Letting a website expire is free in the short term and permanent in the long term. Once the domain drops, the name, its years of history and every link pointing to it are available to anyone. Leasing keeps all of that online and pays you for it, provided the site still has enough traffic and authority links to be worth taking on. If it does not, letting it go can be the right call, and we say so below.
Expiry is final; leasing keeps the asset alive
When you stop renewing a domain, value does not fade slowly. It falls off a cliff on a fixed timetable. The site goes dark within days of expiry, the domain leaves your account within weeks, and it is typically auctioned or released to the public soon after.
With a lease-to-own deal, we take over hosting, renewals and upkeep from day one. The site stays online, the domain stays registered, and you are typically paid roughly $300 to $500 per month per site until the agreed price is paid in full. The trade-off is that leasing is only open to sites that meet our minimums: still indexed, at least 500 monthly organic traffic visits as estimated by Ahrefs, two or three strong authority links, a brand that still ranks for some keywords, and an owner who can transfer the domain.
What happens on the expiry timeline
Under ICANN’s expired registration rules, your registrar has to warn you at least twice before your domain expires, roughly a month and a week out. For at least the last eight days that you can still renew, the registrar must interrupt the domain’s DNS, so the website and email stop working.
For a .com, the registry timeline allows up to 45 days of auto-renew grace, then a 30 day redemption period, then five days of pending delete, after which it drops.
Registrars add their own steps. At GoDaddy, the site and email stop working around day 5, the domain leaves your account around day 18 with a redemption fee to get it back, and it is listed on GoDaddy’s expired domain auction around day 26. GoDaddy’s auction rules say all such auctions end on day 43. Country domains follow different rules, so check yours. Our guide on what happens when a domain expires covers the full sequence.
What you lose and keep on each path
| Factor | Let it expire | Lease it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to you now | None after you stop paying | None; we pay hosting and renewals from day one |
| Income | None | Monthly, roughly $300 to $500 per site, until the agreed price is paid |
| Domain and brand name | Released, often auctioned to a stranger | Kept online under a written agreement |
| Traffic and links | Lost to you; links point at whoever owns the name next | Kept live and looked after |
| Effort | None | A call, checks and a written agreement |
| Reversible? | Only during grace and redemption periods | Set by the agreement |
| Eligibility | Any domain | Sites meeting our minimums only |
| Best for | Sites with no traffic, links or brand searches | Former business sites with real traffic and authority links |
When letting it expire wins
Expiry is the honest choice more often than people think.
- The site has little left. If it gets a handful of visits, has no links from respected sites and nobody searches for the name, the renewal fee buys you nothing. Leasing is not an option for these sites, and a sale is unlikely.
- The name now does harm. If the business ended badly, or the name creates confusion with a new venture, you may prefer it gone, accepting that someone else could register it.
- You cannot transfer it. If the domain is tied up with a former co-founder, an agency or a company in dispute, nobody can buy or lease it cleanly. Sort out ownership first; if that is not possible, expiry may happen anyway.
One warning: expiry does not erase the name. A dropped domain can be registered by anyone, for any purpose. If that worries you, renewing for a year costs little while you decide.
If you do let it go, close it down cleanly
Letting a domain expire is a reasonable decision for a site with little left, but it should be a deliberate one. A few steps before the expiry date protect you and your former customers.
- Move every account off the domain’s email. This is the step people miss. If your bank, payment provider, social profiles, app store account or software subscriptions use an address at the old domain, whoever registers the name next could receive the password reset emails. Change each login to an address you control first.
- Download what you want to keep. Take a full backup of the site, export your Search Console data and save any documents you may need for tax or legal records.
- Deal with customer data. Old orders, contact form entries and mailing lists should be deleted or stored securely, not left on a server you are about to stop paying for. How long you must keep records depends on your country; this is general information, not legal advice.
- Update the places that point to the site. Change or remove the website link on your Google Business Profile and social profiles, so former customers are not sent to a stranger’s site later.
