Domain expiration (WHOIS) monitors

What it checks

A WHOIS monitor looks up a domain's registration every day: its expiry date, its registrar, its name servers and its status codes. It reads them from the registry over RDAP, the structured successor to WHOIS, and falls back to WHOIS for the domains RDAP doesn't cover.

Adding one

Under Monitors, choose Add Monitor, then WHOIS, and enter:

• Domain - example.com. A URL is cut down to its domain, without www.
• Alert Days - how long before expiry the monitor goes down and alerts you: up to 90 days before, on the day itself, or up to 5 days after. 30 days by default.

To add several at once, choose Add several at once and paste one domain per line. On Enterprise plans you can import every domain from Namecheap, Amazon Route 53 or Azure DNS instead.

What it reports

State	Meaning	Monitor
Valid	More days left than your Alert Days	Up
Expires in N days	Within your Alert Days	Down
Expired	Past its expiry date	Down
Not found	The domain isn't registered	Down
Expiration not found	The registry gave no expiry date	Down

The monitor going down is the reminder: every contact attached to it gets a Monitor Down alert, by email, Slack, webhook or SMS. When the domain is renewed and the expiry date moves past your Alert Days, it comes back up, and its contacts get a Monitor Up alert.

If a lookup fails outright - the registry doesn't answer - the check is recorded but nobody is alerted; the next day's check tries again.

Status and registrar changes

Mon keeps each domain's status codes - such as clientTransferProhibited, the lock that stops it being moved without you - and its registrar. When either changes, the monitor's email contacts with WHOIS Status Changed or Domain Registrar Changed switched on are told. A domain that loses its transfer lock, or moves to a registrar you didn't choose, is worth knowing about the same day.

When the registry has no date

A few registries publish no expiry date. For those, enter the date yourself in the monitor's details, and Mon counts down to it until the registry provides one.

Other dates

For anything else with an expiry date - a licence, a contract, a payment card - use an Expiration monitor. It takes a date you enter and the same Alert Days.