Quick question: imagine that you just landed on this page a few seconds ago, but instead of being met with the words you’re reading right now, you saw this warning:
How likely is it that you would have left the page?
Unless you’re already familiar with Themeisle (that’s us! 😎), then in all likelihood, you probably would have clicked back on your browser (or the Back to safety button). The reason you weren’t met with such a warning is because our site has an SSL certificate installed.
The easiest way to ensure that your site has one too, is to sign up for a hosting plan with a company that offers them for free as part of a package deal.
To make your life easier, I’ve rounded up six such hosting providers:
| Host | Premium SSL | Money Back | Starting From | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluehost | ✅ | 30 days | per month | $11.99 per month | |
| SiteGround | ✅ | 30 days | per month | $17.99 per month | |
| InMotion Hosting | ✅ | 90 days | per month | $9.99 per month | |
| A2 Hosting | ❌ | 30 days | per month | $9.99 per month | |
| DreamHost | ✅ | 97 days | per month | $5.99 per month | |
| Hostinger | ✅ | 30 days | per month | $7.99 per month |
Keep in mind that all the companies on this list give you a free SSL. But in addition to that, most of them also let you buy a premium SSL directly on their site. That’s what the premium SSL column is referencing.
In the remainder of this article, I’ll explain a bit more about the different types of SSL certificates and then I’ll let you know what each host brings to the table. We’ll review their pricing, features, customer support options, and the results of our in-house performance tests (which are updated monthly).
Let’s go! 🏃
An introduction to SSL certificates 📜
TL;DR: Free SSL certificates are totally fine from a security perspective. Most websites, including ecommerce stores, rely on them. Premium certificates are also available. These offer business validation, longer validity periods, dedicated support, and warranty protection – features that may matter for enterprise or high-stakes business applications, but aren’t necessary for basic security.
Six hosting companies offering free SSL in 2025 🏆
Now that you have an understanding of what SSL certificates are and the difference between standard and premium solutions, let’s look at six providers that offer them for free.
1. Bluehost
👉 All Bluehost plans come with a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt 1. Paid SSL certificates are also available from Sectigo (formally known as Comodo).
Bluehost is a well-known provider in the web hosting industry that’s on the official list of WordPress.org recommended hosts 2. Even though they focus heavily on WordPress, you can use their hosting to install all kinds of other content management systems (e.g., Joomla, Drupal, Prestashop, etc).
Besides that, Bluehost is also amongst the most beginner-friendly web hosting companies, with an award-winning, intuitive dashboard, one-click WordPress installation, and various unique themes.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | 24/7⚠️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Bluehost offers friendly, knowledgeable customer support that can help you around the clock. All plans include 24/7 live chat support. In addition, excluding the entry-level shared hosting plan, all plans also include 24/7 phone support.
On top of that there is a knowledge base for the DIY personality types. If you’re a WordPress user, then you’ll also appreciate the free courses included as part of Bluehost’s “WordPress Academy.”
⚠️ Not available on the entry-level shared plan.
| East Coast USA: 1.70s | West Coast USA: 0.48s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.43s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.65s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.34s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 0.50s ⭐ |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for Bluehost.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, WordPress, VPS, cloud, dedicated server
- Contract options: month-to-month, annually, or every three years
- Entry-level plan price: $1.99 per month on a one-year contract for the Basic package. It comes with 10 GB of NVMe storage.
- Entry-level plan details: This plan supports up to ten websites and in addition to the free SSL, it comes with a free Cloudflare CDN and a free domain name in your first year. On the security side, you get DDos Protection and a WAF (web application firewall).
- Money-back window: 30 days
2. SiteGround
👉 All SiteGround plans include Let’s Encrypt Standard and Wildcard SSL certificates at no extra cost. For your convenience, the Standard SSL comes preinstalled on your site. You can also purchase a Premium Wildcard SSL issued by GlobalSign 3.
SiteGround is an excellent option for beginners due to its managed WordPress hosting and top-rated, expert customer support.
If choosing a “green host” is important to you, then you’ll be happy to know that SiteGround operates on Google Cloud, a platform committed to renewable energy matching. Besides that, you’ll benefit from an ultra-fast network and persistent SSD storage as well.
Although SiteGround’s pricing is not as affordable as Bluehost’s, you’ll get plenty of premium features that will suit small businesses and agencies. For instance, higher plans come with a handy site staging tool and enable you to invite collaborators and fully white-label sites for your clients.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ✅ | ❌ | 24/7 | ✅ | ❌ |
SiteGround offers 24/7 support through its live chat and ticket channels. According to their own documentation, SiteGround says that tickets receive a first reply within 15 minutes on average.
Phone support is available as well, though the support hours are not indicated 4.
For self-help options, you can refer to SiteGround’s knowledge base.
| East Coast USA: 0.92s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 1.50s |
| Central USA: 1.20s | London, UK: 0.24s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.33s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.42s |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for SiteGround.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, WordPress, cloud, reseller
- Contract options: month-to-month, annually, or every two years
- Entry-level plan price: $2.99 per month for the StartUp plan, which comes with 10 GB storage.
