Understanding SSL Certificates: Free, Paid, and Which You Need Print

What an SSL certificate does

An SSL certificate is what puts the padlock in the browser and the "s" in https. It does two jobs: it encrypts the connection between your website and your visitor so nobody can eavesdrop on what passes between them, and it proves your site is what it claims to be. Every website should have one today, browsers actively warn visitors away from sites without them, and search engines favour sites that have them.

The good news is that your hosting with us includes a free SSL certificate on every plan, issued and renewed automatically. For a great many websites, that is genuinely all you need. This article explains what the free certificate covers, when a paid one is worth it, and how to tell which camp you are in.

The free certificate: cPanel AutoSSL

Every site we host gets a free certificate through cPanel's AutoSSL, and it is not a lesser kind of encryption, the padlock and the security it provides are exactly the same as a paid certificate. It renews itself automatically every 90 days, quietly, with nothing for you to do.

What it is, in the language of certificates, is a DV, or Domain Validated, certificate. That means it proves one thing: that you control the domain. It does not verify your business identity, and it does not come with a financial warranty. For a personal site, a blog, a portfolio, or a small informational business website, that is completely sufficient, and paying for more would buy you nothing you need.

When a paid certificate is worth it

Paid certificates, which we supply from DigiCert, add three things the free one does not, and each matters to a particular kind of site.

Verified business identity

Paid certificates come in higher validation levels: OV (Organization Validated) and EV (Extended Validation). Both require you to prove your actual business identity to the certificate issuer, not just that you own the domain. The result is that your verified company details sit behind the certificate, which builds extra trust for shoppers handing over card details, exactly the reassurance a serious online store or a financial service wants to offer.

A financial warranty

This is the big practical difference. The free certificate comes with no warranty at all. Paid certificates include a financial guarantee, ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to over a million depending on the certificate, which protects your customers in the rare event that the certificate issuer makes a mistake that leads to a breach. For a store handling real transactions, that backing is part of what you are buying.

Dedicated support and a longer lifespan

A paid certificate comes with support from the security company itself to help install, configure, and troubleshoot it, and it lasts a full year rather than renewing every 90 days. The yearly term means it is deliberately managed rather than automatic, which for a business is often a feature, a known annual renewal rather than a background process, and we handle that renewal with you.

Which do you need? A simple test

• A blog, portfolio, or informational site: the free AutoSSL is genuinely all you need. Enjoy the padlock at no cost.
• An online store taking payments: seriously consider a paid certificate, the verified identity and the warranty are exactly what a transactional site benefits from, even though your payment gateway carries much of the security load, as our article on payment gateways explains.
• A business that wants visible, verified credibility, a professional service, anything where trust is the sale: OV or EV is worth the investment for the verified identity alone.

Getting a certificate sorted

The free AutoSSL is already working on your site, there is nothing to order. If your site shows a certificate warning despite this, something needs attention rather than buying anything, our article on SSL certificate warnings when setting up email covers the related mail side, and a support ticket gets a website certificate problem looked at directly. For a paid DigiCert certificate, the current options are on our SSL certificates page, and we install and configure it for you as part of the purchase, so you are not left wrestling with certificate files.

Good to know

Whichever certificate you use, the encryption strength is identical, a paid certificate does not encrypt "harder" than the free one. What you pay for is verified identity, a financial warranty, and support, not better security in the technical sense. So the honest question is never "is the free one safe," it is safe, the question is whether your site needs the verified business identity and the warranty that come with a paid one. For most small sites the answer is no, and we will tell you so rather than sell you something you do not need. For a real online store, the answer is usually yes.