Coming Soon and Maintenance Card Widget
A finished holding card for a launch or a planned outage: headline, message, a days-hours-minutes countdown to your date in your time zone, a Notify me button that goes to your own sign-up page, social links and a status line - and at the moment you set, it turns itself into a "We are live" card with your call to action.
Live preview
Under the widget on your page: Powered by A2Z Tools
Embed code
<iframe src="https://a2z.tools/embed/w/coming-soon-card" title="Coming Soon and Maintenance Card by A2Z Tools" width="100%" height="435" style="border:0;width:100%" loading="lazy" allow="clipboard-write"></iframe>
A plain iframe. Works everywhere, including site builders that strip scripts. Adjust height if your content needs more room.
<div data-a2z-widget="coming-soon-card" data-height="435"></div> <script async src="https://a2z.tools/embed.js"></script>
Adds a small script (what it does) that sizes the widget to fit its content, loads it lazily and keeps it isolated from your page's CSS.
Works with
How it works
Pick a mode - pre-launch, maintenance or back-in-a-moment - which sets the badge, wording and default messages; every text can be replaced. Give the launch or return time as a wall-clock time like 2026-12-01T09:00 plus an IANA zone such as Europe/London, and the card converts it to one instant with the same time-zone engine the other A2Z countdowns use, so it opens at 09:00 London time for everyone (that is 04:00 in New York and 14:30 in Kolkata that December day). Until then it shows days, hours, minutes and seconds recomputed from the clock every second, so it never drifts, and pauses while the tab is hidden; screen readers get a quiet minute-level label rather than a ticking announcement. The Notify me button only links to the address you give - your newsletter or waitlist form - because A2Z will not hold anyone's email. When the moment passes, the countdown, status line and notify button disappear, the headline changes to your live wording, a call-to-action link appears, and the change is announced once. Without a date the card simply shows your message.
Method
- Launch instant = v_launch read in the v_zone IANA zone (or the explicit offset/Z in v_launch, or the visitor's zone when neither is given)
- Countdown: t = ceil((launch - now) / 1 s); days = floor(t / 86400), hours = floor(t mod 86400 / 3600), minutes = floor(t mod 3600 / 60), seconds = t mod 60
- State: no launch time -> message only; now < launch -> countdown + notify link; now >= launch -> live headline, message and CTA (announced once)
- Links: notify, live CTA and social links pass c.safeUrl (http, https, mailto, tel); social labels from the host (instagram.com -> Instagram, x.com -> X); max 8
- Options: v_mode=coming-soon|maintenance|back-soon; default launch when blank = 09:00 local on the 1st of the month after next
Worked examples
Global launch in London time
Inputs: v_launch 2026-12-01T09:00, v_zone Europe/London, now 2026-11-28 08:00 UTC
Result: Countdown 3 days 01 hours 00 minutes 00 seconds; "Launch: Tue, 1 Dec 2026, 09:00 GMT" in an en-GB browser in London
London is UTC+0 in December, so the instant is 09:00 UTC, 73 hours after 08:00 UTC on the 28th.
Rounding the last second
Inputs: 1 day 2 hours 3 minutes 4.5 seconds before launch
Result: Shows 1 : 02 : 03 : 05
Seconds are rounded up so the card never shows zero while the launch is still ahead.
Maintenance already over
Inputs: v_mode maintenance, v_launch 2026-11-30T23:00, v_liveUrl https://example.com/, v_liveCta Go to the shop, visited in December 2026
Result: "Maintenance complete" with a "Go to the shop" button; no countdown and no timer running
Past dates go straight to the live state.
Limitations
- It cannot take your site offline or return a 503 status; it is a card you place on a page.
- No email capture of its own - you need your own sign-up form for Notify me.
- The countdown depends on the visitor's device clock.
- One launch time per card; recurring maintenance windows need a new date each time.
Where publishers use it
- A new online boutique's pre-launch Squarespace page counting down to opening day
- An e-commerce store's help centre announcing a Sunday-night platform migration window
- A café's website saying it is closed for a refit and back on a set date
- A podcast or YouTube channel teasing the first episode with links to its social accounts
- A product-launch landing page that switches to a Buy now button at the announced minute
Questions
Should I use this card as my whole site's maintenance page?
It is a visual card, not a server response. When your whole site is down for maintenance, your server should also return HTTP status 503 Service Unavailable (ideally with a Retry-After header) so search engines know the outage is temporary: Google's documentation says 5xx errors make its crawler slow down while keeping indexed URLs for a while. Put this card inside that 503 page, or on a page that stays up, such as a help centre or status page.
How does the Notify me button work without collecting emails?
It is just a link. Paste the address of your own sign-up form - a Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Google Forms or Shopify waitlist page - and the button opens it in a new tab. A2Z never sees, stores or forwards anyone's email address, so you stay the data controller under GDPR and similar laws.
Which time zone does the countdown use?
The IANA zone you give, such as Europe/London or America/Los_Angeles. 2026-12-01T09:00 in Europe/London is 09:00 UTC, because London is on GMT in December, so visitors in New York count down to 04:00 their time. Leave the zone blank and each visitor counts to 09:00 in their own zone - fine for "back tomorrow morning" notices, wrong for a global launch.
What happens when the countdown reaches zero?
The card switches to its live state at that second: the badge turns green, the headline becomes your live wording ("We are live!" by default, or "Maintenance complete" in maintenance mode), the status line and Notify me button are removed and your Visit now link appears. Screen readers hear the new headline once. Nothing reloads, and visitors who open the page later see the live state immediately.
Is the countdown accurate on every visitor's device?
It is as accurate as the visitor's clock. Phones and computers that sync time automatically are usually within a second; a device whose clock is set wrong by hand will show a wrong countdown and may switch to live early or late. The launch moment itself is fixed - it does not depend on the visitor's zone.
Sources
- How HTTP status codes, and network and DNS errors affect Google Search - Google Search Central . 5xx and 429 errors make Google's crawlers slow down; indexed URLs are kept for a while but eventually dropped if errors persist. Checked 2026-10-01.
- Time Zone Database (tz / zoneinfo) - IANA . The zone rules the browser uses to turn the launch wall-clock time into one instant.
Cite or recommend this tool
If you reference this tool in an article, course or documentation, these formats are ready to copy. They are optional - nothing is added to your site unless you paste it.
A2Z Tools Coming Soon and Maintenance Card https://a2z.tools/embed/coming-soon-card
<a href="https://a2z.tools/embed/coming-soon-card">A2Z Tools Coming Soon and Maintenance Card</a>
[A2Z Tools Coming Soon and Maintenance Card](https://a2z.tools/embed/coming-soon-card)
Coming Soon and Maintenance Card by A2Z Tools - https://a2z.tools/embed/coming-soon-card
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