- Entry-level plan details: This plan supports one website and in addition to the free SSL, it comes with a free CDN, unmetered bandwidth, and unlimited email accounts. You also get daily backups included. For security there is a WAF and an AI anti-bot system.
- Money-back window: 30 days
3. InMotion Hosting
👉 InMotion Hosting offers a free AutoSSL for any domain hosted on a cPanel account (this includes all their shared plans and select other plans) 5. Premium SSLs are also available for purchase.
Catering to both small businesses and large enterprises, InMotion offers flexible plans that allow users to host multiple websites under a single account, making it particularly appealing to agencies and developers. The company also emphasizes speed and reliability, boasting high uptime rates and NVMe SSD storage options on most (but not all) plans, which improves performance.
While InMotion Hosting provides a wealth of features and competitive pricing, it does have some limitations, such as the lack of included backups on shared hosting plans (though you can buy them as an “add-on feature”). Nonetheless, with a strong focus on customer support and a commitment to using advanced technology, InMotion remains a popular choice among web hosting services providing free SSL certificates.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ✅⚠️ | ✅⚠️ | ✅⚠️ | ✅ | ✅ |
InMotion has a robust set of customer support options. For direct help, you get 24/7 live chat from U.S. based representatives on all plans. The two higher-level shared hosting plans and (two higher-level) unmanaged WordPress plans also add on phone support.
The other types of plans (VPS, etc) include a similar mix of phone and chat, depending on the tier. Some plans (e.g., the entry-level managed WordPress plan) offer a combination of live chat and ticket support.
For self-help options, InMotion has education channels with tutorials, a support center which is essentially their version of a knowledge base, and also community support forums where you can ask questions from other InMotion users.
⚠️ Depends on the plan.
| East Coast USA: 0.68s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 0.61s ⭐ |
| Central USA: 0.47s ⭐ | London, UK: 0.71s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.78s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.75s |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for InMotion.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, reseller, VPS*, WordPress*, dedicated servers, bare metal servers, OpenMetal Cloud IaaS.
- Contract options: month-to-month, annual, or every three years.
- Entry-level plan price: $2.29 per month on an annual contract for the entry-level Core plan. It comes with 100 GB of SSD.
- Entry-level plan details: It supports up to two websites and offers unlimited bandwidth, free SSL, free domain name in the first year, ten email address, a security suite, developer tools, and your choice of data center.
- Money-back window: 90 days
* Offered as both managed and unmanaged.
4. A2 Hosting
👉 A2 Hosting offers free SSL certificates on all shared web hosting plans, managed VPS plans, managed + unmanaged dedicated server plans, reseller plans, and managed WordPress plans 6. In addition, they have 14 different SSLs you can purchase. These are categorized under Basic SSL, Premium SSL, Advanced SSL, and Wildcard SSL. They start from $4.17 per month and go all the way up to $108.25 per month 7.
Our next recommendation is A2 Hosting, one of the fastest web hosting companies on the market. It provides services optimized for WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, with ‘turbo’ servers powered by LiteSpeed Web Server that promise up to 20 times faster page loading speeds.
A2 Hosting comes with tons of features that will suit beginners and advanced users alike. For instance, less-experienced customers can benefit from their free white glove migration service. On the other hand, site developers will enjoy useful tools like Apache, Git, and Python.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | ✅ | ❌ |
Unlike many other hosts, A2 Hosting does not segregate their customer support level based on how much money you give them (i.e., what plan you’re on). All plans get access to 24/7/365 support via live chat, ticket, email, and phone.
Self-help options are available as well, in the form of a knowledge base and also a blog.
| East Coast USA: 0.81s ⭐ | West Coast USA: 1.05s |
| Central USA: 0.79s ⭐ | London, UK: 1.32s |
| Paris, France: 1.29s | Mumbai, India: 2.38s |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 99.98% | 99.87% | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for A2.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, reseller, VPS*, WordPress*, dedicated servers*.
- Contract options: month-to-month, annual, every two years, or every three years.
- Entry-level plan price: $2.99 per month on a three-year contract for the entry-level Ignite plan. It comes with 10 GB of SSD.
- Entry-level plan details: It supports one website and offers unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, anycast DNS, staging site, unlimited email addresses, a security suite, developer tools, and your choice of data center (four locations: Michigan, Arizona, Amsterdam, Singapore).
- Money-back window: 30 days
* Offered as both managed and unmanaged.
5. DreamHost
👉 DreamHost offers free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt. You can also purchase a Sectigo verified SSL for $15 per year or install an externally purchased one from a different source 8.
Our next option is DreamHost. This WordPress.org-recommended provider comes with a range of hosting plans, including an excellent managed WordPress service called DreamPress.
As for the shared hosting plans, there are only two, which makes it less overwhelming for first-time website owners to navigate and decide on one. The company delivers stellar performance as well, thanks to its fast SSD storage and servers optimized to run your WordPress site at full capacity. Plus, DreamHost promises a 100% uptime guarantee.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ✅⚠️ | 24/7 | 24/7 | ✅ | ❌ |
DreamHost has a fairly unique support system. They offer 24/7 live chat support in both English and Spanish 9. You can also open up a ticket by sending an email through the support page.
