Domain Renewal Checklist for Web Agencies (Free Template)

Renewing a domain takes two minutes. The trouble is everything around it: knowing it is due, who pays, whose account it is in, and whether the payment method still works. A checklist turns that scattered knowledge into a repeatable process.

Copy the lists below into your project tool, wiki or Duvento and adapt them.

1. At onboarding: set up each domain correctly

Do this once per domain, when the client joins.

[ ] Record the domain name, registrar and current expiry date
[ ] Confirm the registrant (legal owner) and that the contact email is monitored
[ ] Decide who holds the account: client or agency (see who should own the client's domain)
[ ] Note where DNS is hosted if it differs from the registrar
[ ] Record linked services: hosting, SSL, email, CDN
[ ] Agree and document who pays for renewals and at what price
[ ] Enable registrar lock and two-factor authentication
[ ] Store the auth/EPP code procedure, not the code itself, in your password manager notes
[ ] Add the domain to your tracker with alerts to a shared address

2. Ninety to sixty days before expiry

[ ] Confirm the client still wants the domain
[ ] Check the renewal price, since it often differs from the first-year price
[ ] Verify the payment method on file has not expired
[ ] Verify registrant details are current
[ ] Check for linked assets that renew around the same time, such as SSL and hosting

3. Thirty days before expiry

[ ] Send the renewal quote or invoice to the client (see billing for renewals)
[ ] Ask for written approval if renewal is not covered by a maintenance plan
[ ] Confirm whether auto-renew is on and will actually charge

4. Fourteen to seven days before expiry

[ ] Escalate unpaid or unapproved renewals to a decision maker
[ ] Renew manually instead of waiting for auto-renew if there is any doubt
[ ] Warn the client about consequences of letting it lapse: site, email and SSL all stop

5. After renewal

[ ] Check the new expiry date in WHOIS/RDAP, not only in the registrar panel
[ ] Update the tracker
[ ] Send the client a one-line confirmation
[ ] Mark the invoice paid and file the receipt
[ ] Review multi-year renewal if it reduces risk for stable projects

6. Quarterly review (15 minutes)

[ ] Reconcile your domain list against registrar accounts to find untracked domains
[ ] Look for domains with expired payment methods or unmonitored contact emails
[ ] Remove domains from clients who left, after a formal handover
[ ] Review transfers in progress and pending locks

7. Offboarding a client

[ ] Transfer or hand over the domain with written confirmation
[ ] Remove your access and shared credentials
[ ] Update DNS ownership notes
[ ] Delete reminders that would otherwise keep alerting you

A minimal tracking template

If you track in a spreadsheet, these columns cover most needs:

Domain	Client	Registrar	Account owner	Expiry date	Auto-renew	Payer	Renewal price	Linked SSL/hosting	Notes

When the sheet starts getting stale, see spreadsheet vs dedicated tracker. For the broader tracking approach, read how to track domain expiration dates for multiple clients.

Common mistakes this checklist prevents

A domain registered in a freelancer's personal account who has since left
Auto-renew failing on an expired card with nobody notified
A client surprised by a renewal price three times the registration price
A domain renewed but the linked SSL certificate forgotten
Registrant email addresses nobody reads

Printed checklist and pen beside a laptop on a desk

Using the domain renewal checklist every month

A checklist that lives in a wiki and is opened once a year is a poster. Print the steps into the same place as the domain list, and run them when a date crosses 60 days.

Start with access. If nobody can log into the registrar, every later step is theatre. Recover the login, or tell the client the domain is theirs to renew, before you draft an invoice.

Then money. Which card, whose invoice, and whether the client already approved the amount. Renewal prices move. Quote the current registrar price, not last year's.

Then the dependents. DNS host, email, SSL, and the site. Renewing the name while the certificate is due the same week is two jobs. Do them in one conversation with the client.

Close the loop in writing. New expiry date, who paid, and where the receipt sits. The next person on the account should not have to ask.

The checklist does not replace a tracker. It is the script the tracker reminds you to run. Agencies that keep both in one product spend the monthly review on exceptions, which is the point of Duvento.

Field notes for the domain renewal checklist

Run the checklist on the domain that scares you, not on a sample. The first real pass finds missing logins, a card that expired in March, and a client who thought the domain was included in hosting. Those are the rows that lapse.

Keep the checklist short enough to finish. If it has forty items, people skip it. The version in this article is the one to run. Extra notes belong on the domain row, not as new mandatory steps.

Do not store registrar passwords in the checklist document. Store where the password lives. A checklist that is also a password dump will get copied into email, and then you have a second incident.

When two people share the work, initial the step you completed. An unchecked box next to a renewed domain means the next person will renew it again or, worse, assume it was not done.

Pair the checklist with a date in a system that emails you. A checklist nobody opens is a PDF. The reminder is what opens it.

Stamp the checklist with the domain name and the date you ran it. An undated checklist cannot be audited. If a step does not apply, write "n/a" and why, so the next reviewer does not treat a blank as a skip. The domain renewal checklist is finished only when the new expiry is stored, not when the last box is ticked in the abstract.