1

I've encountered so many times with this situation.

For example everybody know if I buy a Positive SSL for a year from a reseller, its price is about $5.95 . If I buy the certificate from CA directly, its price is $49 for a year.

I'm really wondering why?

  • Exchange rates
  • Through reduced costs (from $49 to $5.95 ? really?)

Or what else is there?

I couldn't find any advantage buying from CA directly.

efkan
  • 203
  • 3
  • 9

1 Answers1

2

The reseller pre-purchases thousands of them at once. Additionally, the issuing CA use the resellers to do what's called "Market Segmentation". In other words, there are people who are happy to pay $49/cert and those that are happy to pay $490/cert and those that only want to pay $4.95/cert. By selling the certs at a really low price, they capture all the different segments of the market.

Rest assured, the bits that you're transmitting on a $4.95 cert are encrypted at the same level as $49 cert.

Mark Henderson
  • 68,823
  • 31
  • 180
  • 259
  • I thought some of the more expensive ones offered some sort of financial guarantees? Not that I'm saying this makes it worth it, just sayin'... – Paul Apr 22 '15 at 02:05
  • 1
    @Paul sure some of them offer insurance and others offer more detail in the certificate (and other things like EV). But the _encryption_ is identical. – Mark Henderson Apr 22 '15 at 02:38
  • @Paul I can think of only two guarantees you need, one of which is completely outside the control of the CA and one which is only partly so. You'd want a guarantee that no CA is going to issue a rogue certificate for your domain. And you want a guarantee that the root of the CA you choose is trusted by all leading browsers and remain so for the lifetime of the certificate. – kasperd May 22 '15 at 12:16