The Effect of Let’s Encrypt on SSL Sale Market

You might know about Let’s Encrypt but just in case you do not, let me give you a brief introduction. Let’s Encrypt is a certification authority, which provides an easy and free access to SSL certificates for website owners and IT professionals. Since SSL certificates were not as easy to access and were definitely not free, Let’s Encrypt is expected to impact SSL sale market with its free, automated, open and cooperative access.
It is very important for web owners and IT professionals to study its impact on the SSL certificate sale market.

The Dramatic Change in SSL and TLS Certificate Market

New options for management and purchase of SSL and TLS certificates are bringing dramatic change. Most of all, the availability of free certificates through Let’s Encrypt is undermining the price of all types of SSL and TLS certificates to some extent. This dramatically changing market is forcing many companies to be vigilant of their business options for future.
Senior analysts are suggesting that certification authorities bring variety in digital certificates. This will help sustain business in a competitive environment.
Having said that, now SSL market is welcoming this competition with its best digital services. To be honest, Let’s Encrypt has helped SSL certificate sale market to broaden its horizon. There is chance of new digital certificates and services from CAs. The Let’s Encrypt certificates are DV certificates, so there’s still an upsell possible to DV with warranty, OV and EV.

The Market Trend in General

You need to know that market trends are shifting and many CAs have increased the number of sites they are serving. With this shift in trend, it is remarkably noticeable that Let’s Encrypt is gaining primary profit from sites that did not use a valid SSL certificate before.
Here are the market trends that can decide the impact of Let’s Encrypt on SSL Sale Market:

• Hosting providers installed invalid certificates to provide free service to their customers. Many web masters are still using these certificates and most of the sites yet never use these invalid certificates.
• The above trend confirms that there is not much gain for Let’s Encrypt in this market trend.
• So many users request free certificate and never use it, and it expires. Let’s Encrypt certificates are valid only for three months instead of the usual full year.
• The total share of websites that use valid certificates have grown and just about less than half of this increase has come from Let’s Encrypt.
• Let’s Encrypt only issues Domain Validated (DV) SSL Certificates and that’s why used by only low-traffic sites. High-traffic sites usually require Extended Validation SSL Certificates, which are pricey.
• Let’s Encrypt also does not issue wild card certificates.
• The certificates are given out to encrypt the connections, but there’s no warranty available, like there is on paid certificates.

So, all the above-mentioned market trends show that SSL market is growing quickly as a whole. Let’s Encrypt does not hurt other certificate providers except that it may slow their growth.

Regional Differences Are Showing Different Impacts

We can see visible regional differences in “Let’s Encrypt” adoption. Let’s Encrypt is most popular in France and least known in the Asian market. In short, France loves Let’s Encrypt and this trend is setting to shift to other European countries soon. So the impact of Let’s Encrypt on SSL sale market varies from region to region.

Sources:

https://tacticalsecret.com/124-days-of-lets-encrypt/

https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/ssl_certificate/all/q (via https://community.centminmod.com/threads/ssl-certificate-authorities-usage-trend-statistics.7774/#post-32886)

http://www.eweek.com/security/comodo-works-with-cpanel-to-deliver-free-ssl-certificates.html

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