Let’s Encrypt, the world’s largest free certificate authority, today announced that it will discontinue the sending of certificate expiration notification emails, effective June 4, 2025.
Since its founding, Let’s Encrypt has provided email reminders to subscribers who submitted an email address during the certificate issuance process. Over time, however, the organization has observed a significant shift toward automated certificate renewal practices among its user base.
This change is driven by several key considerations:
- Widespread Automation: The majority of Let’s Encrypt subscribers now employ automated systems to renew certificates, reducing the reliance on manual email reminders.
- Commitment to Privacy: Continuing to offer expiration notifications requires the retention of millions of email addresses. By retiring this service, Let’s Encrypt will further its mission to minimize the collection and storage of personal information.
- Cost Optimization: Maintaining the infrastructure for expiration emails currently costs tens of thousands of dollars annually. Let’s Encrypt intends to redirect these resources toward enhancing its core services.
- Infrastructure Simplification: The expiration email system adds operational complexity and increases the potential for errors. As the organization scales and introduces new service offerings, reducing complexity is critical for long-term sustainability.
Subscribers seeking continued notification services are encouraged to explore third-party solutions such as Red Sift Certificates Lite (formerly known as Hardenize), which offers free monitoring for up to 250 certificates.
Other Monitoring Options include:
- StatusCake (proprietary)
- Uptime Kuma (open-source and free to use)
- Uptime Robot (proprietary)
- TrackSSL (proprietary, 2 free SSL monitor)
- Host Tracker (proprietary)
Let’s Encrypt remains committed to delivering secure, reliable, and privacy-respecting certificate services to the global Internet community.
About Let’s Encrypt
Let’s Encrypt is a nonprofit Certificate Authority, operated by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), that provides free digital certificates to help make the Internet more secure and privacy-respecting for everyone. For more information, visit letsencrypt.org
