thresholds. By default, we recommend alerts at 30, 14, 7, and 1 day before expiration. You can customize these thresholds to match your renewal workflow. For example, if your team needs 2 weeks to process renewals, set alerts at 30 and 14 days. Critical alerts (≤1 day) can bypass quiet hours to ensure you never miss an urgent notification.

Can SSLGuard automatically renew my certificates?

No, SSLGuard is a monitoring and alerting service only. We don't have access to your server or certificate authority accounts, so we can't renew certificates automatically. However, by providing early warnings before expiration, SSLGuard gives you plenty of time to renew certificates through your hosting provider, Let's Encrypt, or other certificate authority.

What alert channels do you support?

SSLGuard supports three alert channels:

• Email - Send alerts to multiple email addresses with detailed HTML formatting
• Slack - Post formatted alerts directly to your Slack channels
• Webhooks - Integrate with any system by sending JSON payloads to your custom endpoint

You can enable multiple channels simultaneously and test each one before going live.

How many domains can I monitor?

Our plans support different domain limits: Free (3 domains), Pro (25 domains), and Team (100 domains). Each plan includes unlimited checks within the domain limit. If you need to monitor more than 100 domains, contact us for enterprise pricing.

What if my certificate check fails?

If a check fails (network issue, certificate invalid, etc.), SSLGuard will retry the check and log the failure. You can view all check logs in your dashboard. Failed checks don't trigger expiration alerts unless the certificate is actually approaching expiration. This prevents false alarms from temporary network issues while ensuring you're still notified about real problems.