What's The Difference Between Paid and Free SSL

The main reasons you may want to pay for a SSL certificate, rather than use free SSLs are :

1 - Paid SSLs can be validated using email-based authentication as well as DNS/file based. This means that you can put a paid SSL on a staging site that is not yet live, whereas this is not possible with a free certificate.
2 - Some payment gateways require a certificate with warranty, and can refuse connections if the certificate does not meet its requirements. In our experience this is most common for payment gateways that use API integration.
3 - Paid SSL certificates can be valid for up to 2 years (compared to 3 months for free certificates).
4 - A paid SSL includes warranty (up to $20M depending on the certificate) so it may be possible to file a claim if the SSL is broken by hackers. Free certificates come with no warranty.

The complete list of differences are:

<table><tbody><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><strong>Paid SSL (Rapid SSL and Others)</strong></td><td><strong>Free SSL</strong></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Warranty</strong></td><td>Yes (Up to $20M)</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Support Provided</strong></td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes (partial, no guarantee)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>SSL Length</strong></td><td>1-2 Yrs</td><td>3 months</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Automatic Renewal</strong></td><td>No</td><td>Yes</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Personal Validation</strong></td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Business Validation</strong></td><td>Yes (on EV Certificates)</td><td>No</td></tr></tbody></table>