Once those are done, switch auto-renew off and let the timeline run. The decision is then yours, rather than something that happened by accident.
When leasing wins
Leasing wins whenever the site still has what a real business earned. A closed shop with press coverage, a former local firm listed by its trade association, an app reviewed by tech sites or a publisher with an archive of cited articles all carry trust that took years to build. Letting the domain drop hands that trust to whoever registers the name next, for nothing.
Think about what disappears the day the domain drops. Every page that a newspaper, university or supplier once linked to stops resolving for you. Your Search Console history, which keeps only 16 months of performance data, becomes impossible to verify. The Google Business Profile of a closed local business may still point visitors to a web address you no longer control. None of that can be bought back once a stranger owns the name.
Leasing also suits owners who feel uneasy about the closure. The site stays online and looked after, rather than going dark or turning into something unrecognizable under a new owner who picked it up at auction.
It also wins on cost. Renewals, hosting and security updates add up, as our page on the real cost of keeping a dead website shows. Leasing moves those costs off your books from the first month.
Can you do both?
Not with the same domain, but you can buy time. If renewal is close and you are undecided, renew for one year. That keeps every option open, including selling, leasing and keeping. If you own several sites, lease the ones that meet the minimums and let the weakest go. The closed business website checklist lists what to do in the first 30 days so you do not lose the decision to the calendar.
Keeping the site yourself is the third path. It costs money and some attention, but it is the right call if a restart is realistic. Our comparison of keeping a site on autopilot versus leasing it covers that choice.
If the domain has already expired, act quickly. During the grace period you can usually renew at the normal price. During redemption it costs more, but it is still possible.
Which to choose
- If the site is still indexed, has at least 500 monthly organic visits (Ahrefs estimate) and two or three strong authority links, do not let it expire. Lease it, sell it or keep it.
- If you plan to restart the business, renew and keep it.
- If the site has no traffic, no meaningful links and no brand searches, and you have no plans for the name, letting it expire is reasonable.
- If you are unsure, renew for a year and decide calmly.
What to do next
- Log in to your registrar today and note the exact expiry date and whether auto-renew is on.
- List every account that still uses an email address at the domain, whichever way you decide.
- If the site may still qualify, send us your site for a free valuation before the renewal date, so the decision is yours rather than the calendar’s.
Frequently asked questions
What happens to my website if I just let the domain expire?
Your registrar must warn you at least twice before expiry, roughly a month and a week out. After expiry the site goes dark, but you can still renew for a while. If you do nothing, the domain moves through a redemption period and is eventually released. At GoDaddy, an expired domain goes to public auction about 26 days after it lapses, so someone else can own your old name within weeks.
Can I get my domain back after it expires?
Usually yes, for a limited time. During the registrar's grace period you can renew normally. After deletion, generic domains enter a 30 day Redemption Grace Period, during which you can usually buy the name back for an extra redemption fee. Once a .com passes pending delete and drops, it is open to anyone, and you have no special right to it.
Is it worth leasing a website instead of letting it expire?
It is if the site still has value. We look for sites that are still indexed, get at least 500 monthly organic visits as estimated by Ahrefs, have two or three strong authority links and a brand that still ranks. If yours meets that, leasing typically pays roughly $300 to $500 a month and ends your hosting and renewal costs. If it does not, expiry may be reasonable.
When does it make sense to let a business website expire?
When the site has little left to lose. If it has almost no traffic, no meaningful links and nobody searches for the brand, the renewal fee may be money you do not need to spend. It can also make sense when the business name now causes confusion or distress. If you might restart the business, though, keep the domain and renew it.
Does leasing my website mean I lose control of the brand name?
During a lease-to-own deal we take over the site, keep it online and look after it, under a written agreement that sets out the payments and what happens if either side stops. When the agreed price is paid in full, ownership passes as agreed. Read the agreement carefully, and ask a lawyer to review it if the brand matters to you.
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