What's included
Whichever hosting plan you buy, an SSL certificate is part of the price. It is not a separate product you purchase; it comes with the account.
- Free — nothing beyond the plan price, and nothing at renewal either.
- Installed automatically — you do not have to request it; the certificate is obtained and applied on its own.
- Renewed automatically — it renews before it expires. Nothing is required from you.
- No limit on domains — every domain and subdomain in your account gets a certificate.
Certificates are issued by Let's Encrypt and are trusted by every browser, mobile operating system and payment platform. In terms of the padlock and HTTPS, there is no difference from a paid certificate.
How it works
When your account is created, the server installs a temporary certificate so your site can be reached over HTTPS from the first moment. Browsers show a warning on that temporary certificate; this is expected and short-lived.
As soon as your domain points to our server, the real certificate is obtained automatically and replaces the temporary one. The warning disappears and the padlock appears.
The order matters: to issue the certificate, the authority must verify that the domain resolves to us. So when you point a new domain, the certificate can take a short while to settle.
After that there is nothing left for you to do. We check certificate health every day, so if a renewal fails we see it before you do.
What it covers
- Your domain and its www form —
yoursite.comandwww.yoursite.comon the same certificate. - Your subdomains — every subdomain you create in the panel is added to the certificate. Nothing extra is needed for
blog.yoursite.comorshop.yoursite.com. - Webmail and the mail server — your email accounts run over encrypted connections too.
- HTTPS redirection — your site can redirect to HTTPS automatically; you can turn this on or off in the panel.
Certificates are valid for 90 days and are renewed before they expire. Because paid certificates run for a year, the shorter term is sometimes mistaken for a shortcoming; it is the opposite — the shorter the certificate, the narrower the window if a key is ever stolen. Since we handle renewal, the term makes no difference to you.
The renewal chore
Almost every hosting company offers free SSL today. The difference is in how it is delivered.
With some providers you install the certificate and you renew it every 90 days — often by adding a DNS record and waiting for validation. The day you forget, your visitors get a security warning.
There is no such step here. Neither issuance nor renewal asks anything of you; you do not even need to log in.
Company-validated certificates
The free certificate proves that the domain belongs to you. For a website that is enough, and as far as the browser padlock goes it lacks nothing.
Some corporate uses ask for more: a certificate that also validates your company's identity (OV), shows your company name in the browser (EV), or carries a stated warranty. These cannot be issued for free; they require a separate validation process and paperwork.
If you need one, write to us and we will work out which one fits and how long it takes.