diff --git a/cmd/expiration-mailer/main.go b/cmd/expiration-mailer/main.go
index a5a42db78..f6b02976e 100644
--- a/cmd/expiration-mailer/main.go
+++ b/cmd/expiration-mailer/main.go
@@ -296,6 +296,21 @@ func (m *mailer) findExpiringCertificates() error {
 			return err
 		}
 
+		// If the number of rows was exactly `m.limit` rows we need to increment
+		// a stat indicating that this nag group is at capacity based on the
+		// configured cert limit. If this condition continually occurs across mailer
+		// runs then we will not catch up, resulting in under-sending expiration
+		// mails. The effects of this were initially described in issue #2002[0].
+		//
+		// 0: https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/issues/2002
+		atCapacity := float64(0)
+		if len(serials) == m.limit {
+			m.log.Infof("nag group %s expiring certificates at configured capacity (select limit %d)",
+				expiresIn.String(), m.limit)
+			atCapacity = float64(1)
+		}
+		m.stats.nagsAtCapacity.With(prometheus.Labels{"nag_group": expiresIn.String()}).Set(atCapacity)
+
 		// Now we can sequentially retrieve the certificate details for each of the
 		// certificate status rows
 		var certs []core.Certificate
@@ -319,21 +334,6 @@ func (m *mailer) findExpiringCertificates() error {
 		m.log.Infof("Found %d certificates expiring between %s and %s", len(certs),
 			left.Format("2006-01-02 03:04"), right.Format("2006-01-02 03:04"))
 
-		// If the `certs` result was exactly `m.limit` rows we need to increment
-		// a stat indicating that this nag group is at capacity based on the
-		// configured cert limit. If this condition continually occurs across mailer
-		// runs then we will not catch up, resulting in under-sending expiration
-		// mails. The effects of this were initially described in issue #2002[0].
-		//
-		// 0: https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder/issues/2002
-		atCapacity := float64(0)
-		if len(certs) == m.limit {
-			m.log.Infof("nag group %s expiring certificates at configured capacity (cert limit %d)",
-				expiresIn.String(), m.limit)
-			atCapacity = float64(1)
-		}
-		m.stats.nagsAtCapacity.With(prometheus.Labels{"nag_group": expiresIn.String()}).Set(atCapacity)
-
 		if len(certs) == 0 {
 			continue // nothing to do
 		}