Domain names have taken a recent dramatic price increase, many providers are now offering .com domains for $15/year. Just two years ago, I was paying about $8/year for a .com domain.
Now, I typically choose NameCheap for my domain and SSL services. They’re affordable and I’ve never had an issue to date.
NameCheap’s .com domains are still under $11, and their PositiveSSL certificate is only $9/year. The great thing about PositiveSSL is that it’s a recognized SSL authority by Google. I’ve had issues in the past where certain services denied access because my SSL certificate didn’t originate from a recognized authority.
Obviously, if you’re a bank, the cheapest SSL certificate is probably not a good way to go. But, for many sites, an SSL certificate is required to be approved for various programs or to use certain services. If this is the only reason for obtaining a cert, you’re probably not interested in spending over $100/year.
For instance, for one of my websites, I was required to integrate with LinkedIn’s API. The only requirement was that I provide LinkedIn a secure URL of the website logo. That was it! I was required to purchase an certificate just to provide a logo at a secure URL. Fortunately, with NameCheap, it was a small price to pay ($8) to get up and running.