Free vs Paid SSL Certificate

WHAT IS AN SSL CERTIFICATE?

An SSL Certificate is a certificate for your website that allows you to use HTTPS encryption over standard HTTP (the s stands for secure).  HTTPS allows you to encrypt traffic between the visitor and your website, protecting any communication between the two. 

WHY DO I NEED AN SSL CERTIFICATE?

If you plan on taking any visitor’s information such as home addresses, passwords, or financial information like credit cards, an SSL gives the visitor of your site confidence that their information is fully encrypted and secure. This is especially important if you are planning on running an e-commerce business as e-commerce sites are prime targets for hackers. Google also ranks websites higher on search results with SSL Certificates as it favours secure sites for visitors. 

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A PAID SSL CERTIFICATE OVER A FREE ONE?

All SSL Certificates, whether they are free or paid, encrypt visitors’ confidential information and make your site a safe place for visitors. 

The benefits of a paid SSL Certificate over a free SSL Certificate are as follows:

• Authentication: 

Free SSL Certificates only authenticate the domain it’s issued for. This is known as Domain Validation (DV). It means that when you see https:// in the address bar, you know for sure that you are on that domain. That’s it. You have no information on who is running that website or if that website is run by a real company. DV certificates are used only for providing a basic level of authentication. Usually, they are used for platforms such as small websites and blogs. Free SSL certificates don’t have the provision for Organization Validation (OV) and Extended Validation (EV) certificates. Whereas the paid SSL certificates do come with OV & EV options, which are absolutely necessary for protecting business websites.

• Level of Trust:

As mentioned earlier, the free certificates assist with domain level validation only. If you want to get OV and EV Certificates, you have no option but to go with paid SSL certificates. With OV & EV Certificates, you get visual indicators such as the business name in the URL and Certificate information and better site seals. Whereas, free SSL Certificates don’t deliver such privileges.

• Support:

Included in the price of every paid SSL Certificate is the price of support for that certificate, should you ever need it. SSL/TLS has a lot of moving parts, which means there are a lot of chances for something to happen where you may be out of your depth. 24/7 support means you and your website visitors have peace of mind at all times. 

• Warranty:

With a free SSL certificate, if anything goes wrong on the CA’s (Certificate Authority) end – like, a catastrophic failure of their PKI for instance – you are completely out of luck. Paid SSL certificates don’t have this issue, because they come backed by warranties that payout on the off chance of data breaches.

Conclusion: 

If you’re just running a personal website, a blog, or some kind of brochure site, then a free SSL certificate will be fine, as long as you understand the shortcomings of it. After all, they offer the same encryption as paid SSL certificates. 

When it comes to websites that collect sensitive information about their visitors, such as e-commerce, social media, or lead generation sites, Paid SSL Certificates are the industry standard. Paid SSL certificates can help accelerate conversion rates on websites by implanting an element of trust in the customer’s mind which ultimately increases revenue. 

If you are still not sure what SSL certificate is right for you, feel free to get in touch with our team over at www.smarthost.ie, who can point you in the right direction!