Use Servertastic - https://www.servertastic.com/ https://www.servertastic.com/. They're basically the cheapest and best. If it's a personal site or you're on a

Use Servertastic - https://www.servertastic.com/ https://www.servertastic.com/. They're basically the cheapest and best. If it's a personal site or you're on a really strict budget, get RapidSSL. It's a single cert, non chained, cheap enough. A wildcard is $149 a year which will serve most needs well. However, there's one important caveat - mobile phone browsers suck and you will have difficulties with them using a RapidSSL cert. Long and miserable experience there, trust me. If you care about mobile browsers, or your few remaining strands of hair, you need GeoTrust, which bumps the price up. "TrueBusinessID" is the one you need, $114 for a single or $499/yr for the wildcard. For both of these, the prices are lower for multiple years, of which you should probably buy as many as you can afford. Refreshing SSL certs is a nasty fiddly process and unless you are on a really low budget it is probably best to eat the upfront cost and buy 5 years out. In answer to your question, why isn't there any other options - well, because they were there first and their cert is everywhere and that's the price they want. Simple as that. Sucks but here we are. At least $499 is less than $995. (I am not affiliated with Servertastic in any way, shape or form other than as a satisfied customer) (edited to correct prices, i'd put the multi year discounts instead of single year prices. sorry!)