Where things get interesting is the phone support. It’s available, but with a lot of stipulations. For one, it works as a callback request – in other words, “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” And it’s also highly restricted. See note below for details.
Other than that, there’s a standard knowledge base where you can find tutorials and information on various topics.
⚠️ Dedicated Server and DreamPress Plus plans include three free callbacks per month, DreamPress Pro plans include five free callbacks per month. For all other hosting plans, the paid add-on options available are: one callback for $9.95, three callbacks every month for $14.95 per month 10.
| East Coast USA: 2.78s | West Coast USA: 1.90s |
| Central USA: 1.02s | London, UK: 1.42s |
| Paris, France: 2.14s | Mumbai, India: 2.30s |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for DreamHost.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, cloud, VPS, WordPress*, dedicated servers.
- Contract options: month-to-month, annual, or every three years**.
- Entry-level plan price: $2.59 per month on a three-year contract for the entry-level Shared Starter plan. It comes with 50 GB of SSD.
- Entry-level plan details: It supports one website and offers unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, a free domain in your first year, free ongoing domain privacy, free automated WordPress migrations, and automated daily backups. Email accounts are available as a paid add-on.
- Money-back window: 97 days
* Offered as both managed and unmanaged.
** Dedicated server plans are month-to-month or annual only. Cloud plans are usage based.
6. Hostinger
Finally, we have Hostinger, a budget-friendly provider that offers a wide range of hosting packages, including some unique ones like Minecraft hosting. Hostinger also has a coveted position as a recommended host on WordPress.org’s official list of providers.
However, if you’re not a WordPress fan, you don’t need to sweat. Hostinger has got you covered with its own website builder. It gives you access to modern, responsive templates and innovative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. For instance, you can generate instant content and slogans, monitor your visitor’s activity with a page heatmap, and more.
| Live Chat | Phone | Ticket | Knowledge Base | Support Forum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24/7 | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Hostinger’s customer support is somewhat limited compared to other hosts.
There’s no phone option on any plans and even though the chat support is 24/7, you are initially met with an AI bot before you can talk to a human. To be fair, the AI bot is actually pretty decent and better than some others I’ve experienced, but it can still be frustrating if you just want to connect with a human right away.
Otherwise you can also send their team an email or resort to helping yourself by using their extensive knowledge base.
| East Coast USA: 1.20s | West Coast USA: 1.80s |
| Central USA: 1.63s | London, UK: 0.41s ⭐ |
| Paris, France: 0.51s ⭐ | Mumbai, India: 1.64s |
| November 2024 | December 2024 | January 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 99.98% | 100.00% ⭐ | 100.00% ⭐ |
See the live status page and historical data for Hostinger.
- Types of hosting plans offered: shared, cloud, VPS, managed WordPress, website builder.
- Contract options: month-to-month, annual, every two years, or every four years*.
- Entry-level plan price: $2.24 per month on a four-year contract for the entry-level Premium plan. It comes with 100 GB of SSD.
- Entry-level plan details: It supports a whopping 100 websites and offers unlimited bandwidth, a free SSL, a free domain in your first year, free weekly backups, 100 email addresses, and free automatic website migration.
- Money-back window: 30 days
*VPS plans exclude the four-year contract option.
Conclusion 🏁
An SSL certificate is a must-have for every website owner. Beyond securing your site, it instantly boosts your SEO efforts and makes your site look more trustworthy.
Fortunately, many web hosting providers include them for free in their plans, saving you a lot of money.
If you’re still on the fence, here’s a quick recap:
For super fast hosting and a wide selection of premium SSL solutions, A2 Hosting is your best bet. On the other hand, if you’re a beginner then you might prefer Bluehost, InMotion, or Hostinger due to their ease of use. Lastly, if you’re looking for a top-notch managed hosting experience, it’s worth giving either DreamHost or SiteGround a try.
For some other ideas, you can check out our post on how to get cheap or free SSL certificates. And once you have your SSL certificate, you can follow our guide on how to move WordPress to HTTPS to take advantage of your new certificate.
Do you have questions about any of these free SSL hosting providers? Let us know in the comments section below!
- https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/how-to-activate-a-free-wordpress-ssl ↩︎
- https://wordpress.org/hosting/ ↩︎
- https://www.siteground.com/kb/select-best-ssl-site/ ↩︎
- https://www.siteground.com/kb/phone_support/ ↩︎
- https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/ssl/auto-ssl-guide/#manage ↩︎
- https://www.a2hosting.com/ssl-certificates/free/ ↩︎
- https://www.a2hosting.com/ssl-certificates/ ↩︎
- https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215089118-Adding-an-SSL-certificate-overview ↩︎
- https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215027768-Contacting-DreamHost-via-Live-Chat ↩︎
- https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215721217-Does-DreamHost-offer-phone-support ↩︎
- https://support.hostinger.com/en/articles/1583258-how-to-install-lifetime-ssl-at-hostinger ↩︎
- https://support.hostinger.com/en/articles/1583785-how-to-install-a-custom-ssl ↩︎
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