Free vs paid SSL certificates: which do you need?

An SSL certificate turns http into https and shows the padlock in the browser. A free certificate encrypts the connection exactly as well as a paid one. The difference is in what else the certificate proves and what comes with it.

When a free certificate is enough

For most websites, including blogs, business sites and small online stores, a free Let's Encrypt certificate is all you need. Every Hostripples hosting plan includes one, installed and renewed automatically.

When a paid certificate is worth it

• Organisation validation (OV) and extended validation (EV). The certificate authority checks that your company exists, and the company name appears in the certificate details. Banks, payment providers and some government or enterprise clients ask for this.
• Wildcard certificates that cover every subdomain, such as shop.example.com and blog.example.com, in one certificate.
• Multi-domain certificates that cover several different domain names.
• Warranty and site seal. Paid certificates come with a warranty from the issuer and a trust seal you can show on the site.

Certificates now expire sooner

Browsers keep shortening the maximum life of a certificate, so every certificate, free or paid, has to be renewed more often than it used to. Automatic renewal matters more than ever. Our free certificates renew themselves; paid certificates can be reissued from your client area.

Where to get one

We sell DV, OV, EV, wildcard and multi-domain certificates from Sectigo, DigiCert, GeoTrust, Thawte, RapidSSL and GoGetSSL on our SSL certificates page.