The Expiration Timeline
Day 0 – expiry date. Day 1-30 – grace period, domain still works, you can renew at normal cost. Day 31-60 – registrar hold, site offline, redemption fee applies ($80-$250). Day 61-75 – pending delete, no-one can renew. Day 76 – domain drops to public for anyone to register.
Auto-Renew Is Not Auto-Foolproof
Auto-renew only works if your card on file is valid and has funds. Banks decline 3% of legitimate transactions monthly due to fraud heuristics. Update expiry dates when your bank re-issues cards.
ICANN Rules You Must Know
- Registrars must send two renewal reminder emails (30 days and 5 days before expiry)
- They must allow renewal until 30 days after expiry without extra fee
- Redemption fee is not mandated; each registrar sets its own
Grace Period Variations by TLD
.com/.net/.org – 30 days grace. .co – 0 days grace, enters redemption immediately. .io – 90 days grace but no redemption, straight to delete. .ai – 10 days grace. Always look up the specific TLD policy if the domain is business-critical.
Redemption vs Auction
Some registrars (GoDaddy) send high-value names to auction during redemption, meaning you must outbid the public to recover your own domain. Pay the redemption fee early to avoid this circus.
Monitoring Tools
Set calendar reminders at 60, 30 and 7 days before expiry. Use DomainMonitor or UptimeRobot to email and SMS you. Add a secondary email not tied to the domain itself so alerts still reach you if MX records break.
Credit Card Strategy
Use a virtual card with 5-year expiry and turn on “auto-update” in PayPal or registrar dashboard. Alternatively, prepay account balance so renewal draws from credit instead of live card auth.
Recovering After Deletion
If the domain drops, you have milliseconds to catch it via back-order services (DropCatch, SnapNames). Success rate is <1% for generic words without back-order competition. Budget $59-$99 per attempt.
Business Continuity Plan
For mission-critical domains, register them for 10 years in advance and enable both registrar-lock and registry-lock. Keep legal ownership docs in escrow so a forgotten renewal doesn’t erase brand equity built over a decade.