Free vs Paid SSL: Which One Do You Need?

Free certificates from Let's Encrypt and paid certificates from commercial CAs both encrypt traffic to the same standard. The differences are in validation level, support, and warranty — not in security strength.

Free SSL (Let's Encrypt)

Included free with every Maxinames hosting plan. Auto-renews every 90 days. Domain-validated (DV) — the CA confirms you control the domain by placing a file or DNS record.

Best for:

• Personal sites and blogs.
• Small business websites.
• Most e-commerce stores using a hosted payment provider (Stripe, PayPal).

Paid SSL — Organization Validated (OV)

The CA verifies that your business is legally registered before issuing the certificate. Your company name appears in the certificate details when a visitor inspects it. Renewal is yearly.

Best for:

• Businesses where customers explicitly check certificate ownership (rare but real).
• Companies with internal IT policies that require OV/EV.

Paid SSL — Extended Validation (EV)

The CA performs a deeper verification — articles of incorporation, physical address, phone confirmation. Used to make the address bar turn green; modern browsers display EV the same as DV.

Best for:

• Banks, brokerages, and other regulated industries with explicit EV requirements.

Wildcard and multi-domain certificates

A wildcard covers *.yourdomain.com — useful if you run many subdomains. AutoSSL handles individual subdomains automatically; wildcards are mainly relevant for very large sites or when you need a cert that pre-covers future subdomains.

A SAN / multi-domain certificate covers multiple distinct domains in one cert. Free Let's Encrypt covers up to 100 SAN entries per cert.

Bottom line

Use the free Let's Encrypt cert that comes with your plan unless you have a specific compliance reason to buy paid. The padlock looks identical in the browser either way.