Comodo has offered discount chained SSL certificates through its PositiveSSL brand for some time. A few months ago I was shocked to see the renewal fee for what used to be a $9.99 certificate had gone up to $49.00/yr. This rate has unfortunately not dropped since, prompting the search for a new bargain-basement supplier.

As it turns out there is good news: it is still possible to get PositiveSSL for cheap through a reseller. Currently 1 year is running only $8.00 on CheapSSLs. I'd never heard of CheapSSLs before yesterday but my bare modicum of research indicates it is a reputable front-end for Comodo, GeoTrust and VeriSign/Symantec and a daughter of registrar DomainCheap.com.

After one makes their purchase one must proceed to the "My SSL Certificates" page on CheapSSLs to activate it which seems to throw off some folks expecting the process to be taken over by the actual issuer of the certificate. In fact, the CSR is provided to CheapSSLs and the entire process is handled through their site.

There is a small e-mail verification step but if everything goes correctly you will be issued your certificate from the signing authority proper via e-mail in mere minutes.

Bonus: CheapSSLs accepts payment by PayPal allowing for truly anonymous/paper-trail-less certificates.

Happy reselling :)