The hidden multi-million-dollar cost of certificate outages and why it’s about to get worse
Digital certificate outages are an escalating and costly risk, with 81% of companies experiencing at least one outage last year, each potentially costing millions. With certificate lifespans shrinking to 47 days by 2029, manual management will become impossible. This article explains why hidden costs like downtime, labor, compliance risks, and human error make automation essential for protecting businesses against future disruptions and quantum threats.
Table of Contents
- The hidden multi-million-dollar cost lurking in your certificate infrastructure
- The hidden costs of manual certificate management
- Present and future risks of manual management in a 47-day world
- Automating certificate management: The key to saving time, money, and risk
- Summary: 47-day lifespans, quantum risk, and the case for automation
Digital certificates are the foundation of secure online communication, but they're also a ticking time bomb for many organizations. As certificate lifespans shrink and inventories grow, the cost of mismanagement is skyrocketing, and most companies aren't ready.
81% of companies experienced a certificate-related outage in the last year. Each outage can cost organizations millions in downtime, lost revenue, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties.
The kicker? With maximum certificate lifespans shrinking to just 47 days by 2029, the problem is set to get exponentially worse.
The hidden multi-million-dollar cost lurking in your certificate infrastructure
Every digital certificate comes with an expiration date, and every expiration is a risk. In the last year alone, 81% of companies suffered at least one certificate-related outage. The average cost of a single certificate outage can range from $500,000 to over $5 million, depending on the industry and scale.
This costly risk is due to downtime: just one minute of downtime can cost businesses between $5,600 and $9,000 per minute depending on size and scale. Any minute of downtime for any company is expensive, costing not only dollars, but also trust from your customers.
This risk is only increasing. The CA/Browser Forum passed a ballot in April 2025 announcing that certificate lifespans will be reduced from the current 398 days to just 47 days by 2029, with the first reduction to 200 days happening on March 2026.
That means:
- More certificates to manage
- More frequent renewals
- More chances for human error
- Exponentially greater risk of outages
If managing hundreds or thousands of certificates manually is painful today, just imagine managing 12x as many every year in just a few years’ time.
The hidden costs of manual certificate management
Most companies still manage digital certificates using spreadsheets, shared inboxes, or ad hoc processes. While that might “work” for now, it comes with hidden costs that are easy to overlook:
- Labor costs: IT and security teams spend dozens of hours per month tracking expirations, submitting CSRs, coordinating renewals, and updating systems.
- Opportunity costs: Every hour spent manually managing certificates is an hour not spent on strategic, value-driving security work.
- Risk exposure: Humans forget. Spreadsheets get stale. Calendar reminders are missed. And all it takes is one missed certificate to cause a catastrophic outage.
- Compliance challenges: Regulations like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 require secure, updated certificates. Manual tracking increases the risk of falling out of compliance.
The status quo is not just inefficient, it’s dangerous.
Present and future risks of manual management in a 47-day world
Right now, most certificates have a maximum lifespan of 398 days. That gives teams a comfortable buffer, but that buffer is shrinking fast.
Starting March 15th, 2026, the industry will move to 200-day maximum certificate term. By 2029, the max will be just 47 days. This transition isn’t just about issuing certificates more often; it’s about rethinking how we manage trust at scale.
Manual certificate management in this environment becomes nearly impossible:
- Teams will be renewing certificates every month, not annually.
- Dependencies between services and apps will multiply.
- The risk of a missed renewal, misconfiguration, or expired cert will grow with every cycle.
Without automation, certificate management becomes a full-time job, or more likely, a full-time liability.
Automating certificate management: The key to saving time, money, and risk
Automation is both a convenience and a competitive advantage in a 47-day world. Forrester's TEI study of Sectigo Certificate Manager, Sectigo’s automated Certificate Lifecycle Management solution, discovered that as a result of automating, organizations save $965,000 in renewal labor costs over the course of three years. And with certificate lifespans shrinking, the cost-saving exercise of automation will become far more valuable.
Not only does automation save money on labor costs, automated certificate management platforms also remove human error from the equation by:
- Automatically discovering all certificates across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments
- Renewing and replacing certificates before they expire, without manual intervention
- Integrating with DevOps pipelines and ITSM tools to streamline operations
- Alerting and auditing to ensure compliance and visibility
The result?
- Fewer outages
- Lower operational costs
- Improved security posture
- Peace of mind in a 47-day world
Organizations that invest in automation today are the ones that will avoid crisis tomorrow.
Summary: 47-day lifespans, quantum risk, and the case for automation
The writing is on the wall. Certificate lifespans are shrinking to 47 days by 2029, the first reduction hits in March 2026, and manual management simply won’t scale. At the same time, the industry is preparing for the next big challenge: postquantum cryptography, which will require CAs to adapt their infrastructure and processes to issue and manage postquantum cryptographic certificates as quantum computing begins to break current algorithms.
Automation is the only sustainable path forward. It reduces cost, minimizes risk, and future-proofs your certificate infrastructure against both operational and technological disruption.
Don’t wait for the next outage to act. Start automating now before the 47-day countdown begins.