SSL Certificates and Plans

What is an SSL certificate?

An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital authentication that provides secure, encrypted communications between your website and any browser used by your audience.

It guards against hackers and identity thieves. Because it enables information to become readable only to the client your website server is sending it to.

This means privacy and data integrity for your site and your audience’s personal information. It ensures sensitive info won’t be compromised.

In fact, Google and other browsers will identify your website as “Secure” when you use an SSL certificate. Conversely, it will be tagged as “Not Secure” when you don’t have such certificate in place.

A certificate typically supports one high-level domain (e.g., irmau.com) with one or more subdomains. If you have multiple domain names (e.g., irmau.com and irmhelpcentre.com) you need multiple certificates.

There are many different types of certificates provided from many different suppliers. They come with a wide range of different functionality, and are at different prices, ranging from so-called "free" certificates (which typically don't do much, or for long) to very high-quality certificates suitable for large financial institutions. 

Acquiring the certificate is the start of the process, not the end. In each case, there is work to be done by the web hosting service (IRM) to acquire the certificate code, understand it, install it on the Web servers, provide the ongoing computing capacity for it to run, and seamlessly handle the renewal when it comes up. 

Most IRM clients are providing public-facing websites which do not require high-end certificates.

Some clients run a single subdomain (e.g., www.irmau.com) while others run multiple subdomains (e.g., www.irmau.com, investor.irmau.com, intranet.irmau.com). 

HQi Plans for SSL Certificates

For HQi websites, IRM prefers to acquire and manage the entire certificate process. We do this by offering two standard, easily understood HQi Plans for SSL certificates.

Please note that there is one simple administrative task required by the client when the certificate is renewed each year. IRM will advise exactly what is needed and when to try to ensure uninterrupted service through the renewal period. 

Details of the services provided under these plans are set out below for the following plans:

Check our Terms and Conditions here.

What's included

The monthly rates cover selecting, purchasing, acquiring the certificate as well as installing, hosting and renewing it. From time to time we may choose different certificate providers to best suit the needs of our clients and websites. 

We have built-in renewal management systems to ensure that we don't miss a certificate renewal. We will automatically renew the certificate on your behalf and install the renewed code. 

Certificate purchases and renewals incur an annual cost. IRM will absorb those costs and provide a simple single monthly fee.

If you wish to change your SSL Certificate Plan, the cost and work required will be covered by IRM and the new plan charges will apply from the next regular invoice date. 

If your IT team will acquire the certificate for you, we can install that certificate on our servers. But frankly, we prefer you didn't. However, please reach out to us beforehand to ensure the correct certificate for your website is obtained. There is no price reduction for client purchased certificates, as they require additional effort, understanding and different procedures within IRM for each different one and add to the complexity of our services. 

If you have a current certificate on your HQi website and are not on a SSL Plan, you are being charged under your Support Plan for the time taken and separately for the cost of acquiring the certificate. Typically, this will add up to more than the corresponding plan costs. We suggest you move to an HQi SSL Plan just before the next renewal.

Are you an HQi user without your own certificate? If you would like to add an SSL certificate just for your HQi login page and subsequent access of HQi, we can provide an IRM-branded security certificate for that purpose only, at no cost. It does not protect your website traffic. This is done by using the IRM wildcard certificate to login to your HQi at a different URL to the one previously provided. There is no Plan charge for this service.

Start Now

Contact our support team to speak to us about acquiring an SSL Certificate Plan.