Free SSL Certificate Pakistan
A free SSL certificate comes with every WinsHosting plan in Pakistan, on both Linux and Windows servers, for your main domain, add-on domains and subdomains. There is no order form and no annual fee. Once a domain points to our server, the certificate is issued and installed automatically, and the padlock appears in visitors' browsers.
The certificate uses the same strong encryption as paid options, so contact forms, logins, checkout pages and WooCommerce orders travel safely between the visitor and your site. Browsers on Android and iPhone trust it, which matters because most Pakistani visitors arrive on a phone.
Free does not mean limited to one name. A company running yourfirm.pk, shop.yourfirm.pk and a matching .com on the same plan gets a certificate for each, renewed in the background before expiry. You never need to buy, upload or reinstall anything yourself.
Local businesses sometimes pay several thousand rupees a year to other providers for a basic certificate. With our hosting that cost disappears. The only situations where a free SSL certificate is not enough are covered further down this page, together with our paid SSL options for sites that need wildcard coverage or organisation checks.
To get started, order any shared hosting plan, point the domain to us and give it a few hours. Our team can check progress for you at any point and tell you exactly what, if anything, is holding the certificate back.
Let's Encrypt SSL
Let's Encrypt SSL is the free, automated certificate service that made HTTPS standard across the web. It is run by the non-profit Internet Security Research Group, and its certificates are trusted by every major browser. Many hosting companies, including WinsHosting on suitable servers, use it or a similar free certificate authority to secure customer domains.
Let's Encrypt issues domain-validated certificates, which confirm that you control the domain rather than checking company documents. That is exactly what a website needs for encryption. Validation happens automatically through a file placed on your site or a DNS record, so no human approval or paperwork is involved.
Its certificates are short-lived by design, traditionally valid for 90 days with even shorter terms announced, and the intention is that software renews them automatically well before they expire. On our hosting, the control panel takes care of that renewal, so you do not need to touch Certbot or the command line. The wider industry is moving towards shorter certificate lifetimes too, which makes automation more valuable every year.
If you run your own VPS, you can install Let's Encrypt SSL with Certbot or a similar client and set it to renew on a schedule. On shared hosting, the panel does this for you. Either way, the result is a trusted padlock at no cost, and visitors cannot tell a free certificate from a paid one by looking at the browser.
AutoSSL cPanel
AutoSSL in cPanel is the feature that issues and renews free certificates on our Linux hosting without any action from you. Several times a day it checks every domain and subdomain on your account, requests a certificate for any name that lacks a valid one, proves control of the domain automatically and installs the result.
You can see what it is doing. Open SSL/TLS Status in cPanel to view each domain with a green or red indicator. A green padlock means the certificate is valid; a red one usually means the domain does not point to our server yet. The Run AutoSSL button starts a fresh check immediately rather than waiting for the next scheduled run.
The most common AutoSSL failure in cPanel comes from DNS. If a domain is managed through a third-party service and the A record points elsewhere, validation cannot reach your site. Subdomains created for testing and then abandoned will also fail, which is harmless; you can exclude them from the status screen.
Windows customers get the same result through Plesk's built-in SSL tools rather than AutoSSL. If a certificate stays red for more than a day after DNS is correct, open a ticket with the domain name and our team will check the validation log and fix the cause, usually within the same working day.
HTTPS for Website
Setting up HTTPS for a website takes two steps: a valid certificate, which our hosting provides automatically, and a redirect that sends every visitor to the secure address. Without the redirect, people who type your domain or follow an old link can still land on the insecure version.
In cPanel, open Domains and switch on Force HTTPS Redirect. In Plesk, enable the permanent 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS in Hosting Settings. WordPress owners should also change the WordPress Address and Site Address to start with https, then run a search-and-replace on the database for old links.
The reasons go beyond the padlock. Chrome labels plain HTTP pages Not secure, which puts off shoppers right where they type a phone number or address. Google treats HTTPS as a ranking signal within page experience, and AI search tools tend to cite sources that meet basic security standards. Referral data in analytics also survives better when both sites use HTTPS.
After switching, check the browser console for mixed content, meaning images or scripts still loaded over HTTP, and update those links. Then add the https property in Google Search Console and resubmit your sitemap. If you would like help moving to HTTPS for your website, our support team will enable the redirect and test it with you, usually on the same working day you ask.
Install Free SSL
To install free SSL on WinsHosting hosting you usually do nothing at all, because the panel handles it once DNS is correct. The practical job is making sure the domain points to our server: either use our nameservers, which is automatic for domains registered with us, or set the A record at your DNS provider to the IP address in your welcome email.
After DNS updates, which can take a few hours, the next automatic check installs the certificate. You can speed things up in cPanel by pressing Run AutoSSL on the SSL/TLS Status screen, or in Plesk by opening SSL/TLS Certificates for the domain and choosing the free certificate option.
Then visit the site using https and look for the padlock. Click it to see the issuer and expiry date. If the browser shows a warning instead, wait an hour and try again, as caches can lag behind.
Free SSL does not install on domains hosted elsewhere, such as a store builder platform or a self-managed server. For a VPS, Certbot is the usual tool. For a site that needs wildcard or organisation-validated coverage, see our paid certificates, which our team will install for you on our servers. If you get stuck trying to install free SSL, send us the domain and we will finish it for you.
