Do You Need a $188/Year Standard SSL Certificate for your website?

I use the free SSL certs provided by Cloudflare. They're fine for my needs. I sell a software product exclusively on one site whereas I have niche specific information blogs on my other sites.

You can also get free SSL certs from most hosting companies.

I think this answers your questions really well.

https://www.sslrenewals.com/blog/dif...sl-certificate

If you want to protect your "business" website go for a paid certificate. If your website is "personal" then go for a free SSL.

I have a couple of websites currently using paid SSL certificates. But these are low priced and they are provided by my domain provider Namecheap. They are more than adequate security certificates for the websites they are being used on.

If you are considering buying a higher priced SSL certificate, that would probably be more suited to a business website. Or an eCommerce website that is gearing up for more traffic and a lot more sales conversions in the near future.

Then a higher priced SSL certificate would possibly be the best choice with regards to your traffic coming to the site and the trust value that the SSL certificate is showing your potential customer or buyer.

Someone who is about to consider making a purchase but is reluctant because they are not impressed by the level of security with online payments etc.

When a customer sees an SSL certificate on a website before they make a purchase, that automatically puts them in a more confident buying decision.

And having a high priced SSL security certificate on your site is entirely your choice. If you are going to run a business, with a lot of online transactions by credit card, then a top performing SSL certificate is an essential requirement.

If you are running a personal website with smaller or less frequent transactions then go for a lower priced SSL certificate.

Hope this helps you out...

Get a HawkHost hosting (~$35 per year) and you'll get an SSL for free. And you can host many sites on the server and all of them will have an SSL.

Hello there, I recently purchased an SSL certificate at Godaddy. It was under 60 dollars for a year. I bought this because mostly all my websites are hosted at Godaddy.com and they have excellent tech support help ! If you want to go the free route I would trust Blue host and they offer a standard certificate free with purchase of hosting which starts at about 3 dollars a month.

I found out by accident that Hostgator give everyone unlimited free SSL certificates for their hosted domains.


Doh!


I've converted most of my domains to use SSL and I'm pleased with the results. I'm sure it makes a difference in the search results. After all most of my low quality competitors don't use SSL so it's a good thing to have.

SSL certificates help to increase buyer confidence when purchasing from your website and displaying the SSL badge on your page helps with your credibility, especially for e-commerce

This comes down to the type of site it is and whether a free one or paid one is necessary. I'm quite confident that you do not need one that costs $188/year, though. There are plenty of paid ones that are far less money.

We get that question often. The main difference between the free and the paid ssl certs is in the level of validation. Free certs have only Domain Validation. Paid certs have higher validation methods -- Organization Validation and Extended Validation. Thus paid certs

Another big difference is what is displayed in the browser. With free ssl, visitor will see a green lock in front of url. With paid, visitor will see org info and can get validation information. Thus paid certs offer a higher level of trust.

BOTH offer the same level of encryption!

$188 is a little steep. Look around, ask your web host

Ask your host provider about FreeSSL

Namecheap is an affordable solution. People trust SSL certified sites more than ones with out it.

For most users usual SSL would be enough

I believe that most good hosting companies will provide SSL certificates for free. I had my histing companies convert a bunch of sites to SSL last year with no charge.

I agree with the suggestions for obtaining a paid SSL certification as the validation that it provides shows that you're serious about protecting your consumer's interests more than saving a couple of bucks. $188 may be a little pricey, so shop around and find one that suits your needs and price range. The security your customer's will feel when using your site is worth the investment and will help you with sales in the long run.

WOW

In I will bet 99% of the cases of anyone reading this a FREE SSL will be just fine. So WHY would you need a paid for SSL? The ONLY reason is if your website is collecting personal data that includes some form of payment. Im not talking Paypal - THEY have the SSL.. but an actual Merchants account that the transaction is processed on your end of things and not a 3rd party.

The TRUTH about the current request / requirement for SSL actually has nothing to do with personal security or any of that.. it has to do with MANAGING internet traffic AKA Bandwidth. If any and every site on the web were to switch to SSL tomorrow the net as a whole would be 40% faster than it is today. And THAT is the truth behind the need for SSL.

Again the ONLY reason you really need a Paid SSL is if your site is making the transaction process.