Grace Period & Redemption
The lifecycle stages after a domain expires: a grace period for easy renewal, then a costly Redemption Grace Period, then deletion.
When a gTLD domain expires, it does not vanish immediately. First comes the Auto-Renew Grace Period (up to 45 days, varies by registrar) where the registrar can usually still renew at the normal price. Then comes the Redemption Grace Period (RGP, 30 days) during which the domain is suspended, removed from the zone, and can only be recovered by paying a steep redemption fee, often $100 or more. After RGP, the domain enters Pending Delete for 5 days, with no recovery path, then drops back into the pool for anyone to register. RFC 3915 formalises these states in EPP (redemptionPeriod, pendingRestore, pendingDelete). Watching these statuses in WHOIS is how drop-catchers time their re-registration attempts.