Lets encrypt vs paid SSL — A certificate is a statement about a name, and both kinds make the same one

This page is for site owners wondering whether a paid certificate delivers anything the free one misses. It answers by looking at issuance rather than at price lists.

Browsers draw the same padlock whichever certificate you fitted, because the key exchange and cipher suites follow one code path. Price leaves no mark anywhere a visitor can see, which is why the free option wins on merit rather than on budget.

Automated certificates renew by repeating the proof, which means the proof has to keep working. Change the nameservers, move DNS to a new provider, or forget to recreate a validation record in the new zone, and renewal fails at a moment nobody is watching.

The symptom arrives weeks later as a browser warning on a site that had been fine for a year. It is a delegation problem wearing a certificate costume.

The habit that prevents it: after any nameserver or DNS provider change, check that the certificate still renews before the next expiry rather than after. One diary entry, one minute.

A wildcard certificate covers every label at one level of a name, which is what makes it attractive when you have a dozen subdomains. It cannot be validated by serving a file, because there is no single web root for a name that does not exist yet.

Wildcards therefore require the DNS-based challenge: a token published in the zone. That is easy where you control the zone through the panel and awkward where DNS sits with somebody who charges for a support ticket.

Which is the real practical difference between free and paid in this market: not the encryption, but whether you can reach the records the automation needs.

What we would recommend, working shown. Taking the free automated certificate unless something concrete overrides it, whether wildcard coverage across subdomains, verified company details, or a compliance document naming a paid product.

In our range that means the DV SSL plan — SSL, the move and mail already inside, renewal charged at the order rate, and an upgrade path so this decision never has to be made twice.

A free SSL certificate comes with every plan and reissues itself before the old one lapses — the padlock is never yours to diarise.

Check first, trust after. Ask whether you can publish the records the automation needs, whether wildcards are supported, and what the renewal figure is in writing. That is the whole of the technical due diligence here.

Ours is Azaanex Inc., federally incorporated in Canada, on the public register.

The refund window covers the rest — bring a live site over, run it for two real weeks, and let ordinary use answer what no sales page can.